[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam Foreign.
Hey guys. Welcome back to the Camp Guys podcast Season five.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Season five.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Is Jay Oliver here, the executive director of Crowders Camps? And we got Noah Oliver here, he's the director of experience here at Crowders Camp. What's up?
[00:00:49] Speaker B: What's up?
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Also we got Noah Carter on the system over there recording all this. And we're so glad that you tuned in today to listen to this podcast. Appreciate about everything Camp is here is literally the camp. This camp podcast is all about just being a resource to other camps. Cuz whenever we started out, we didn't have a lot of resources. So we want to be a ptha of knowledge to anybody that needs resource. So I hope you had a great summer. We had a great summer here at CR's campus. We saw over 6,300 campers come across our campus in just two months.
So it was pretty cool. So today we're going to get into it, Noah, we're going to get into a huge topic and I hope everybody will be ready to write this down in your notes. I don't care if you're on a plane, train or automobile, write it down.
We're going to talk about it. And I need you guys listen to me. I need you to email
[email protected] with your suggestions. We want to hear what you got to say. We'll mention you on air. This is your question, this was your input. But here's the question for this season of the Camp Guys podcast. What is camp ministry going to look like? Noah, in 10 years, what is it going to look at look like?
Will we have the same functionality? Will it be as thriving? Will it not be as thriving? And I know the, of the listeners, you, you got different camps, some of you are thriving, some of you are hurting. So I hope that we can put together a great season of this topic because who thinks in camp ministry 10 years out, right? And we're, that's what we're doing here at Crowders Camp is we're thinking 10 years out. So let's look at some religious sectors and I know some of you guys listen, listen. May not even have a religious camp. You might just be a camp that does stuff for kids with a purpose and that's fine too.
But let's look at some religious sectors at risk of decline in the next day decade. And this is just some research I've done online, but there's a trend right now happening that there's some denominations in the United States that are declining. Church Wise United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church USA Episcopal Church have faced decades of declining membership.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: And why do you think that is?
[00:03:18] Speaker A: It could be they're not a showy style. If you're into the show mance of church. Yeah. It could be doctrine. Yeah.
It could be a lot of different things. I mean, definitely everything rises and falls on leadership, right? Absolutely. So those are just three things. If you Google this, you're going to find out, you know, that they're these. This is just facts. This is not me assuming this. This is facts. Another projection out there. Many of these denomination are closing hundreds of churches year due to the, the, the. The shrinking size of their attendance, aging congregations, and financial strain. By 2035, most of these churches may consolidate or even vanish from the local level. Wow. And these are churches that have been there for some of them 100 years, some of them 50 years. They have been there for a very long time. So how does that make camps feel?
You know, so if you're a camp that is barely making it right now and you're struggling financially, you know why? Right. You know, is it your doctrine? Is it because you're not moving with the times? Right. You know, you're still playing slingshot paintball instead of pain. Paintball. That's still fun, right? It's still fun. Back in the day when we couldn't afford paintball, we played slingshot paintball. That's pretty cool. And if you can't afford paintball, you need another wreck. That is a very easy thing to do. You buy slingshot shots and you take paintball, put them inside the slingshots and shoot each other.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: That was our halftime show, everybody.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Yeah. That's the halftime show. Yeah. Check out this from Pew Research.
It says that Christians could make up less than 50Americans by 2070, down from 90% in 1970.
The steepest loss. The steepest lost in the mainland Protestant traditions.
Wow. Wow.
So what's going to happen? Are we not being Great Commission camps? Are we not being Great Commission churches? What's going on with this huge decline? Or are we being fake?
I'm just throwing out some questions. You, as a listener, I would love to hear what you got to say. Not about these denominations that are going down. These are just setting up the topic. Where's camps going to be, you know, in 10 years? Will they. Will they be thriving?
Well, we're the only place for kids to get out in the woods and disconnect. Yeah, that's a. That would probably be number numbered one or two on my list. We are the only place where these Data centered kids. These, these visual digital kids are going to be able to go and disconnect and get out in the woods. That's, that's a very, very big number one and number two.
But is it enough? Right? Will camps close?
Listen to this number two in my research, religious publishing houses and Christian retail stores, even right here in Gastonia, North Carolina a couple years ago, broke my heart. Lifeway Christian stores, one of my favorite bookstores, shuts down, moves everything online. So trend the Christian bookstore industry like Lifeway and Family Christian stores have already nearly collapsed, reduced, replaced by Amazon.com and digital media.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: That's a huge one.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: Digital media Y digital media. So what does that mean for camps? Well Jay, we're not a bookstore. Does that mean we need to create more digital media to be able to follow up with our campers?
Pre camp stuff digitally, post camp stuff digitally?
No, I do not believe kids that ever come to camp and they'll just be on a screen the whole entire time.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not going to be virtual reality.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: That's not what I'm saying. Even though there are stuff out there about VR stuff with camp ministries and doing it online and to be honest with me with you, nothing's ever going to replace actually coming to camp.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: You can't replace a water slide.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: You can't, you can't, you can't replace the relationships and all that. But we're going to make a list on, on things like that coming up. So it says this projections within 10 years most traditional brick and mortar religious bookstores may be gone or only niche, niche or online suppliers remaining.
Another area that's declining, televangelist driven broadcast ministries.
The trend was the teach the TV preacher era peaked in the 1990s 80s-90s. Today younger generations consume religious content via YouTube, tick tock and podcast rather than cable television.
That this doesn't really happen anymore. The projection is that traditional TV based ministries will no longer largely disappear. Replacing replaced by digital native ministries like live streams, podcast and used to use of short form video.
Like you see this one kid, he's going out sharing the gospel like a protest and things like that. And he's getting a lot of views, you know from that.
So let's, let's finish this so we can talk about camp ministry. But traveling evangelist circuits, the tram, traveling tent revivals and circuit preachers were once dominant but they have declined for decades. While pockets still exist, few young leaders are entering into this model projection. Within 10 years this will be most likely gone outside the very localized rural Areas number five, traditional religious summer camps.
Wow.
Trend faith based camps that per. Fail to adapt to claim changing parent expectations.
Technology and program demands are closing.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: That's huge for us.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Good projects and camps without a strong financial base, property strategy or modern program design could disappear while other innovative ones will thrive and expand. Right. So let's stop right there. Let's talk about what the research shows as something we need to adopt to the changing parent expectations. What exactly do you think Noah, with that one? What do you think parent X, you, you help run the, the day camp portion here at Crowders camps. What do you think parent expectations are?
[00:09:35] Speaker B: I mean, definitely the safety part. Think about even the day camp, if they're not seeing a safety protocol of say having a girl like Carissa, you know, she was leading our day camp, making sure everyone's being taken care of, you know, drop off and pick up, you know, those expectations. So maybe we're seeing camps that aren't, you know, paying attention to that. They're just thinking about dodgeball instead of the safety part. Seeing those expectations, they're, they're forgetting about those expectations of parent safety, medical, medical policies, those things. Making sure there's AED.
AED on the, on the camp.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. Whenever I started thinking about this, and we're talking about this in our when meetings where some where our staff on the week, on Monday mornings as well with for the next like five or six weeks, 100% medical is going to that expect expectation of medical.
And some of you camps you have an on site nurse, but some of us, we do not.
100% that expectation of medical is going to step up within the next 10 years. And if you don't have something medically on, on site, some preferred halfway professional, some volunteer RN nurse example, parents are not going to trust because the more and more we get into this, it's all about me more and more. We're getting more if it's right in our own eyes, you know, we get more and more of that every single day. Yeah, the parent expectations are going to increase.
I see more people looking through our waiver now than ever before. Absolutely. You know, hey, I really don't want to sign this because it says even if my kid dies, you know, so they don't want to sign the waivers now. So they're getting more and more. It's not just scribble your name and, and let your kids go to camp anymore. It's more, there's more expectation there.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Food, I mean allergies, you know, I mean what do you think about this? In 2015, when you first started, did you at, at Crowders, did you get many questions about food?
[00:11:39] Speaker A: No. Food allergies? No. Definitely. Food issues are growing as well. I need to actually write some of this stuff down because we're, we're talking about it, but food is definitely something that has, has grown big time.
And if you guys are listening, you're like, oh, I got one, I got one, I got one. Podcastcamps.com we're not live, but at least you can, we can hit yours on the next episode and talk about it. So food allergies is one. Medical is definitely something that's got to step up. And you might be like, well, I've already stepped up and it's going to be, it's going to be. You got kids that are going to ers all the time because they're on Medicaid and they can go to the hospital for free. You got kids that are used to high, high level treatments of medical attention. And I think that parents are going to expect that at camp, too. Let's just talk about biblical content. You know, a parent's going to expect to know more about what their kids are taught before they come to camp. You know, I mean, a lot of times we don't put out exactly what we're teaching. You know, we have, we have experience with our day camp kids, parents saying, hey, we did not know you guys were a religious organization.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Right?
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Y. You know, so is it, is it putting out that info about what we teach before kids come to come to camp?
[00:13:02] Speaker B: And also too, like when we were talking earlier about these denominations, you know, kind of going down and, you know, say, is a denomination not spirit speaking correctly on sound doctrine?
You know, maybe these parent expectations are, you know, I might be a little hurt from a, you know, a church that I might went to. I'm afraid that might happen to my kid, you know, not having sound doctrine.
So what do you think about that? I mean, you think that's a pretty important.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's very important for camps to put out on their website what they believe.
You know, even. Even from the forms of gender 100 stuff too, because some parents are going to want that. I was just told if you want to
[email protected] no, the Instagram Crowders camps. At Crowders Camps, you can do that way and join, send questions for the podcast and things like that as well. So put that in your notes and keep that. So what else would you. What else? Camp guys all you camp guys and camp ladies out there, what else are we looking at that could potentially happens? So what, what do we need to work on? So here's a couple areas.
Online faith communities. How can camps join the online faith community? I know us at Crowders Camps, we have an online faith community with our interns.
So tell, tell everybody a little bit about the intern, what we do with the interns, how we, how we help disciple them as they lead the camp. Call them much. About a 60 second part.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: 60 second sparks.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Yeah, 60 seconds from spark. I said park.
I didn't see that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be cool. I didn't see the S on.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: I think we should change it.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: I don't know. Maybe so. Because I, if I didn't, if I didn't get it, I'm the one that came up with the worst sparks at night and I didn't get it. I think that would be cool. No, so it's. We're.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: We just now started this actually. So this isn't something we've been doing for three to four years. You know, this is literally just happened two weeks ago. But Tuesdays and Fridays, we're launching a literally a 60 second devotional. And this audience is for our interns. Now it'd be great if we're getting other people, you know, seeing this as well, but it's for our interns, you know, whenever they're at school and stuff, you know, and we're not able to disciple them or and all that, you know, they literally get to see a one minute video. If they want to see the, the full devotional, they comment Spark, more like Park.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Spark, Spark.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: And then they get the full devotional just to help them out and just strengthen their growth in Jesus Christ.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: Yeah, we, we hope they're all part of a local church.
[00:15:35] Speaker B: Yes. And we are a parachurch. So, you know, we're not replacing the church.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: You know, we're trying to help the church, you know, in, in that situation.
[00:15:45] Speaker A: We're trying to help them be disciples. God's call. We pour in, get them to go to church. Yeah, we pour in servant leadership into them all summer while they're here. Right. They're here for like two weeks at a time. So we pouring that in. So we have a digital faith community happening right now. I know we're sending emails through college staff that we meet at different events. We're sending devotionals of them. So this where in my research, areas likely to grow is online faith communities. How are you reaching campers? We use our Instagram. We use all those things to make sure our campers are connected. And most post that we do on a good day, you know, it hit 250, 300 likes. Yeah, I know some of you camps, you probably can hit 6, 700 because you have more campers coming to your camp and that's cool. How are you effectively using, I think how you effectively use your digital content now will, will reflect how, how you are in 10 years from now.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: That's good.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: And I also think your doctrine is going to determine your destination 100%.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: That's really good too.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: And if your doctrine is some left field woke agenda, non biblical stuff, you have a chance. I'm just going to put it out there just because I can.
You have a chance not to be here in 10 years from now.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Your ministry, well, it's not a ministry in the first place if you're doing that.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: No, honestly, it's true.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: It's not going to be blessed.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: You're, you're casting more division in the kingdom of God than you are unique. Unity. Yeah. And so what, what doctrine is unity? The word of God. Yeah. You know, it's not Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, Presbyterian, Protestant, whatever. You can keep on going Reformation, whatever you want to do. It's the word of God just being true to the inherent inerrant word of God, a part of what you're teaching at camp. So faith communities, online, VR, virtual reality worship, never going to happen in my book.
Somebody can see a clip on Instagram of your worship services at camp or a church. Get the same effect there as they are by putting glasses on and joining morning camps live. I just don't see it happening. Even in 10 years, I don't see that happening. Camps always. Everybody write this down. It's a great T shirt. Camp's always going to be. I got to give glory to who said it, My wife. Camp's always going to be. I stayed in a cabin, I jumped in a lake.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: That's good.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: I stayed in a cabin, I jumped in late. Nothing can ever replace that. And in 10 years, as cities continue to grow and build housing developments and big buildings get bigger just on the side of 85, you ever get a chance to drive through Gastonia, North Carolina, give us a honk, honk, beep beep. Going down I85. But as you go down I85, all you see is these big old giant warehouses for Amazon, for shoe stores, for examples. And everything's just getting bigger and bigger and the woods are getting taken out of these cities and these Campers that come from cities are never. It will never be replaced. I lived in the cabin all week long and I jumped in the lake.
Yeah. Yeah. And I got camp food.
A lot of things are.
There's a lot of things we can do. There's hybrid models where church plus school plus counseling plus community centers in ministry. We can do this. This is a few things I got from online. Faith based wellness and mental health and retreat ministries. We're already doing retreat ministries. We're not getting in all the mental health stuff, but camp, I think, helps cure a lot of that stuff. Stuff. And that's one thing that other things camp provide is. Those type of things. Camp does so much. The power of camp is so powerful. One week is like six months of relationship building. Building. And camp's like a spiritual incubator. If we're faithful with the word of God. Right. I believe we'll be here in 10 years, thriving. Because you can't get this type of environment anywhere else. Yeah. And you. You guys think about it this way.
Get your CL calculator out right quick.
How many weeks are there in a year? No, Carter, how many weeks are there in a year?
[00:19:46] Speaker B: 52.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: 52. You know, Oliver. Oh, yeah. Okay, 52. I just want to give him opportunity to put his voice on the podcast. Do 52 times 1.5.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: 78.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: 78. All right, so now do how many working hours in a week at camp? I mean, a day of camp is there from, let's say, 7 to 11 at night. 7am to 11 at night.
So 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: 16 hours.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Yes, that'd be 16. So 16 times 4. Do 16 times 4. See, I got a point here.
64. So it's 70 out 78 hours in a year that a church gets to spend with a student. An hour and a half a week. They get to spend 78 hours with them a year. I did say that. A year.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: So if I'm a youth pastor, I'm like, man, my. My Wednesday nights and Sundays matter. They get to spend on the average hour and a half a week. That's 78 hours a year. But yet one week of camp is 68 hours. That's why one week of camp's like six months of relationship building.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: It's huge.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: It's huge. And that, that, that. That statement is trademarked, too. Yeah, registered. I'm just kidding. If you want to use it, use it. So there's a lot that we need to work on. So camp leaders, camp guys, camp Girls, I'm asking you guys, what do you think camp ministry is going to be like in 10 years? In the next episode, I'm going to give you a quick overview of what that may look like in the areas that we need to look at so that you can go and send comments back into us. And what would be cool is if a community of camp leaders helped decide and dictate what it's going to look like in 10 years so that we can all prepare for more and more. Instead of having it safe sneak up on us, we can be prepared for it. So go ahead.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: What do you. The bottom line for this podcast is one, love Jesus. But also two, open your eyes to make sure we're seeing. Seeing improvements. Well, you would you say that's the bottom line for.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: The bottom line is one, our doctrine has to be right or you're going to be owl. Yeah, your. Your doctrine has to be right because I really don't. I think you can look around and I am not going to name none, but I think you can see organizations that did camps in the bad past that have. Were not religiously affiliated and they're now closing their doors. I think the ones that are religiously. Religiously focused now that are seeing a decline trend. It's because your doctrine.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: And that's going to trend downward. And then in 10 years you're not going to be here. You know, God's only going to bless what's was faithful to his word.
So I think if I was a exit executive director. Yeah. At a camp that was trending downward because my board was making me trend downward. Yeah. With the doctor and stuff. I think I would have my resume out right now for sure. Because you're going to go down with that sinking boat.
So next podcast will be all the trends to check them out. It'll be a quick one. But you. You might want to jump in there and listen to the. The next episode so you can get all those things. Have a great day camp guys. See ya, Sam.
