[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam.
Foreign.
Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Camp Guys podcast. I'm Jay Oliver, the executive director here at Crowders camps in Gastonia, North Carolina. Today on the podcast, we have my friend, Mr. Jeremy Russell. Jeremy, say hello.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Hey, everybody. Jeremy Russell, director of stewardship here at Crowders Camps.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Did you wake up okay this morning?
[00:00:53] Speaker B: I did. Both eyes popped open and.
Yes, both eyes.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Let's talk about camp.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: And what's going to happen over the next 10 years. Now, of course, everybody listening, as you know, this is just assumption. We're not trying to predict the future, nothing like that. But we have some good ideas and kind of some good categories of what we think we should be looking for as camp ministries so we can trend up and not trend down. That's the whole kind of title of this whole season of the Camp Guys podcast. How do we trend up for the next 10 years of camp ministry? So in last episode, if you didn't get the chance to listen to it, we talked about the digital integration and technology of camp ministry, those things that could possibly be happening that we might need to look into for the future.
And this week is kind of difficult coming off of technology in the, in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, what I would call a modern day martyr and just broke my heart last week that that happened.
And going from technology and digital innovation integration to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, not once in the podcast that we talk security at all, but our staff just being totally transparent. This week we've talked a lot about how do we, how do we go about with some security stuff here at camp.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: You know, our worship facility is very tight and we pack it out to the gills. We have kids everywhere and an eight round, you know, handgun could take out probably 15 to 20 kids.
So to add to last week's podcast, I do believe there's a security portion in there that we as camp leaders have got to trend up and got to think through that of what are we letting in our worship center, you know, if an attack happened, kid, kid on kid, and it was going down to the bathhouse or on a trail, that was, that was totally personal. You know, there was nothing about that. That was, hey, I want to blow up the whole entire camp type deal. But if our most vulnerable place, I believe, is our worship, you know, facility.
So if we could protect that and put a little more security, and there's a lot of people that's making, you know, if you go to NFL football game, you're pretty much just walking through, you know, through sensors.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: And you know, it's not abrasive at all. You're not getting one down, you're not getting frisk, nothing like that. You're just walking through sensors and boom, you're done.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: It's precautionary measure.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: It's precautionary, totally. But if that sensor goes off.
But if.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: But if.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: And someone had a knife or a pistol, you know, we could pull them to a side and say, hey, gotta check your bag right quick. And we could have saved lives.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: So to add to last week's podcast, I think there's definitely a.
A podcast coming on, security and some ideas for the future. Because in the next 10 years, you know, Jesus tells us in the Bible, hey, we're going to have troubles. It never. He never says, hey, it's going to get so much better.
We're going to have trouble. The Book of Mark is written about persecution and suffering. To Christians, you know, to live is Christ, to die is gain. You got the whole modern persecution coming. So in the next 10 years, what does that look like for camp ministries? Well, we're going to talk about it later, but I just want to say that, because I know everybody still got heavy hearts and his service is coming up and all that stuff, so it's still on everybody's mind.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: And I think, too, when you have something that takes place like this, it causes people to stop and take a good look and reevaluate and say, what am I doing to protect myself, protect those around me?
A lot of times we live in the greatest country in the world, and so we have freedoms to go and to come as we please.
Sometimes we kind of take that for granted.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: And we will kind of come immune.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: To. To all the evil that's out there.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: And so it just causes. Step back and take a look and say, what's the best ways to protect myself and to protect others?
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to send them. I want to send a message to parents, you know, that, hey, hey, we're doing precautionary things. I mean, we send them stuff like.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Waivers, and if there's anything from a waiver to somebody getting sick or something like that, we send out information.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think it's. I think it's smart to think about it. So if you want to trend up in your security, it doesn't necessarily mean you got to have bodyguards at the door. Right.
But we don't want a heavy substance of metal coming in our worship building. No, I mean, just sorry, not sorry, you know, leave that home. And there's also been conversations this week about concealed carry at camps.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: And that's weird that that came up right before the whole Charlie Kirk thing came up. But we had a lady that called in, said, hey, I'm. I have my concealed carry permit. Am I allowed to, you know, bring my gun to our retreat?
And our answer was, hey, we're weapon weaponless camp camp. Which is, yeah, true. You know, you don't, you don't want weapons at your camp. Right. But when it comes down to the concealed carry, I believe we're going to take the stance of, hey, we want you to declare it, but also have a plan what to do with that permitted weapon when you're taking a shower or when you're playing on the right field and you don't have that weapon with you.
[00:06:22] Speaker B: I think that's the key, having a plan.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you have a portable safe that you can bring with you?
You know, or you plan on just sticking it in your luggage? Yeah, yeah, that. I don't think that works. And, you know, even I know I have a portable gun safe at home that I really don't use. I will be glad to even bring it over to the camp, say, okay, yes, but you're going to hang out with the safe while you're here at camp and put your weapon into it when you're deciding not to wear it. Because I know you're not going to wear it in the shower.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And having been through the concealed carry class, I've been through that. And so they are very, very adamant about taking care of your sidearm, making sure that that is. It's secure, making sure that someone can't get that away from you, doing all the precautionary measures that you need. And so there is that training, but it never hurts to reiterate and to offer just some conversation on what needs to take place.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think we need to stop here before this episode becomes that episode. Yes. Because I need to do a little bit more research and a little more thinking because this whole season, again, is about, you know, 10 years out. So let's talk camp 10 years out. And if you're interested in giving us some comments or giving us some. What do you think about this? And email
[email protected] and we'll put your question on. And also, we record every Wednesday morning starting at 9am and we're going to start launching a number where, if you wanted to call or text in while we're actually recording, won't be live on the podcast, it'd be recorded, but we'll be able to take some of your messages live that day. So just think about that. If you have a good question or want to contribute at all, maybe you have a great idea about 10 years from now what you think camp may look like. Man, feel free, chime in. We'll cut you out if it's not any good.
You know, we'll put you on if it's amazing. And definitely we want a partnership because the whole purpose of us doing this podcast is to be a resource for those who need to resource, because we, we were at that point and we still are right now. I still call people today, hey, what do you think about this? What do you guys do about this? So I just love to talk about camp. So today our subject of interest is cultural and generation shifts. What's going to happen in the next 10 years? What kind of cultural shifts are we going to see? What kind of generational shifts are we going to see? So the next generation will come in with higher anxiety, shorter attention spans, and less outdoor experience.
Camps can be a haven of peace joy, teaching students how to slow down, rest, rediscover, and just, just rediscover wonder.
Diversity will increase campus need to reflect the global church. Welcome students from every background, ethnic group and social economic level. Yes, parents are going to be. Are they? Are parents going to see camps as a safe space for their children where they're known, loved and discipled? Well, let's see. So let's, let's go through what generation, Jeremy, were you from.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: You.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: The Silent Generation.
1928 to 1948.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: That would be. That would be me. No, I was born in 72. So that would put me in the.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Gen X. Yeah, Gen X. So the silent generation grew up during the Great Depression in World War II.
They had a lot of discipline, sacrifice, loyalty. Baby boomers, which a lot, A lot of camps, executive directors and stuff are baby boomers.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Uh, so who's going to be your successor? You know, who's going to be. Who's going to. Who are you discipling right now to take over your camp? Uh, that's a big question. Because everything rises, falls on leadership. Had a conversation just the other day with a camp that's not doing too well. They're trending down and they just had nobody to step in the role of that founder. And so now they're trending down to a point to where they're really hurting. So baby boomers. So they're post war economic boom kids. Suburban, suburban, growth tilt. The TV entered the house.
Everything changed.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Gen X, 65 to 80. Divorce rates rose, Women entered into the workforce. Personal computers emerged. Then you got Gen Y, born 1981, 96, the Internet, 9, 11, Great Recession, Social media boom. They all experienced these things.
Then you got Gen X. I mean gen. Yeah, Gen Z, 1997-2012. Smartphones, social media as daily lives, political population, popular rate. Papa, I said that wrong. Political stuff got popular. COVID 19, pandemic, all these things. Then you got Generation Alpha. These are the ones we're talking about. Grew up with AI tablets in preschool.
Ms. Harris, can I have my tablet?
They care about the climate and they do.
I mean they care about the climate and they, they have a certain global uncertainty about them.
And I guess this all boils down to social media.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Oh yeah. 100.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: They know too much.
You know, back in our day, we didn't know. We, we, you know, we heard from the news, news, tv, you know, whatever that TV box said, you know. Yeah, we got, we heard at church. So, and so tell tells us. But you know, going back to Charlie, Charlie, Kurt was assassinated.
We knew moments, you know, we were able to pray while he was in the hospital. Yeah, you know, that's, that's what's changed. So how's things going to change even more in the next 10 years? The moment something goes wrong in a crowd of people, everybody gets their phones out and starts, you know, recording.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: It's instantaneous.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And while, while something was going on, people were recording.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: So we're going to start out with this. We got technology everywhere. So we're talking about generational and, and cultural changes. We got technology, technologies everywhere. We're not going to go too much in that because we spent it in the last episode. But will camp be a place where a tech break can happen?
You know, offering face to face connection and real venture? Yeah, you know, so, so they can go on that tech break. But what if we see a ton of kids come into camp in 10 years and they all have technology addictions where you almost see a withdrawal, but when, whenever you see that withdrawal from technology, you see a disruption of the community that can be built at camp.
It can cause comparisons. So now instead of comparison trap online, they're doing it in real life terms.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Even talking with some of the youth pastors that have, have been here on camp that have told their kids, hey, we're going to pull your phones away from you.
They say the first day or two, there's almost this withdrawal period because we do have. Even this generation that's now they are addicted to their phones.
And I mean, I've even heard people say, well, if you just take your phone completely away from your kid, it's just like isolation.
And so we know that the phone's going to be a part of their life. So how can we adapt and how can we incorporate something in that that's going to be beneficial for the kingdom of God?
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question.
You know, we have groups now that come to our camp that they take all their phones.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: You know, back, I believe it was probably four to five years ago, the current generation of middle school, high school students that were all worried about their streaks. Oh, yeah, I think it was Snapchat. Is that right, Nate? No, Snatcher. Snapchat. You had streaks with people, and people didn't want to break their streaks. So that was almost like a social achievement.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Yeah, you're accepted if you've got this.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Well, I mean, you know, we're friends.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: We got 91, you know, streaks in a row. That means we're, we're something.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: I think right now we're like 72 between me and you.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: You know what, what's funny is really, we're six seven. Really, we're six seven.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: I still use my page if you.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Know, you know about 6 7. If you don't know about 6 7, you pro follow a middle school teacher to teach you what current middle schoolers are using. But I'm getting better and better on my phone. You know, I don't look at social media only on certain times of my day. And Normally that's like 5am in the morning because I'm laying there beside my, my, my bride and I don't want to wake her up. But that's almost the only time I get on social media now. I'm, I've actually gotten better of getting off my phone and getting more into the word and studying different stuff and writing on my own and doing things like that. But I still, every time I'm just going to be totally honest. And this, this, we might need to edit this out of the podcast. Every time I go to a place like the bathroom. Yeah. You know, I, I, I need to make sure I have my phone with me or every time I walk out the door, I'm pat. I'm giving myself the pat, you know, to make sure I have my phone with me. So there is a, even a, a techno tech, you know, addiction now. Even with us old guys. Yeah. You know, so I can't imagine what it is with the youngers. You know, I used to have to tell my girls, you know, when we sit down to eat, hey, guys, no phones at the table. I really don't have to do that anymore. But when we're not around, they've been trained at the. At the dinner table. You know, we're not going to look at. Look at our phone. Oh, yeah. But any other time, you know, they're on their phone, and it makes me say, hey, why are you not texting back faster? Cause I know you're on your phone.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a choice.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: So with all this addiction, technology addiction comes to reduce some engagement, too.
So when they get to a camp atmosphere 10 years from now, they have all this baggage from home, divorces, social anxieties, all this. Now we also have to include the potential technology addiction as well.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: And like you say, it's not just for students. It's actually for adults. We were having dinner with some friends the other night, and, you know, typically we won't have our phones out at the table, but we were. We were sitting there and somebody mentioned something. They said it was. It was on this site. And so I pulled my phone out, and I was looking to see if I could find it, and then my wife pulls hers out. And then the other husband pulled his out. And this person said, I feel like I should be on my phone so that we could actually communicate with one another. And I was like, wow. You know how quickly we jumped to that, right?
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, we used to have encyclopedias.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: Encyclopedias. Magazines in books. And now it's not the second one. Rising stress and anxiety, Mental health struggles will be higher.
How do we, as a camp prepare for that? We talked about this in our staff meeting the other day. You know, how do we be equipped for this? How can we get summer staff ready in 10 years and more prepared? And even right now, we, as a. As camp ministries, we got to start thinking about how do we handle mental health issues and the anxieties with. With scripture, you know, we can say, let's bring in a counselor all day long.
It's not going to be in real time.
If a young lady, young man walks up to one of our summer staff and they say, hey, I'm struggling with X or Y, Z.
There's not a. Hey, hang on. Let me get the counselor. A certified Christian counselor. There's just not enough time. So we've at least got to equip our staff with the top five scriptures to take them to God's word changes everything. Jesus changes everything.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: And so we can, we can rely on all this counseling and therapy stuff all we want to. When the truth is God's word changes people and the Holy Spirit can change lives. And if we forget about that, we're setting ourselves up for such a long line of people waiting to have their lives change or talk to somebody. If, you know, somebody says, hey, I'm thinking about ending my life, that's on a scale of 1 to 10. That's a 10.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: You know, we really need to get them some help really fast. They need more than just a 10 minute conversation. But if somebody says, hey, I'm worried about not doing God's will for my life. Yeah, that is, hey, let's bring out the Bible. Let's bring out scripture and open it up and read it. And hey, you know what? Why don't you take the next. You got a day and a half here left at camp. Why don't you take that day and a half and just memorize the scripture, Let it sit in your heart, let it be bitter in your stomach, but as sweet as honey in your mouth, you know, so we got. We can't forget that. And I don't think that's going to change over the next 10 years.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: No. And I think where we're going to benefit in that area is bringing these summer staffers, these counselors in that are working with us throughout the year and training them, giving them a guideline. Again, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Plan. You got to have a plan. So here's your plan of action.
Knowing that those folks that are involved, those counselors, those summer staffers, they've got to be in constant prayer and seeking God because he's going to open up these opportunities for these conversations and to know how to navigate and how to direct people in the way that they should go.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that's good.
So here we go.
Will we be equipped to handle the situations? You know, you're talking about summer staff. I think right now we got to prepare summer staff like they need it.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: I mean, be honest with you, this is not just about the campers. You know, every single one of us on this podcast, we got some great camp leaders out there listening. We do the very best to pull in the very best summer staff we can, but we don't know what situation they're from.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: No.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: We don't know what kind of mental health or anxiety issues they're from. And a lot of us, let's just be honest, if you went to school in the 90s or the 80s, you sucked it up. Oh yeah, you, you, you tucked your tail in. Whatever emotion you had, you tucked it in. You roll through it. And some of us have the attitude of we'll just get over it. Just get over. And there's some of that, that's got to remain.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: Oh yeah, 100%. Because you have a, you have a society of people that are just, they fall apart at the, at everything.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You get fussed at one time and it's verbal abuse.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: By, by your boss.
You know, that's, that's got to be balanced. That's got to be balanced. And so there's got to be a little bit of toughness, but a lot of scripture. A little bit of toughness, a lot of scripture. Which goes to the next next portion of this number three, shorter attention spans. Will we be, will we become camps that focus on just quality attention, high energy moments and lose the quiet reflection and the opportunity for discipline to, to hear the word of God. Hey guys, Instead of going 30 minutes in our services, we need to go 15, you know, minutes. You know, I don't, I don't, I don't agree with that. I, you know, thinking about will speaking styles change in the next 10 years? You know, will communicators have to get up there a poster board and hold up big, big pink poster board just to be able to keep kids attention again. We cannot, we can't forget about the work of the Holy Spirit in somebody's life, you know.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: The Holy Spirit. Does life change, not us.
I believe there probably will be some new speaking styles and new interactive ways to be able to communicate the gospel, to keep kids attention span a little bit longer. But I believe ultimately it's going to remain the same.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: Well, and too regardless of what generation you're in, everybody wants to know the truth. Yeah, everybody wants to know the truth. And so when, if you go back to what the scripture says, where he says if I be lifted up, I'll draw all men into me.
Go back to the early church days where they would just stand and simply read scripture.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Paul did all night long.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: And fell out of the window. A guy fell asleep and fell out of the window. Paul went down and raised him from the dead.
[00:22:15] Speaker B: I think, I mean that's a pretty big fall.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: And they didn't say a word about that.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: No, they just kept on going.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: They went back up.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: So there is that desire to know truth. And I think we're a lot of times be it Camps, be it youth ministries, be it whatever.
If we try to tailor that or we try to compartmentalize it or squish it down, so to speak, for this time zone, we're doing a huge disservice to the students and to this generation.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: They come to camp to connect.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: Disconnect to connect. So let's let them connect.
We can't predict what's going to happen in 10 years, but we, you know, we, we have to have core values to say, you know what, this is what we do.
And I think that we can become unique.
And a diamond.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: While other churches water it down, you know, do all this other stuff, I think we could become that diamond. We do something very unique here at Crowders campus. Our morning services, services are just as powerful as our night services, 100%. We don't come in and do a 10 minute devo and say, okay, now you're going to go play do ball. We, we go through a full biblical message that is connected to a seven year biblical plan and that. Seven years. Why is it seven years, Jay? Because that's the number completion. No, seven years is because.
6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th. Yeah, seven years. So we have a lot of loyal churches that come to our camp every year. So when they bring that sixth grader, sixth graders going to go all the way through the seven year biblical plan. But ninth grader comes and jumps in, they're going to jump in at year four of the biblical plan. But then guess what? We're going to reset on year one and go through it all again because we believe what we're teaching. Here's some examples. Walk with Jesus to the cross. A walk with Jesus through the resurrection.
Jesus returning. The evangelism is important. All these, all, all these different things. The church really can't get into a lot of details of it, but we can because we have three days of teaching for them. So I love it. Teachers.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: Now, of course, a lot can happen in three days.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: A lot can happen three days.
I see what you did there. The gospel is the gospel. So we talked about this at our staff meeting on Monday and the consensus was teachers are getting more creative. They're putting kids in blocks now to teach them. Maybe some of them are paired with smarter kids.
So maybe I don't understand math and you do. So we're kind of paired together with a couple more kids to help teach each other.
Also we heard the word pods, so they offer different teaching techniques.
So I think that's something that Kemp's going to probably look into too.
How effective do we do small groups?
[00:25:08] Speaker B: You know, something I was thinking about the other day when we were discussing that and I'm walking around camp and I'm looking and one of the things that we always talk about is there's these little breakout areas for community. I mean, we've got the little areas out here that looks like the Ewok village for the little community breakout sessions. And so we're setting ourselves up to implement that. So I'm thinking what happens if you do these breakout sessions of these more in depth questions for these studies, just, you know, coming off of what's done in the worship service.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: And you create community. You create opportunities for these little pods of discussion to take place.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Yeah. My thing as the executive director here is we're called to make Disciples.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: So let's set the camp up to make Disciples.
Big services necessarily don't you know, we're not going home with these kids. It's their youth group that they're going home with. Or you might say, hey, we're individual camp and they're not going home with nobody. You that, that is their youth group for the week, you know, and they got to pour into them life's better in circles than it is in rows.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: You know, a lot can be done from corporate worship, but a lot's done in small groups. That's whenever all the details of life come out. You'll never know that little Sarah is really hurting inside because her mom and dad got a divorce. But in that small group, that's where she'll share that she's not going to share in front of 200, 400 people that information.
So we also talk about childcare costs to understand that from a parents, you know, will, will camps in seven years be under financial barriers? Will camp become like going to Disney? You know, it's a luxury item. It's not something that's traditional anymore.
I believe anybody that's been to camp in the past 20 years, that's going to have kids for the next 10 years to be ready to come to camp, will say, hey, camp's important, but there's a lot of people out there that have not had the opportunity to attend camp. So to them, will it be a financial barrier?
Do we risk only being able to minister to wealthy kids and not just anybody? That's a good question.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Well, and I think too, that's where, when you have a camp that you make those connections within the church to, to let them know that, hey, we're partnering with you, we want to be here as a support, like you say, time and time again that a week of camp is like six months of student ministry. And so I believe that that's very true. And so when you share that with these youth pastors, these youth leaders, and let them know of the importance of camp, it's not just something that you do in the summertime just to get kids away for a week.
It's truly that discipleship to an intense level where you are pulling them away from the distractions of everything that's out there in the world, and you're coming together and you're pouring into them. And it gives those youth pastors also an opportunity to just love on the kids.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. If you do the math, one week of camp gives a student pastor or small group leader more time than almost a whole entire year of church ministry.
So that's why it's important. As long as it's important to them, it would be important. Correct. But if camp's not important, what do we do as camps to make sure the financial pressures and barriers aren't there in 10 years? I suggest what we do is we block out room for scholarships on every week. Let's just say we sell out at 400. We'll have 420 on the docket where 20 spots are available for scholarships. Also, you know, if a recession hit, I want to be ready to say, hey, we're not 319 anymore for this. We're actually 289. And be able to bring that price down and volume will help us get back to that good number to be able to financially make it if, like, a recession comes. But that's another whole podcast. Purpose over fun. This is another category. In the next 10 years, we could be finding ourselves wanting to have meaningful experiences, but using the purpose, losing the purpose, and. And getting more focused on fun because you got these short attention spans. You got. All this mental anxiety is happening in these kids. So recreations could be more valuable in the future than ever. And that. I never thought I would say that.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Man, recreation was my favorite class in school.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: PE.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: PE 100.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, mine too. But that lunch, I don't think. I don't think in this generation coming up, they would say that recreation is their most important thing.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: No, but once they get out there and once they get involved in it, the majority of them just.
They release. Yeah, it's like this, this weight, this. This bondage of the cell phone, the. Oh, I can't do that. They get out there and they Start to laugh and they start to communicate and they start to realize, hey, you know what? It's. It's okay to be. To be a kid and have fun.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: Yeah. You say bondage of cell phone, but I say bondage of this knowing too much.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: Well, that's tr.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: Yes. You know why I wanted to play kung fu with my imaginary kung fu friend?
[00:30:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:21] Speaker A: You know, growing up, or I wanted to ride a bike.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: Could get my imaginary friends to play with me.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Oh, that's terrible. It was awful.
I think it's the bondage of knowledge, but.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: Well, this is, this is the greatest source of knowledge around right now. I mean, you talk about, you spoke earlier about, you know, Charlie Kirk, you're watching in real time.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
I mean, I don't know why so much global crisis pressure and even political pressure is going on right now because they, I mean, honestly, they just know too much. It's just, I don't care if President Trump's in England or not, but now I do because I see it right.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: So that brings in a lot. So will we fall into a place where we want to entertain more than discipleship because that's the only, only way that makes kids happy in 10 years, or will we stay true and triumph and keep discipleship over entertainment because we got a generation coming in. It's fully digital.
They got chat GPT to give them all the answers. And please don't chat GPT anything religious. Go to the Bible, mercy. They. They'll give you certain good answers, but I don't think they give you answers. And I, I hate that this generation potentially coming up could be discipled by AI Robot.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: You know, I heard something the other day as a friend of the family, and they said that you can do this ChatGPT service if you do the unlimited super plan, whatever. It's like $200 a month and everything that they're doing, they're pushing through gbt. And I'm going. You no longer think right, you no longer process. You just put some stuff in there and you let AI come up with whatever version that you want.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: It's crazy. Which is also going to take us to digital drama. You know, you got more cyber bullying going to happen.
You got online comparison, you got relationship drama. And none of this can, none of this has to stop at camp. So also, in 10 years now, you know, how are we going to put some limits on.
I came up with this. This is great ministry law. You never know what somebody's going through. Correct. I. And I'll just be totally Honest. I try to be honest on this podcast. I, I love the joke around. And one day I was talking to this guy and I was talking about my son and my daughter in law being married and I made the joke. Yeah, they're in therapy.
And it was funny, right? It was funny. But one of the guys I was talking to came back to me later, said, hey, ma', am, me and my wife in therapy too. How are they doing?
I was like, dang. Yeah, reality check.
And then I had to say I was, I was just kidding.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: But we, we have no idea what people are going through. So little Sarah could be sitting in your worship service at camp but being bullied by three people over because they still have their phones.
That can happen now. Yeah. So how's it, how's it, how's that going to increase or decrease in the next 10 years? Next number, number four or five. I don't know where we are that we got the global and social awarenesses.
Kids care about climate change now. Don't know why we're all big into justice stuff. One, we just, we just know so much. They also love helping others, especially if it's a good cause.
You know, how can we get that, that passion into the passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ? It's a good question. Digital burnout is another one. You know, kids are going to be coming to camp lonely, overwhelmed.
Camps can be a safe place, a no comparison zone, reminding them of the worth in Christ.
The negative is again, cyber bullying, online comparison. Relationship drama may not stop at camp. Those issues could spill over into camp, creating conflict.
So a lot of issues, man. Yeah, we got different learning styles coming up. We have more kids with adhd, autism, unique needs. How are camps going to adapt to flexible teaching, small groups and on hand activities?
There's going to be a strain there. And without the proper training camps, risk, frustration, exhaustion and safety issues. So we got, we got to figure out a way to kind of prep. We, we at Crowders camps, we're in kind of a unique situation. We're like 90% group based, but then we got this 10% that's individually based and you guys know as camp leaders, there's a big difference. When you're talking about personal camp cabin leaders, that means you're a man to man with 12 kids for the whole week and then you're just a floater on the group side of things because the group's actually in charge of the kids instead of you.
So there's a big difference. Like, hey, don't be in A room alone with one kid, you know, don't, don't ever go into the bathroom with them. There's several like non negotiable things that you do as a camp leader that when you're 1 on 1 or 1 on 12 with a group of kids that you don't do.
So how we struggle in teaching that because we're so much 90% group based. So, you know, when it comes down to helping kids with different learning styles, again we focus on the 90%. Like 90% of our kids don't have any learning issues at all, but 10% do. How can we at least engage a little bit to help our summer staff and even lead staff be able to mentor and teach these kids a little bit to help them grow while they're here?
So those are great questions.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I, you know, I've been thinking for a while now because when you talk about 10 years, you know, it's 53 years old, that puts me in the 63.
I know that's.
Yes, yes.
So it puts me in the 63 year old zone, which I don't think is, is old by any shape or form. But I'm wondering in being able to do this cross generational connection, because these generations that have been listed out from the 20s on up, they have something that they can bring to the table, have something that is beneficial for this younger generation who's still trying to navigate through and not really knowing the difference between truth and AI.
[00:36:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: If you've watched some of the AI stuff now, it's almost hard to determine what is, what is real. And so I was telling my wife the other night, I said that, you know, that kind of scares me a little bit.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: You would think on videos like that AI would have to stamp it or something.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Because there's some stuff that looks pretty legit, like the person said it.
[00:36:53] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, somebody's over AI.
[00:36:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: I mean somebody's running AI. I don't know who's running chat GPT, but somebody's running it. And that you would think if you were able to. I mean, we've seen videos with Trump talking that was AI produced. I saw one with Dabo Sweetie, with Clemson's head coach talking the other day. And you would think that, I mean, yes, we've seen gorillas, Right. We've seen gorillas.
[00:37:17] Speaker B: Yeah, gorillas talking and all that stuff.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: You would think they at least would be. They're still funny. And I think people know they're AI generated. But you would think AI would at least stamp It.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: Yeah. How long? To a point where they no longer see it as just AI. They see it as reality.
[00:37:30] Speaker A: Right.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: Especially with the generation that's locked in on these phones. So, you know, I think finding ways to incorporate some of these older folks.
When I say older, I say anybody that's over the age of 55 that can come in and to be a part of camp and to look for opportunities to serve, to pour in.
And this may be something you want to talk about a little bit later on another podcast, but just utilizing the wealth of knowledge and experience and wisdom that is. That is out there for these older, older folks to pour into these younger. Because that's what the Bible says that the older teach the younger.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: Right, Right. I think this is going to. We'll talk about it a little bit. Right now we're in at Crowders Camps, we're in a very unique situation to where 10 minutes away is civilization.
Yeah, like we have a Walmart 10 minutes away. We're not general. We're not 30 minutes down one lonely single lane road. And we're blessed. We're blessed to be able to be. You can jump on 85 from Crowders camps in about seven minutes. Hit Charlotte in 20 minutes, which is a huge city.
Asheville, an hour. So we're very. We're in the middle. We're near socialization.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Civilization.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Sorry about that.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: That's okay.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: But with that is a bunch of churches as well. So we. We've had a high school intern program here for years.
And basically what that is, 12, 15 high schoolers will sign up to come serve for a week. They're serving food in the dining hall. They're wiping down tables, sweeping floors in dining hall. Dining hall is the bulk of what they do. They serve at Rex too. You know, they tell people when they can go up the stairs, they go down the water slide. They do a lot of things. Without our intern program, we could not exist. This. I mean, we would have to hire another 12 staff per week. They rotate out, which is great, you know, but also we get opportunity to disciple them too. It's free. We don't even charge them to come. It's like some of your SALT programs and things like that.
Well, what we're seeing with that program is they're also bringing in that. That anxiety. And instead of them being leaders here, it becomes a, hey, I want to get close to Jesus. Which is great. I'm not complaining at all.
But also comes their problems, too. Last year, we had at least four or five situations where we we were, we were talking about parent situations with potential domestic violence. One of them was even sexual abuse. Potential sexual abuse. We, we had multiple conversations with these students and it was draining. It was very draining. And we, through that, we still don't, don't misinterpret what I'm saying. We want to, we need high school interns 100%.
But we think that there's a spot to bring in a little bit more wisdom. And you have this vision of a program called Senior Sparks.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Silver Sparks.
[00:40:25] Speaker A: Silver Spark. I'm sorry, I'm sorry about that.
[00:40:27] Speaker B: The color of the hair.
[00:40:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sorry. What's another name they used to call.
[00:40:32] Speaker B: There's the Silver sneakers.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: Yeah, Silver sneakers. The, the older sparks.
We got a vision to bring in senior adults that are physically able to come and serve food, wipe down tables and be in a place where they can sit down at any moment if they need to sit down and have conversations. And I think it's a brilliant idea because a lot of these kids, especially over the next 10 years. Let's think about what can happen in 10 years. It's 2025 right now, in 2035, in some note, summer, summer 2019, my dad died.
January of 2020, my mom died.
So that was literally five and a quarter years ago.
So think about everything that can happen in just our life alone. Parents can die.
Kids, please, Lord, you know, don't. But your will's not my will.
So much tragedy, so much things can happen in 10 year span. Wouldn't it be great for kids to see somebody that reminded them of their grandfather, grandmother, you know, pouring in them, doing so Let me tell you, camp leaders, camp ministry does not have a ceiling of growth and vision. There's so many things that we can do. I hope that all you guys are serving with a board that, that, that will trust you and let you, you know, experience failure on things, but also experience great success? Because if you're not failing at some stuff, then you're not trying hard enough.
You really need to try. And we need to ding that comment right there, Noah. If you're not trying, if you're not feeling a lot, you're not trying a lot.
That, that speaks volumes. One thing we see about this that I'm super excited about when we think about camp ministry in 10 years is the potential that we can be a absolute nugget to kids in this next generation. We can be a nugget one because recreations are going to be too few and far between. Yes, they're going to be able to play slip and slide dodgeball at their church.
And that's why I want to say this, Camp leaders, I think that we need to re evaluate our recreational ministries and make them assets and not just closet fillers.
[00:42:51] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:42:52] Speaker A: So for example, we are putting in at our brand new camp Crider Springs. We're building. The total cost of this monstrosity of a project is about $152,000. And I got it done in two phases. Phase one is a jump tower over the over the lake and a wet willy water slide. Phase two will be a huge 80 foot tower off the ground. And that tower, the reason why it's kind of like a fire tower, if you can imagine those.
The only reason I want to do that is because to the right, as you look over, all you see is Crowders mountain and it's absolutely gorgeous.
But on the backside of this monstrosity is going to be a three person rock climbing wall which we don't have. We don't have that at either one of our camps. So I want to be very unique in what this, this thing does. But this is a recreational masterpiece that kids are going to not be able to experience anywhere else every year. They're going to look forward to coming and being part of this structure, even if it's to go up and take a selfie.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: How cool was that? So the girl's like, I ain't jumping off that.
[00:43:59] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you can go up there and take a picture.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: You can go take a picture.
And it's things like that. You know, how much, you know, if we, let's just say we budget $5,000 a year for wreck stuff, how much of that stuff is deflated, bent, bruised, tore up by storage? Whenever we should be putting money in things that last build, that's another ministry law. I'll write them all down one day for you.
Build things that last.
Build things that last and do not do things that are not high throughput. They need to be high throughput. For example, one of my worst investments in camp ministry has got to be the leap of faith. The poopy pole. Some of you might call it the poopy pole. I do. I love what it does. I love what it experiences. We were both trained on the poopy pole.
[00:44:46] Speaker B: We were.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: Leap of faith. And it does a great job. But it only puts through eight people per hour.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty, pretty low.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: So when you have 4, 430 people coming to one week camp, you do the math. If you, if you have that thing Open three hours a day. You got staff sitting there. No one signed up. Two people came.
So what we did, we. We eliminated it down to just one day for three hours. And we've seen more people sign up, more people being faithful to that sign up, because it's only at a certain time. But back to what I was saying. Camp Ministry, 10 years from now, that's the kind of stuff that can make us truly unique and truly like, I can't wait to go.
[00:45:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: Also being faithful to the gospel and the word of God, I can't wait to go because I feel something there. I don't feel anywhere else.
[00:45:33] Speaker B: It's the God factor.
[00:45:35] Speaker A: Yeah, the God factor.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: And that's not something that can be produced or created. That's something that, through prayer and the leadership of the Holy Spirit, that you as the camp director and these other camp directors who are out there and have these camps, you have to lean completely upon the Lord, and you have to look for wisdom and direction from him. And knowing that if he's called you because this is a calling, because you're investing in lives, this is ministry 100%.
And so as you're here asking him, constantly, inviting him to have his way in this place, when he moves, you can't put it into words you can't describe. Like I said, you can't create it. He is the only one that does it.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: And we know God's gonna move in churches. That's the purpose.
[00:46:28] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:46:28] Speaker A: We know that churches have some great community. But here's a fact, Jack, you are.
Camps will always be. And in 10 years from now, the one thing everybody will say, I lived in the cabin all week long and I jumped in a lake.
[00:46:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: Those things will not change.
Those will still be the thriving factors of why camp is so unique and so special is because we get them in a different environment, they become a community really, really fast. Camp ministry is a spiritual incubator. But here's the question for all you camp leaders. Are you trending up or are you trending down? Are you doing things now, small baby steps to become the best camp that you can be.
[00:47:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:47:10] Speaker A: And. Or are you trending down? I think that's a question for your board. I think that's a question for executive director. Every single one of you listen to this podcast. You're over a certain department. Is that department trending up or is it trending down? That. Those are questions you got to ask yourself. But first of all, you got to say, what is trending up? Training up is definitely preparing for the future, seeing, seeing things go as planned and you adding vision to that plan. A level five leader. We preach about being level five leaders here at Criders Camp and a level five leader is this. A level five leader is a person that adds vision to vision. That means I might say, hey, we're going to do this thing called October Heights where we're going to allow families to come out, use our zipline and area park just so dads can pouring manliness to their kids. But then Jeremy Russell comes up and says, hey, I want to do a photo spot, get a bunch of moms, all that. That's level five leadership. Level five leadership is not just taking what I say and doing it. It's adding something on top of it. Because it's not my job as the executive director to come up with all the details. I cast the vision and the details come from my great, amazing team that I have because they are level five leaders. So if you're listening to this podcast, we're praying for you today. We hope that you guys are all level five leaders and that you are trending up and not down when it comes to camp ministry. This is an amazing topic. Next week we're going to come back, we're going to talk about discipleship and formation. What does that look like in camp ministry in 10 years? But remember, 9am Eastern Standard Time right here on the podcast. You guys can call in and you can also text, you can go to Instagram at the Camp Guys podcast. You can DM us there, put comments down, we'll throw up a little picture. It says, hey, we're recording now. And if you just go on that Instagram pod Instagram account, you can just put your question in or comment.
You, you might even disagree. That's okay. We, we want to be a resource to everybody in camp ministry. And man, there's a ton of us in camp ministry.
I'll never forget my daughters, they started playing recreational softball. And my Anna, my middle daughter, she was really good. Abby was good too, but Anna was really good. She actually pitched a no hitter one game. I mean, she was a great pitcher. And we got into travel softball. And I had no idea that right here, even around where I lived, every weekend there was tournaments at all these different parks and it was like undercover. And that's the way I see camp ministry because every camp's got 20, 30 employees or four or five. If you add that up, you have thousands of people in camp ministry. So let's pile together all these resources and talk about it. So next week discipleship and formation Wednesday Wednesday 9:00 clock Eastern Standard Time. Check out our Instagram account. You can DM us or just leave comments on that post that says we're recording. And we hope to hope you had a great time being part of this episode. God Bless from the camp guys.
SA.
