Observations from the Front Porch

I sat on the front porch rail listening to Ken and Daniel strum their guitars. We waved periodically as people we knew walked past the cabin on their way back to their cabin or to the cafeteria. Occasionally someone would stop and talk for awhile, but often they just waved and went on their way.

Ken’s daughter Jennifer sat next to us weaving pine needles into a decorative garland that would have been at home on any Appalachian front porch.

Only…

We weren’t in the Appalachians. We were sitting on the front porch of the Nurse’s cabin at summer camp in Pine Summit Church Camp, Prescott, Arizona. Ken and Nancy, volunteers from our church, were the camp nurses. Daniel and his wife were also volunteers, leading praise music during sessions. And, the people walking by weren’t just our neighbors, they were the volunteers and youth at the church camp.

I had just spent a week in Durango, Colorado with a bunch of high school kids, living together in college dorms for the High School summer camp and now I was in Prescott with a hundred elementary and Junior High kids for their camps.

Spending a week with your fellow Christians at a church camp can be an amazing experience, not because of the highs of worship or excitement of rock walls and other adventure experiences, but because of the mundane things that we often miss in our frenzied life back home.

Traveling together, living in close quarters, and experiencing community on a small scale is powerful, in a way that you cannot understand until you have lived it.

There is something healthy about watching the senior pastor cross the hall with his towel and shower shoes, a days scruffy growth on his face and sleep in his eyes. It may not be pretty, but it makes him seem more human and definitely decreases the hero-worship factor that some try to cultivate.

Or, walking together down to the cafeteria to pray as a group and then going in to see what culinary surprises were in store today. Those short conversations on the road are the start of long friendships. At their camp, our high school group even visited the grocery store and then came back to their cabin to prepare a huge feast together where everyone did their part; there was more food than an army could eat. That shared meal together was a lifetime investment in just a few hours.

This sort of rubbing up against each other, living life in close proximity, is missing from our world and from our churches, especially in big cities. It is just this sort of shared life and transparency that leads to healthy relationships and personal growth. It’s harder to hide behind a mask when you sleep in the room next door to each other. It’s harder to pretend to be better than someone else when you just flushed the toilet two stalls down from them. Interpersonal skills, sharing, and forgiveness are all tested when you travel crammed together for days in a van. Mistakes are made, drama occurs, tears are shed, and yet, they are all dealt with and we grow…because, in close proximity, we have to. You don't get to run away and spread your drama on Facebook. You get to grow together here and now.

Shared jokes, small conversations, meals together, and late nights on the front porch together build strong communities. It’s just too bad that more people don’t experience this. Perhaps we need church camp for adults.