We’re midway through the church season of Lent, a historic season of the church and a time of spiritual preparation for the joyous celebration of the resurrection of Jesus and new life at Easter. I serve as a pastor and am in the midst of guiding the people of the congregation through the three traditional disciplines of lent: prayer, fasting, almsgiving. I’m also finishing up details like buying boxes and confirming shipping rates, for the Holy Ground devotional intended for summer camp staff (and a favorite project here at Sacred Playgrounds).

It occurs to me that there is a great deal of similarity between the season of Lent in the life of a Christian and the season of staff training in the life of a Christian called to serve at summer camp.  Both are times to go deep and prepare people of faith to live faithfully. Let’s look at the three Lenten disciplines and see how they might help us prepare staff training.

Prayer

In Lent, we engage in intentional, extended times of prayer intended to deepen our relationship with God.  We may add a practice or devotional for the season.  Many churches offer additional times of worship so the people of God can read scripture and pray together.  And so it is with staff training – we invite our summer staff into intentional practices, both personal and corporate.  It’s one of the gifts of a residential Christian community, like camp, that people can worship together daily, or multiple times per day.  At one camp I visited a couple years ago, the daily agenda in staff training included 30 minutes each morning after breakfast for a time of personal devotions and prayer.  Build it in and set the expectation that daily prayer, worship and devotion are expected spiritual practices of those who serve at your site.  And of course, the habit of deeply listening to God and engaging scripture will help carry our staff through challenges that will come.

Fasting

Fasting might be the most widely known practice of Lent.  We often hear someone speak of what they are “giving up.”  We refrain from one thing in order to focus on something else. Commonly, people fast from a rich or luxurious foods – in order to focus on simple meals and eat with more solidarity for those who do not have access to abundant food. Lately, I’ve seen an increasing practice of people fasting from social media for Lent – less screen mediated relationships, more investment in face-to-face relationship. Less coveting someone’s curated insta-life and more gratitude for the gifts God has given.  It’s this second kind of fasting that has wisdom for staff training. As we know from the Five Fundamental of Effective Camps, “Unplugged” is a critical component of what makes camp work.  It may be hard for summer staff to set the devices down.  How will you model setting it aside to invest in the people in front of you? Frame expectations around phone use as a gift to the community and a way to grow in spiritual friendship and capacity to invest in others

Almsgiving

Finally, we come to almsgiving – the practices of generosity, acts of kindness and an openness to compassion to those around us. This might be the easiest practice for summer staff, because a ministry that asks for as much time and energy as summer camp attracts a certain kind of person, a person of generosity, kindness and compassion. But these are behaviors that are uncommon (and even discouraged) in the world.

So, I encourage intentionality in your framing and language. Make the connections from faith to behavior explicit, so the staff are equipped to do the same for their campers.  For example, we speak to one another with respectful words, not with bullying words or put downs, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because the person in front of us is created in the image of God and loved deeply by Jesus.

At Sacred Playgrounds, we’re praying for you. For those finishing up hiring summer staff and preparing training modules. For those at retreat centers on an entirely different kind of schedule. May your Lenten journey and Easter celebrations be blessed.

Anna

PS – Holy Ground: A guidebook for camp staff will be available in our store on April 1. Fill out the interest form and we’ll remind you when it goes live!