Camp Lutherlyn

It’s really hard to believe that as of today, I have officially “missed” out on an entire summer at Camp Lutherlyn.

I use the word “missed” in quotation marks because it’s almost a little harsh.  I did make it up for the afternoon of Summerfest, which was spent primarily catching up with old friends; but on the other hand, considering that I have lived there for the entire summer for the past five years of my life, to say I only made it up for one day is pretty depressing.

For those of you who don’t know, Lutherlyn is a Lutheran church camp, jointly funded by the Northwestern and Southwestern Pennsylvania synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.  I attended Lutherlyn for a week every summer as a camper from elementary school up to high school, and was on summer staff for 5 years between 2006 and 2010.

I’m a big fan of the American Camp Association’s “Because of camp…” public service announcement campaign, that focuses on promoting the value of summer camp experiences for youth.  I take “because of camp” very seriously, because camp taught me a lot.  My time as a camper and staff member taught me a lot of “hard” skills, stuff like playing the guitar, washing dishes (I spent two summers as kitchen staff), belaying and the basics of technical rope work, how to throw a frisbee, how to build a fire, and a million other things.

But the thing that the ACA stresses even more than learning concrete skills is “soft skills,” interpersonal skills.  It taught me how to live and get along with others, and how to do so without the presence of my parents; moving to college was easy after having been to camp for so many years.  And I think even more important, camp taught me about MYSELF, taught me to embrace my personality, to be comfortable with my faith, and that I don’t have to be like everyone else.

To say that camp changed my life would be an understatement.  Camp did not just change my life, it SHAPED my life.  I could write a book (and someday may) about how my experiences at camp had an impact on my life and who I am today…

And that’s what brings me to sort of the Catch-22 of the summer.

It was at the end of last summer, after serving for the season as Unit Leader, that I thought that I might want to try something different the next year, but I also knew that I might likely end up taking summer classes instead.

If I had been on staff this summer, returning for my sixth consecutive summer; if I hadn’t needed to stay on campus to make up a few credits… I would never have had the opportunity to pursue the internship I’m doing at Saint Paul right now.  I would be working at camp, and I’d be happy, but I doubt I’d be putting the finishing touches on a candidacy essay to send to the synod office.

But the question becomes, if I had NEVER been to camp.  If I had NOT been a camper for umpteen years and on staff for five, would I be where I am right now?  If I had not been given the opportunity to teach campers about their faith, and then to teach counselors how to share theirs with their campers, would I be wading my way through the ELCA candidacy process to become a Pastor?

At the last ELCA National Youth Gathering in New Orleans, there was a speaker who said something that really struck me.  For the life of me, I can’t remember her name, or much else about her speech, but I remember this: “When life isn’t going as planned, pause and think where that alternative path may be taking you…”

I wasn’t sure WHERE my life was heading when I emailed Deb Roberts to tell her that I would not be returning to staff this summer…  But now that I can see where I have gone following that alternative path, I think I’m better for it.

I’m grateful every day for my parents sending me to camp all those years.  I could’ve had the latest and greatest toys, but instead my parents put that money towards awesome vacations and, of course, summer camp.  What if instead, they had bought me video games with that same money instead?

I’m also grateful for that Friday morning in June of 2006 when Deb took a chance, hiring the goofy high school kid to fill an unexpected opening in the kitchen.  I’m grateful that two years later, she took another chance, moving me up to the role of counselor.  And I’m grateful that I got to spend my last year at camp as a Unit Leader, sharing my passion for camp with a brand new generation of staffers.

But when I say “my last year,” I know I’m lying to myself.  2010 wasn’t my last year at camp…

I’ll be back…  You can’t just walk away from something that’s had that much of an impact on your life.

The view from the pulpit…

On Sunday, I preached a sermon for the first time at Saint Paul Lutheran Church in Morgantown, WV.  The gospel text for the day was Matthew 14:13-21, the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000.  For those of you more interested in reading the sermon itself, it is in the post previous to the one you’re reading right now.  CLICK HERE for a direct link to that post.

BUT, I know there are just as many of you who are more interested not in the sermon itself, but moreso how it felt to deliver it.

The short answer of it all is that it felt good, and it felt “right.”

In the congregation on Sunday, we had, not only Pastor Brian, but also Chaplain James Riggs, who is a United Methodist minister serving as the chaplain at Fairmont General Hospital, and Rev. Jerry Robbins, who was the original Lutheran campus chaplain at West Virginia University (and celebrated his 50th anniversary of ordination this year).  All three were very complimentary, as were numerous parishioners.  Even one of my acolytes told me it was good, although, his metric of success seemed to be merely that it was shorter than Pastor Brian’s normally are.

There are some Pastors that really struggle with writing sermons, but I enjoy writing and speaking so it was a fairly natural transition for me.  It wasn’t at all uncomfortable, just different.

The truly interesting thing for me though was the pulpit at Saint Paul.  It is a very large, raised pulpit, similar to what you might see in a much older, colonial style church.  You have to go up about half a dozen steps from the altar to what is very literally a raised platform.  The really cool thing about this type of design is that it allows you to make clear eye contact with literally EVERYONE in the congregation, something that I didn’t take as much advantage of as I should have, but still, really cool.

A large part of my internship this summer has been putting my gifts and talents to use for ministry and seeing the (usually positive) outcomes.  In the past, I’ve had people nudge me toward seminary, or tell me I would make a good Pastor, but now, those statements carry a lot more weight, having preached my first sermon, having visited shut-ins and hospitalized parishioners, having sat in on conversations between Pastor Brian and parishioners.  Now, it’s not just people telling me that I’d be a good Pastor, but me being able to personally see that my gifts ARE useful for ministry and that “yes, you know, I really think I could do a decent job with all of this.”

Even if we didn’t get the grant from Project Connect, I was planning on asking to shadow Pastor Brian for a week or two over the summer.  I think anyone who’s considering seminary and going into ministry should take the opportunity to work with a Pastor and truly get the intimate feel for what all it entails.  It doesn’t have to be in the formal context of an internship like mine, I think even just a week or two of shadowing can have a major impact in understanding and getting a better feel for your sense of call.

Preaching the word of God…

Yesterday, as part of my internship at Saint Paul, I got the opportunity to preach my first sermon.  Before I started, I shared a little story about my last major speaking engagement at my high school graduation:

“I should warn you, the last time I spoke in public was at my high school graduation.  It was a breezy day, and I was one of three commencement speakers.  I put my speech on the podium and as I was about to begin, I felt a breeze, so I reached up to keep my cap from blowing away.  It was at that precise moment that several thousand people looked on in horror as all 9 pages of my speech took off down the football field.  Fortunately for me, there’s no breeze in the sanctuary right now, and fortunately for you, even if there was, I only have five pages to blow away today…”

To watch the video of THAT encounter, and see my perfect embodiment of the “can’t let a little thing like that get me down” mentality, go ahead and watch the video here on youtube.

Read Sunday’s sermon here, after the jump…