Staying Close to God After the “Camp High”

I don’t know about you guys, but my favorite part of summer every year is CHURCH CAMP! I absolutely love meeting new people, doing crazy activities, having dance parties, and learning about Jesus in totally new ways! Every year, I look forward to camp immediately after I get home from the previous years’ camp. For me, it is a place to be myself, to be vulnerable about my relationship with God, and to find people who have the same passion for spreading the Gospel as I do. I create relationships that last all year long, and I also learn how to live for the Lord on a deeper level than ever before.

By the time my week at camp is over, I leave feeling refreshed, regenerated, and ready to share the love of God with every single person I meet. I feel the Holy Spirit blazing through me like a fire, and my relationship with God feels solid. This is known as the “camp high”, and it can be a great or bad place to be, depending on what you do with it. For some people, this feeling is what makes them realize what it means to go out into the world and share the Gospel, like the Great Commision in Mark 16:14-18. It is the beginning of their true walk with Jesus, and I bet it is a blessing for their counselors and the rest of the staff to see, to know that their work at camp led to meaningful change in the lives of others and the Kingdom of God. For other people, however, the “camp high” is just a short-lived feeling, and after about a week of being diligent in the Word, they fade back into their old habits. They completely forget about the promises they made to God while they were away at camp, and turn back to the comfort of our own sins.

In the past, I was part of the latter group; feeling so moved by the camp services, but never convicted enough to change something about my life. This put me in a pattern for years, where I made so many fun memories but never had any spiritual growth. However, ever since I really devoted my life to Christ, I have found that the camp high really wasn’t just a high but a season of learning and excitement that propelled me through the rest of the year. As I am writing this, I just returned from my first week of camp, and am about to head off into another camp in a few days. Hopefully, I can take my own advice and God’s advice to heart, and be a good example for post-Christian camp living. Until then, I want to share with you all some tips that I have discovered on how to make your week at camp more than just an annual “high”.

“Mountaintop Syndrome”

While I was doing research for this post, I discovered something really awesome that I want to share with you. There is something called “mountaintop syndrome”, and it perfectly describes our Christian camp experience (it is not a medical diagnosis, I promise). The idea of mountaintop syndrome is that when we are in a high point of faith, or are comfortable with our faith, we like to sit in that nice comfort and not go into the “real world” to share the Gospel. Whenever I am at camp, I never want to leave because of the loving environment I find there. Church camp is a place where you are surrounded by fun activities, the warm sun, and Bible believers that want to help you spiritually grow. As great as that is, the reason church camp exists is to prepare you for what happens when you leave camp. Once your family arrives and takes you home, you are back in the real world, where life is nowhere near perfect. This is when you need to be bold in your faith and spread the story of Jesus to other people. We can’t do that if we are still at camp!

One great example of this is the Transfiguration, a story in the Bible that I never even thought about until I saw it alongside the idea of mountaintop syndrome.

“Now about eight days after these sayings [Jesus] took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah’ - not knowing what he said. As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!’ And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.” (Luke 9:28-36)

In this passage, Peter becomes so comfortable at the top of the mountain (both physically and spiritually), that he is ready to set up tents and stay there. However, Jesus knew that Peter had to go back down eventually, and face real life again. We can be a lot like this. When we are in a spiritually high situation, we become so comfortable with the love and kindness God has presented to us that we forget to share it with others who do not believe. This is why mountaintop syndrome is such a dangerous thing as a Christian. No matter how much time we spend listening to sermons, reading our Bible, and listening to worship music, it means nothing if we do not allow these things to influence our actions. “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing” (James 1:22-25).

The wonderful thing about camp is that it is a week-long experience for us to hear all about God’s word and what it means for our lives, and it even teaches us how to do what the Bible says. However, your counselors and peers cannot force you to stay connected to God after camp is over! This is when it becomes up to you to keep your promises to the Lord and be diligent in chasing a relationship with him. Otherwise, months later, you will look back on your life and see that you never let your “camp high” propel your faith like it should have.

How do I do this?

The #1 way that you can stay connected with God after camp is pretty straightforward: read your Bible every day! I can’t stress enough how important it is to be intentional about being in the Word. Now, I must confess, I have not been great at this lately. There are a lot of days where I wake up and choose to watch a show instead of opening up my Bible, and I always regret it. I hope that this is something we can work toward together.

The reason why it is so important to read your Bible every day is because it brings us closer to God, and farther away from sin and the world. “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119:11). A lot of you guys have probably experienced that for yourself: in seasons where you are diligent about being in God’s word, you find spiritual growth in abundance, but when you stop making it a priority, it is so easy to get caught up in our sin. If you are having trouble with being in your Bible every day, the best advice I can give you is to start small. It doesn’t matter if you study a single verse, or three chapters, because if your heart is in the right place, God will speak to you and you will learn. So don’t be intimidated by the people that can easily spend an hour in the Bible. I know I am nowhere close to that, but that is okay! God just admires our heart and loves to see us chasing after him with all that we have.

Another great way to stay connected with God after camp is over is to keep in touch with your cabin mates, counselors, and others that you met that helped you grow in your relationship with Jesus. There are a lot of people that I have kept in contact with from previous years of camp, and it is such a blessing to get a text from them every once in a while, whether it is to share how God has been working in them, a cool Bible verse, or just to check up on me. I also love it when I see a passage in the Bible that reminds me of one of my talks with a counselor or cabinmate, and can send it to them to let them know that I am still thinking about them.

I think that this is so important because it is a way for us to not forget about all that we learned at camp. “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” (Proverbs 11:14). The more you talk to the people you met at camp, the more you can bring up the great conversations you had together at camp. This allows you to keep each other accountable for progress throughout the year. For me, camp is the prime time where I make my spiritual goals for the year, and when I share them with the people in my cabin, they like to check up on me and see how I have been doing with that.

If you haven’t left for camp yet, a big tip that I would give you is to meet new people, grow alongside them in Christ, and find ways to keep in touch. You can text or write letters; anything that will allow you two to challenge each other in faith throughout the school year. I promise that you will be amazed at how much friendships from camps bring you closer to God.

Well, I am super excited to leave for camp in a few days, and I hope that we both can be diligent in staying connected to God after the “camp high”. If you guys have any ways that helped you maintain your relationship with God after church camp, please let me know! I would love to have you guys help lead me in Christ; fellowship is so important! I love you all <3