A Camp Booyah 2021 Reflection

This post was written by Amelia Blanchard, our new Assistant College Ministry Director as of June 2021. Photos are from River Lewkowicz and others.

On June 13th-18th, I embarked on the crazy adventure that is Camp Booyah—an Anglican “summer missions adventure camp” for middle and high school students! Signing on as an adult leader for the Redeemer high school girls cabin was my first act as Assistant College Ministry Director here at Church of the Redeemer. Our Next Generation Ministries team at church highly values finding ways for our ministries of different ages to cross over, and there was a need for female leaders, so I gladly said “Sign me up!” for a week full of laughter and tears and sharing life together with new friends.

And so the anticipated day arrived...the day of departure! Organized chaos ensued after the 10 o’clock service ended and kids and parents alike gathered in the parking lot with suitcases and fluffy blankets and insides full of nervous energy and eager anticipation. I greeted my car full of girls who I had barely, if ever, met before, and we were off! I entered into the week as a relative stranger to most, if not all, of the girls in my cabin and the other students in our youth group. This proved to be more difficult than I had imagined it would be. Fairly immediately, I found myself yet again sucked into my usual pitfall—being consumed with myself, with my mind fixated on analyzing how others are relating to me.

This past year, as a part of my Greensboro Fellows year, I worked with Young Life leading our college ministry primarily to UNCG students. Young Life often talks about how in order to gain influence in another’s life, we as adult friends must first earn the right to be heard. For so long, though, I have held this underlying assumption that in order to earn the right to be heard, and thus in order to have any sort of influence in another’s life, I first have to get those people to like me. Essentially, I have to cater to them—at least at first. I often find myself undergoing all sorts of subconscious assessments when I’m with people (particularly in ministry settings) about what they want, need, or like and how I can meet those desires. Perhaps if I say the right things or am funny and relatable enough, they will feel comfortable with me...then perhaps I will be able to speak into their lives and allow the Lord to minister to them through me. What does this approach to ministry expose in me? It exposes that I often live my life out of a desire to please people, rather than an ultimate desire to please the Lord. It also exposes my failure to honor the Lord and myself in trusting that who God has made me to be is enough—that the specificity of who I am is a gift to the world. It also highlights my subconscious belief that I am the one who needs to make things happen in ministry and relationships—that the “success” of “my” ministry falls on my shoulders, rather than trusting the Lord to open up doors with people and to give me favor in the eyes of those I am ministering to. I am also discovering more and more these days that I really don’t trust that the truth will indeed set us free—that living and speaking truthfully will bring forth life. I guess I have placed a much higher value on maintaining a sense of “peace”—or the absence of conflict or uncomfort—in certain relationships rather than on helping to bring about a holistic sense of peace or “shalom” in another’s life through truth-telling. 

“Perhaps Jesus invites us daily, moment-by-moment, to look again—to look full in His wonderful face—and to find there what we’re looking for.”

Regardless, I noticed myself for the first few days of camp falling back into these old habits of relating to people in a self-oriented way. I saw how this or that leader would joke or interact with his or her campers and notice the subsequent affirming responses of the campers. As I saw how those leaders’ interactions led to intimacy of friendship and trust with their campers (though I realized later that their interactions were merely expressions of their already developed and historied friendships), I would feel a rush of comparison and anxiety, and, honestly, fear that I would never be cool enough or funny enough for these girls to want to be around me. I so desperately wanted to connect with my campers but felt paralyzed by this persistent but subtle draw toward a constant consciousness of self.  

I have tended to approach ministry at first from a hyper-self-conscious lense. My attention has not always been fixed on the Lord and how I can partner with Him in the moment, but rather on the needs and responses of other people. Over the years of walking with the Lord, it seems as though the one thing He always brings me back to though, by His grace and loving kindness to me, is the refocusing of my gaze, for where we fix our attention is what we worship. As I have analyzed and compared, He has continued to call me to turn my eyes upon Jesus once again. Perhaps this is the invitation for all of us who would come and follow Jesus; perhaps He invites us daily, moment-by-moment, to look again—to look full in His wonderful face—and to find there what we’re looking for. 

In the Lord’s kindness, He brought me back again a couple of days into camp to a position of refocusing my gaze on Him. Everyday, twice a day, all of the adult leaders would gather together in the worship center to share encouragements, receive updates, and pray together. (Leader meetings quickly became one of my favorite times of the day at Camp Booyah). Several people mentioned at this one afternoon meeting that they had been feeling particularly anxious and, similar to me, consumed with this desire to be important to their campers. With impeccable timing, one leader began to share how the Spirit had been stirring him that day to remember that in the midst of everything, it was not about him. It felt like something shifted in the room. We were receiving a gentle rebuke from the Lord and a call to collectively turn our eyes back to Him, to remember that He is the one at work in the lives of our friends and that we ultimately are here to point people to Him. One of my favorite passages, John 3:29-30, came to mind as he was sharing. Here, John the Baptist responds to concerns about people leaving him to go follow Jesus by using a bridal metaphor: “The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.” My role as the friend of the groom is to connect his bride to him; she is not betrothed to me. Woe to me if I am a backstabbing friend trying to steal away the affection of the bride for her groom. 

“It took the Lord freeing me from the tyranny of self-focus and redirecting my gaze toward Him in order to begin to see how He was at work.”

As a community of leaders, then, we began to pray—to repent and recommit ourselves to God, His Kingdom, and His glory. Something shifted in me as I prayed. I felt realigned; I felt free! Almost instantly, I felt drawn into intercession and a type of spiritual alertness that I hadn’t felt yet that week. [Side note: Oftentimes, I can take the temperature of my spiritual life by how moved I am to intercession throughout the day. Intercession is merely praying for another, asking God to move on behalf of another person. The act of intercession is one of the most selfless acts I know; it is a hidden sacrificial act of love for another done without regard for the good of oneself. It is one litmus test I use to see if I am truly keeping in step with the Spirit. Intercession is the very antithesis of self-focus.] I felt a renewed sense of excitement about what the Lord was doing and what He wanted to do. While there were still several moments of anxiety and seeking to please my campers, I shifted my gaze much quicker and found myself caught up much more readily into the joy of doing ministry with the Lord. Each moment became an opportunity for adventure with Him, getting to discover what He was up to and how I could partner with Him. I remember walking to the evening worship service praying that the Lord would reveal Himself to a specific camper. I remember being in cabin time praying that another camper would share and that the Lord would unify our cabin. I remember being in the shower asking the Lord who I should spend time with during free time and asking for His guidance. I remember thanking the Lord for a surprisingly deep spontaneous conversation with a camper. I remember being in the lunch line and seeing all the campers at once and being overwhelmed to the point of tears with the Lord’s love for each one. What a gift of grace that God was freeing me from myself to be able to focus on Him and see my environment through His eyes.

Oh what a tremendous joy to have a front row seat to what the Lord was doing in over 200 middle and high schooler’s lives that week! To see hundreds of students proclaiming through song that they are children of God, to be in a conversation with a camper and feel the tangible love and presence of God meeting them as their walls were being broken down, to be in cabin time and experience the brave vulnerability of my friends, to see God answering prayers left and right...what an insane privilege. Lives were transformed by the presence and power of God at camp. It makes me weepy now writing about it, honestly. It took the Lord freeing me from the tyranny of self-focus and redirecting my gaze toward Him in order to begin to see how He was at work. And let me tell you—He is doing some crazy things in the lives of students across the country. Be encouraged!

I came away from camp utterly exhausted, sick, and emotionally spent, yet utterly amazed at the grandeur and the love of God. I feel a renewed invigoration for a life lived on mission--where giving my life away is the basis of how I interact with the world, because my gaze is transfixed on the Lord. Can I also say that Redeemer people are amazing?!! What a sweet gift it was for me to be able to meet and grow in relationship with so many new high school and adult friends at camp from Redeemer! They have already been such an encouragement to me, and I can’t wait to keep growing closer with them as time goes on. I am grateful to be planting roots here at Church of the Redeemer and am so looking forward to diving in deep here with not only the Guilford college students but with all of you, my church family! 

Thanks be to God, for His steadfast love endures forever.