Imagine a field bursting with 500 students (ranging from third graders to sixth graders), their church group leaders and 25 camp staffers. Everyone is running around, throwing water balloons and shaving cream at one another, all while trying to complete tasks on little, colorful cards. Does that sound like chaos? Well, it is. Welcome to OMC or Organized Mass Chaos, a huge part of one of my favorite cultures. What culture is this? It's CentriKid or CK, camp culture!
At CentriKid everything is centered around our values, which are: doing one more thing, pursuing the savvy, making it easy for Her, creating true heroes, and rooting everything in scripture.
What does it mean to do one more thing?
Being a servant is a huge part of working with CentriKid Camps, which is the very reason "doing one more thing" is such a vital part of the camp culture! But what does it mean? To do one more thing is exactly what it sounds like: it's going above and beyond what you are required to do. Now, this doesn't just mean you pick up trash on the sidewalk when you see it. It also means if a church group leader says, "Hey, where's the pool?" then you don't just point, you walk them there.
Another part of the CK camp culture is pursuing the savvy.
There are multiple parts to pursuing the savvy, but my favorite part of this value is pursuing the savvy with my time. The walk from Bible study to the recreation field can sometimes take up to 10 minutes and those 10 minutes are valuable! Use that time to be intentional with those kids. Ask them what God has taught them this week and what their favorite part of camp is! Pursue the savvy with your time and talk to those kids!
What does it mean to make it easy for Her?
The mission of CentriKid Camps is to serve the Church on Her mission of making disciples, so "making it easy for Her" is all about doing everything with the Church in mind. One way we do this is that we have Church group hosts. Each staffer gets a Church group that they get to "host" during the week. This means the staffer sits with them during worship, eat with the kids at meals, and are basically just there if the church group leader needs help with anything or has any questions.
With this, another aspect of serving the Church is that we strive to make true heroes of the church group leaders.
During training week, I heard the quote, "There are 52 weeks in a year. We get these kids for one of them and their church leaders get all 52." With this thought in mind, we strive to point these kids back to their church group leaders, because they're going to be the ones going alongside them as they grow in their faith. It's important to encourage the kids to talk to their leaders if they have any questions or want to know more about anything. Make these leaders true heroes in the eyes of their students.
How do we tie the chaos of camp back into scripture?
One of our goals at CentriKid is to make sure that no one goes home without having a life-changing experience with Christ, which is one of the very reasons we root everything in scripture. Now, in Bible study, it's relatively easy to relate what we talk about to the Bible. However, at CK we tie everything to it! From recreation games, to painting nails during hang time, everything we do is rooted in scripture. (I even saw someone connect a bag of crumpled up cookies to the gospel!) Even the most chaotic parts of camp are connected to God's Word.
Now, as the sun sets on OMC day, children can be heard reciting their memory verse and telling their group leaders about how their rec leader connected their games to the Bible that day. CentriKid is my favorite culture that I'm a part of. Even though it's chaos, these values make me love it even more!
Are these ideas that you value as well? If so, you should consider becoming a staffer and joining the OMC!
