In-Tents
Join us for In-Tents Camp 2025!
In-Tents Youth Camp 2024
Camp Director Reflection
This year we had another couple great camps that we can be proud of in our Mission District. This year we had Pastor Brian Barlow be our speaker. Our Camp season this year started with our Youth Camp. For our Youth Camp, we had 35 youth attend all week with a few more that came when their work schedules allowed. This year our theme was based on Spiritual Warfare. Every year that I have been the Camp Director I ask the camper what they would like to learn about for the next year. Last year, we had suggestions like, “Learn how groups cannot be put down by the devil,” “How can we take courage through hard times,” “How to focus on God with stress and anxiety pulling you away.” There were many more that overall pointed to the spiritual war that we find ourselves in our world today. The Camp Board thought the perfect verse for the week was from Ephesians 6:11, Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Just to give you a small insight on some of what Pastor Brian said on the first night, he started out by saying, “We are born into a battle.” A battle between God and Satan. Then he asked, “Have you ever gotten it wrong, or maybe your teachers gotten it wrong?” We of course do get it wrong; we are sinful and fall short of the glory of God countless times. Has God gotten it wrong? No, God does not get anything wrong. He is perfect, and the source of truth. The only way we can find the truth is if we dig into God’s Word for Truth. He then went on and shared 5 truths about Satan. 1. Satan is real. He is a powerful enemy, but our God is more powerful. 2. Satan was created by God. 3. Satan is crafty. Satan’s goal is not for you to worship him because he hates you. He wants to see you be destroyed and for you to not have a life. 4. Satan is not alone, and he has an army. 5. Satan has an agenda. He wants to destroy you; he wants to take you out. We are in a Spiritual War. During the rest of the week Pastor Brian discussed putting on the whole armor of God and how we are to look for the Truth in scripture instead of the truth of the world.
The Youth Camp also had fun playing a game of Dance Moms: kind of, which was based loosely off the reality TV show. Campers competed in danced themed challenges to earn different parts of the Armor of God. It all ended with a huge game of musical chairs to determine which group was the winner. We also had Pastor Jeff Morlock from North American Lutheran Seminary come out and talk to the youth about seminary and discerning a call to ministry. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons we went to the Quemahoning Dam for everyone to swim and hang out outside. On Wednesday we had representatives from the NALC Disaster Response come out and the youth helped build 100 flood buckets. In years past we know we have helped with building the different kits, but this year we know we were a huge help as many of the warehouses in the NALC are out of flood buckets. We were also supposed to go on a hike, but unfortunately that event got rained out so instead we did some games and activities in a rotation format. We had a really good group of youth this year at Youth Camp and we are looking forward to seeing them all back next year!
The following week we had our Elementary Camp, which is three days and is meant to be a taste of what a week of camp is like in the Youth Camp. Elementary Camp is set up similar to a Vacation Bible School, we have three rotations of Games, Crafts, and Story Time. We had Pastor Mathew Magera from Zion Lutheran Church head up our games, where the campers played capture the flag, water games, and relay races. The water games are always fun as we had 1,000 water balloons to have fun with this year. Julie Smith from St. John’s Lutheran Church led crafts where the kids had fun making different parts of the armor of God and Pastor Neal was our fantastic storyteller. The campers had a great time listening to Pastor Neal bring the stories of the Bible to life and focused on putting on the whole armor of God. I know he had them do many sword drills, where he gave out commands to go to a verse in the Bible and they raced to see who could get there first. It was also nice to have our North American Lutheran Seminary professors present with their children for this camp. They shared call stories on how God called them to teach His Word. We had 25 campers come out for Elementary Camp, five of which were from the RLCM. This was our largest Elementary Camp so far, and we all had a blast!
Overall, we had 60 kids come out and join us for In-Tents Lutheran Church Camp this year! This was our largest camp season since In-Tents was founded.
