The Power of Hearing a Fresh Voice

I remember a conversation with the youth pastor from our church in Grand Rapids the day after he had taken a group of students to a big Christian concert. He said something to this effect, “whatever this musician said on stage the kids would go crazy. He would say ‘you should read your Bible everyday’ and my kids would scream and jump up and down. I don’t understand it, I’ve been telling my kids they need to be reading their Bibles, but whenever I bring it up, I just get blank stares. Why can this guy, from stage and in such a short period of time, have such a powerful voice in my students’ life?”

The answer to this amazed youth pastor is simple – there is transformational power a person experiences when they hear an often repeated message in a fresh voice, spoken in a different context.

This is why going to camp, having a camp experience, is so powerful, so life changing. At camp kids hear the same message they’ve heard repeated at home, at church or in school. But the voice is different; it’s a different person, at a different age, and many times from a different place in life speaking the same message in a totally different environment – camp.

And it breaks my heart to say this, but it’s an experience that happens so rarely in a young person’s life outside a camp experience. Why? Because there are so few experiences for kids that offer this combination of fresh voice spoken in an exciting and adventuresome context that also aligns with the voices of parents, church and school.

It’s why at SpringHill, we believe so strongly that all Kids Need Camp.

Have you experienced the Power of Camp? If so please share your story, it might encourage others to help a child have the same transformational experience this summer.