A Day at Camp Cairn: Things We’re Still Thinking About
Photo originally posted on the Camp Kintail Facebook Page
Back in May, our team spent a day at Camp Cairn with staff from Presbyterian camps - Cairn, Gracefield and Kintail. The camps brought their year-round and seasonal staff together before summer began. They did some training and planning, connected with each other, and just enjoyed being together before the busy season started.
Our team was invited to come up for the day and spend some time with the staff and hear about what it’s like to serve in this area of ministry today.
As many of you know, we’ve been thinking a lot about next-generation ministry lately. We’ve actually spent 3 full days as a leadership team brainstorming and discerning how Ministry Forum can really help people working in these areas. But before we make resources or start anything new, we want to understand what people are going through.
So we’ve tried to spend some intentional time asking questions… and that’s what we were doing at Cairn.
We spoke with some of the year-round camp staff. Later, we sat in a big circle with the seasonal staff and had an open conversation about leadership, ministry, faith, young people, and what it’s like to serve in these settings today.
One thing that came up almost immediately (and repeatedly through the day) was mental health.
Many of us know the pandemic affected us. We can often see how it changed our families, too. But we don’t often talk about how much it impacted young people at different stages as they grew up.
Photos from the Camp Cairn Facebook Page (because our team was so invested in conversation we forgot to take any photos)
One staff member mentioned younger kids who have a hard time being away from home. It’s not that anything is wrong, but some of the early experiences that help kids become independent happened later than usual or didn’t happen the same way, and they’ve had to pivot the way they structure the program to account for this.
Most of the seasonal staff are between 18 and 24 years old. These are the people leading cabins and mentoring campers this summer. They’re helping younger kids face challenges, but they’re also part of the generation whose developmental years were disrupted. They also spoke openly about their own mental health struggles, what supports they need, and how they support each other as a team.
Another area of conversation that caught our team a little off guard was when a few of the season staff mentioned the words they hear from young people and what they notice about acceptance and inclusion. The leaders talked about a rise in derogatory language, hate speech, racism… all of it. At one point, our team leaned toward each other and said, “We thought we were past this.”
Maybe that was our mistake. We assumed that progress moves only in one direction. Whatever the reason, it was one of those moments when you realize there’s more happening beneath the surface than you thought. The conversation wandered in several different directions from there, but it was impactful to hear the real challenges these young leaders are facing.
Our team drove home with A LOT to think about and unpack.
As we head into the heart of camp season, we wanted to highlight our time at Cairn and invite our Ministry Forum community reflect on the important role our camp leaders hold in the life of the church.
We don’t think people mean to overlook camp ministry, but it’s often seen as just games, campfires, songs, and keeping kids busy for a week.
Those things are part of it, obviously, but being part of those conversations with camp leaders reminded us that the work goes much deeper.
These leaders are often the first to notice when a young person is having a hard time. They help kids make friends and create places where everyone feels accepted. They answer questions about faith, identity, belonging, and life… sometimes while sitting on a dock, around a fire, or walking between activities.
That’s real ministry.
We’ve been talking a lot about how to better support people working in next-generation ministry, and the conversations at Camp Cairn didn’t give us a simple answer. But they did help us understand the question better, and their insights have already begun to influence what questions we ask next.
We’ll be headed to Collective at Brock University in August to chat with young people and their leaders, and we’re looking forward to gaining even more insight through our time with them.
So, please pray for the leaders and camp staff serving in diverse positions across our denomination this summer, and pray for our team as we continue to ask questions and discern our role in supporting those who serve the next generation.