Northern Lights Camp is a beloved asset of the Dakota Conference, and it is the site of many cherished memories for a growing number of people. This past August, it became the home of a new set of memories for the young adults of the Dakota Territory at the first ever young adult camp!
The staff team prayerfully planned the weekend together and had a unified desire to disciple our young adults and model an attractive friendship with Jesus. Part of this friendship with the Lord is demonstrating and facilitating that Jesus is Lord of our fun and recreation, and memorable play is part of a healthy relationship with Him!
So, we planned camp activities such as archery, and the obvious—jet-skiing, wakeboarding, and tubing, which everyone seemed to love—but we also made kayaks and canoes available, as well as informal lawn games like Giant Jenga and Connect 4. A critical element was team challenges and interactive activities that reveal profound truths to the participants in an engaging and memorable way. Some of these activities function like interactive parables.
Participants were given an opportunity to learn new skills, such as wakeboarding and jet ski driving. Getting up on a wakeboard can require remarkable tenacity for some people, and the same is true for driving jet skis. These things are not intuitive for everyone.
Each evening, worship was around a modest campfire, which enticed the group into close interaction. Each worship led into a time of interactive questions and dialogue. Our young adults asked some probing questions which evoked long, lingering conversations in a reflective and unrushed context. What can I do to connect with God through trials when He seems so far away? If God knows the end from the beginning and is all-powerful, why did He allow for the possibility of evil? Answers to such questions may seem obvious to some, but each person must reckon with their own faith and resolve these questions for themselves.
Morning worships happened in creative settings. One morning, worship was in the boats on the lake; one morning it was in the loft of the girls’ chalet, which had been tastefully decorated to make it more inviting.
By the end of the weekend, participants were begging for assurance that this event would happen again next year and that it could be scheduled earlier in the summer, before the first weekend of college, so more people could come. Almost every person communicated how much they enjoyed the food, and the worship engagement spoke for itself. God blessed this event richly. It was a success in every regard—Jesus was honored through play and devotion, and everyone said they would do it again!
It is moments like these that strengthen the fabric of our church fellowship and stage the passing of the torch of leadership to the next generation.
Pastor Nathan James serves the Custer/Hot Springs church district in South Dakota.
