‘Campers’ to experience Christian life online

High school-aged Lutherans and their friends will gather at an internet ‘camp’ this winter school holidays.

Organised by the LCA South Australia – Northern Territory District’s Blueprint Ministries (Children, Family, Youth and Young Adult Ministry), the camp.online program has been developed as a result of the cancellation of highly popular Christian Life Week (CLW) camps due to COVID-19. To be staged from 13 to 17 July, it will be aimed at young people usually served by CLW camps across the Adelaide Metro, Adelaide Hills and Barossa zones and the Junior Christian Life camp for those in years 4 to 6.

District Camping and Event Ministries Coordinator Ian Crambrook said the online program was being offered ‘as an opportunity for our young people to still gather in Christian community, see and interact with their camp friends, and grow in their faith’.

‘We wanted to put some program online for those who would miss out on camp this year, so we were still offering young people the chance to participate in some faith discussions that they may not have done otherwise’, he said. ‘We also felt it was very important with all of the fear and anxiety surrounding the COVID situation that we provide our young people with a message of hope through our teaching times on our program.’

Available from 9.30am to 12.30pm each day, along with two afternoon activity and games sessions, camp.online will offer a worship service each morning and include small group discussions on the event theme verse Matthew 5:14–16 for high schoolers, while younger children will receive an electronic copy of the study booklet to work through with their families.

‘One really exciting thing that we hope to see coming from this online event is an increase in interaction between young people from different zones and different camp communities, as they all meet and gather on the same platform’, Ian said.

The camp.online program will be accessed via the internet conferencing system Zoom. Sponsored by the LLL, it is free to participants. Registration is essential through the Blueprint Ministries website at blueprintministries.org.au

Junior and senior winter camps are also being offered online by Lutheran Youth of Queensland from 29 June to 3 July, while Lutheran Youth of Western Australia is hosting an online CyberYAC (Youth Alive Camp) for young people in Years 7 to 12 from 8 to 12 July.