Worship Life at Summer Camp

Chestnut Ridge is a Christian camp related by faith to The United Methodist Church and working to serve local churches and the community. Campers of various religious traditions or no religious tradition are welcome to attend summer camp.

Campers will participate in vibrant worship featuring a praise and worship band, skits and engaging speakers. It is our intent to share our faith with the campers and invite them to explore what it means to live out a life of faith in Christian community. We earnestly seek to present and live out a vibrant, active Christian faith that is inviting, life-giving, and transformative. However, we reject any attempt to manipulate or push religion, and we do not demand or require campers to profess certain beliefs.

Food, Faith, & Farming

At Chestnut Ridge, we believe that caring for God's creation is not an optional side-project. Instead, it's at the core of who God calls us to be. Our summer camp curriculum offers campers the opportunity to both hear and respond to that call.

During each camp session, morning worship sessions help campers experience the Scriptural story in a new way. Tracing the Bible's iconic images of food and farming, gifted storytellers proclaim and perform God's story. The five-day camp week provides an ideal structure for this retelling:

• Mondays introduce God as creator and the world as God's creation.
• On Tuesdays, campers learn how humans sometimes fail to implement God's perfect plan for our world.
• Wednesdays discuss Jesus' role as Restorer and Sustainer of the creation.
• Thursdays celebrate the Church--God's people at work in the world.
• Fridays help campers to imagine what the fully restored creation might look like.

Of course, merely hearing the story could never fully equip campers for creation care. After all, kids learn best by doing! Throughout their camp week, campers engage in a faithful way of life that includes strategic ecological practices. They learn to set aside—if only for a few days—their Gameboys and iPods and cell phones. They live attentive to one another, hands dirty, eyes wide and hearts open.  They help tend the camp’s community garden, planting and harvesting their own meals. They practice conservation in the bathhouse and rethink the amount of food they eat at mealtimes. They follow leave-no trace practices on their overnights camping in the woods. They feed and milk the camp’s many animals, learning to care for their fellow creatures. Finally, they participate in ‘small groups,’ which reinforce each day's lessons with related practices of ecological stewardship and hospitality.

Camp Chestnut Ridge is the perfect place to experience the creation first-hand and explore issues of environmental stewardship. Come to camp this summer and learn with us!