I help run an overnight summer camp for children in Brazil. While there, I had the chance to watch a 96-year-old camp volunteer do something we call the “Crab Dance” on stage. It’s one of the highest-energy moments of the entire camp day—a day that starts at 4:30 in the morning for most of the volunteers—and she was up there screaming and dancing with the youngest campers we had there.
We call her Tia Dolva, or aunt Dolva. She’s been part of the church we partner with for decades. She knows the children who attend personally, and knows their parents. She profoundly knows the community, and their needs.
Though we call her “aunt,” she is effectively a grandmother to many campers. She loves them, and they trust her. And she is one of the reasons I love the intergenerational camp model so much.
An overnight camp model more typical of American campers’ experience would be populated mainly by young campers and college-age camp volunteers or staff. There are no grandmothers. But when you involve the local church, as WinShape does in Brazil and many other places, it flips that upside down.
There is a role for everyone
There isn’t an expiration date on your skills or experience.
There is a role for every single person to play. There isn’t an expiration date on your skills or experience. The camp environment needs all of us to jump, clap, scream, and love each other.
This isn’t to downplay the importance of college-age staff, or of the students. Everyone is necessary. But when they’re intentionally mingled in an intergenerational setting, multiple age groups unlock parts of each other they never could have otherwise.
Most of us, for instance, think of the kids at camp as more or less passive recipients of the camp experience. But they aren’t. They’re receiving, certainly, but they’re also contributing. They’re also inviting their friends. They’re talking and sharing in small groups. They are little image-bearers of God, and often bear powerful and surprising witness to God's love.
Then you have college students. They bring the “cool factor.” They are everything these little kids want to be, and the campers’ hearts are so open to them. They are indispensable as part of the camp experience. Their witness, too, is energetic and exciting.
However, the older generations bring unique wisdom. They bring something that younger believers can learn from older believers. Tia Dolva’s deep knowledge of and love for the community is irreplaceable.
God's purposes
No generation was ever meant to do its work in solitude, or separate from the others.
The camp becomes indescribably more beautiful as more generations are brought together. That’s partly because God has created each generation for its own work. Intergenerational settings are the ones we’re called to create. No generation was ever meant to do its work in solitude, or separate from the others.
“For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another,” we read in Romans 12:4 (ESV). “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them" (Romans 12:6 ESV).
Become united across generations
We’re called to unity. We’re called to do life together. We’re called to learn from one another. And if we’re afraid to start bridging the gap between generations, we’re going to miss out on everything those younger and older than ourselves have to offer. God doesn’t call us together on Sunday only to scatter into “young marrieds,” “young singles,” “kids,” and the “elderly.”
In fact, one of the most striking differences between the camp in Brazil and life in the United States is that we Americans seem reluctant to bridge these gaps. Brazilians tend to think and live much less individualistically than we do.
But with God’s help, we retain the power to abolish this loneliness. And the Lord calls each of us daily to do just that.
So together, in all of our diversity, let us build unity. Let’s build communities where we can live together as the Body of Christ—and maybe, just maybe, that starts with involvement in a summer camp.
Margaret Sharpe leads the international camp ministry for WinShape Camps. In addition to leading camps in Brazil and Costa Rica, she focuses on discipling college students and training leaders around the world on how to reach their communities with the gospel.
