By: Tanner Clarke, School Ministries Director
Hume is truly a unique place to live and a powerful ministry to be a part of. The summer season is amazing- but can include long days and demanding work. Hundreds of summer staffers flood the mountain to serve the churches that come up, and the thousands of campers they bring each week, all with the hope that when the gospel is presented to these students, their lives will be changed forever. When the summer ends, many return to college, move back home, or work a normal job, taking a breath from the crazy rollercoaster ride that is camp ministry. Unbeknownst to some, however, another season of camp ministry is just around the corner for those daring enough to continue pouring themselves out for the sake of the gospel. This season is Outdoor Education/Spiritual Emphasis—or, as we affectionately call it at the Lake—Fall OE/SE. Summer camp officially ends at Hume Lake on August 17th, and the first week of Spiritual Emphasis begins on August 21st, with camp continuing steadily until October 25th.
The fall season of camp comprises two separate programs that we run, both ministries to Christian schools. Spiritual Emphasis takes place in roughly the first half of the 10-week season, while Outdoor Education follows in the second half.
Spiritual Emphasis is a program Christian schools attend with their students as a sort of spiritual catalyst for their student body. All the elements that make camp great are present in this program. We have chapel times, recreation, free time, activities, fun events, and everything in between that makes Hume… well… Hume. Some schools come for two nights, some stay for four nights; some bring high school students, others bring middle schoolers. Regardless of how long they stay or whom they bring, I love Hume’s commitment to dedicating one chapel session to the clear presentation of the gospel and providing students the opportunity to respond. This is what we do in Spiritual Emphasis—we create an environment through programming that allows students to have a lot of fun, hear the gospel, and hopefully have their lives changed forever for the glory of God.
Outdoor Education accounts for the second half of the fall and primarily takes place in October. Here, we facilitate a Christian science camp for the schools that come up. Middle schoolers are the primary demographic, and on top of running all the crazy camp fun that Hume provides, my staff teaches “adventure classes” for three hours a day, every day. These classes fulfill the California State Standards for natural science, and this fall, we will be teaching Climbing and Mountaineering, Riflery, Entomology, Ornithology, Meteorology, and Geology. The goal is not just to provide excellent classes for middle school students to fulfill a state requirement, but also to allow students to connect with the God of the universe who created the world and everything in it. What better way to learn about the natural sciences than to be in God’s good creation itself? Just as in Summer Camp, Winter Camp, or Spiritual Emphasis, we will unpack a theme throughout the week in chapel and present the gospel clearly to students, expecting that God will change their hearts forever.
This fall will be my first-ever season at Hume as a Camp Director after spending two years on staff with the Joshua Wilderness Institute, and I am so excited. I have invested a lot of time and energy into hiring an amazing staff and band and finding excellent speakers to unpack the gospel with the students who come up. I am now in the process of ironing out all the intricate details that make camp a well-oiled machine, working closely with the schools so they might have the best experience possible. If you could join me in praying for my staff to have energy and courage for another season of camp ministry, and for the details to fall into place as we prepare to receive thousands more campers, I would be so grateful. In camp, we have silly camp names, the most fun jobs in the world, and we get to see the glory of God daily, but life at Hume in the offseason can still be challenging. If you could also pray for the teachers, school administrators, chaperones, and campers—that God would melt hearts of stone and replace them with hearts of flesh that are responsive to Him—I would greatly appreciate it. Above all, my deepest desire is that everyone who encounters our program this fall will become just a little more like Jesus than they were before. Thank you for your support and prayers. We will need every single one, for apart from Jesus, we can do nothing!