In the United States, the sense of loyalty is largely on the decline. One no longer assumes that it is right to stick to what we have always stuck to; everything is up for debate and change. This is not a universal tendency, but it is certainly widespread, and thus it does greatly affect Christian camping. Because many churches and individuals do not feel the need to remain loyal to the camp they grew up going to or that their family goes to or that their church goes to, they go shopping to find the camp that they think best offers what they want. This greatly changes the way camps must function on a promotional level. We are no longer merely obligated to occasionally remind those in our loyal churches of our existence and programs, we must actively encourage them to attend our camp, and we must seek to make our image such that it will appeal to a wider audience of shoppers, not merely to those in our loyal churches. Since loyal churches to any camp are fewer and fewer, we must adapt the way we market ourselves.
Another result of this shopping tendency is that camps must be wise as to the business aspect of their ministry. Not only must we focus on serving those who come here, we must now pay special attention to staying afloat as a financial institution. By and large, camps have done well at adapting to this trend. They are able to make wise decisions for the future because they look not only at the ministry aspect, but also the financial aspect.
Furthermore, the shopping mentality has brought a much wider audience to Christian camps. Rather than serving a very narrow audience Christian camps must now be equipped to serve a variety of audiences. The choices, then, come down to which audiences a camp can focus on. Some camps are simply better suited for certain audiences than others, so any camp must find what audiences they best serve and find ways to bring them in and serve them best.
A camp’s relationship to the government is another which is subject to change in the near future. Most camps currently have tax-exempt status of various kinds. These status may be under attack in the recent government financial situations. In order to maintain our current status we must form relationships in the community and among politicians, so that they know how we benefit them in our tax-exempt system.
A further change that is facing society that challenges Christian camping are the exploding advances in technology. With increased interest in and focus on technology, the outdoors, which is a key component of Christian camping, are less and less appealing to young people who come as campers, or adults who come for retreats. We have had to adapt to this by offering technology of various kinds to those who come, but we have also had to increase the amount of effort we spend promoting the outdoors. What was once a given now must be emphasized in order to ensure its continuing success.
Finally, the American society has largely lost any sense of morality, or right and wrong. The culture rejects any idea that truth is absolute, and thus reject unchanging morals. This provides a particular challenge to Christian camping. How far are we willing to compromise? Some camps have compromised biblical principles for the sake of new morality. The new morality, so far as I can discern, is, “Thou shalt not hurt thy neighbor’s feelings.” This is unbiblical, because sometimes such pain is necessary to bring repentance. Sometimes the truth hurts. This does not mean that we should not use tact, but it does mean that we must not compromise biblical principles and morality for the sake of the culture. Hidden Acres does an excellent job, in my view, of standing firmly on biblical principles in spite of the changing morality of the culture. Our hiring policies, dress code, and day-to-day practices demonstrate that we value the truth. At the same time, our environment is not one of stuffy legalism that shoves out lost folks and repulses them from the Gospel.
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