Scott Swanson
Know any youngsters who could benefit from going to camp?
Fir Lawn Lutheran Church wants to hear from you.
Pastor Joe Medley said the church has decided to send at least 10 kids, between grades 3 to 12, to summer camp this year as a way of reaching out to the community’s youth.
“We’re an older congregation with some resources, but no kids in this age group,” he said. “What we decided was to see how many kids we can get to go to camp.”
The cost for a week at Camp Lutherwood, located near Cheshire between Junction City and Florence, is $325. Medley said he’s personally visited the camp and he’s planning to go back this summer to monitor how his church’s efforts are panning out. He said the camp is cooperatively operated by the Missouri Synod and Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, with which Fir Lawn is associated.
“They have a great staff,” he said. “All of the staff members are in college or older.”
After Medley made the announcement in late May, enough funds were raised immediately to pay for 2½ youngsters to go attend camp.
“We’re selling body parts,” he joked.
The church’s efforts extend to all children and Medley said the more the merrier.
“We want people who are not from our church,” he said. “We don’t care whether they go to church or not. Do you know a kid who needs a week of love? Tell us.”
To fund the effort, the church will hold a “Camp Cookout” and auction, with church member Angie Fisher serving up hot dogs and beans for $5 a plate, from 6 to “8-ish” p.m. on Friday, June 22. Admission is technically free, but Medley said people can eat and all funds will go to the camp effort. An auction will follow the cookout, the “big ticket item” to be a pair of Adirondack chairs built by Medley himself, which he said normally sell for $700.
“They’re 100 percent cedar from my buddy’s tree farm in Brownsville,” he said. “They’re heavy duty, with an inch-thick back. These are not made out of fence boards.”
Medley told the Fir Lawn congregation that the program is an effort to re-establish connections that have been lost.
The church has named the effort its “Golden Spike” of commitment to local children, named after the golden spike that connected and completed the first transcontinental railroad.
He told the congregation in late May that the name was a “symbolic reminder that this church is connected to people we may never see but to whom we need to reach out.”
“Congregations like ours, once blessed with many camp-age members, now find we have none,” he said. “Did you know that Oregon Lutherans once had no fewer than four facilities for camping ministry but today have only one?
“When congregations feel they have no connection to programs, they lose interests and when interest is lost, the ability for programs to survive is lost.”
Medley emphasized that the purpose of the program is not to recruit.
“Our purpose in doing this is not to indoctrinate kids,” he said. “We’re doing it so kids can experience the love of Christ. I’d love for other churches to come forward and shepherd these kids when they’re done.”
For more information or a form to nominate a child, visit http://www.firlawn.org.