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Pack Your Bags — Summer is a great time for your family to break away from the in-town routine and head to camp.
By Kate Peterson
 Imagine a family vacation where endless road trips, countless hotel and campsite reservations, and forgettable fast-food meals are replaced with a single destination complete with comfortable campsites, cabins or lodge options and food that keeps you coming back for more. Add to this a lively roster of healthy outdoor activities the whole family can enjoy and daily opportunities for worship and reflection with other families that become lifetime friends. Put it all together, and you have the perfect summer vacation destination: Lutheran family camp.
Just ask the Moormans—Joe, 39, and Pam, 37—who have made Lutheran family camp a summer ritual. Members of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans from Northville, Michigan, the Moormans have four children ranging in age from 6 to 10. Joe and Pam have been going to Camp Arcadia, a 110-acre facility on the shore of Lake Michigan, since the year they were married. The tradition stretches even further back for Pam, who began attending the camp when she was five.
That first year they went as a couple, Joe was skeptical. “He packed up every bit of sporting equipment he owned because he was determined not to be bored,” says Pam. “We were there 45 minutes and he said, ‘I can really see why you love it here so much,’” Pam recalls.
The Moorman kids couldn’t agree more. During their week at camp, they can do everything from building sandcastles and playing “Capture the Flag” to making crafts and learning to square dance. There are hikes to go on, canoe trips to take and kayaks to paddle. In addition to recreational activities, children and teenagers have their own Bible study and activities while their parents attend Bible study programs for adults.
The combination of a beautiful setting, healthy family activities and Christian fellowship make camp a place where families not only reconnect with each other, but build a deeper relationship with God. As Chip May, director of Camp Arcadia, says, “God doesn’t speak any louder at camp. It’s just easier to hear Him.”
That Christian focus is particularly appealing to families, says Mark Burkhardt, director for Outdoor Ministry for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). “In our very mobile, fast-moving world, the faith component comes into play,” Burkhardt says. “Most camps have recreational activities, but if you are looking for something deeper, something more meaningful, with reflection, worship and conversation, you can find it at Lutheran family camps.”
What to Expect
There are more than 200 Lutheran camps and retreat centers in the U.S., and many of them offer some type of family camp. While these camps represent a wide range of prices and offer accommodations ranging from rustic to modern, most boast very flexible programs, which is another reason families find them so attractive.
In the past, Burkhardt says, families might have gone to camp for a week and followed a set agenda. “In the more contemporary structure, camps welcome the families and then give them some options,” Burkhardt says. “There’s a whole schedule of activities you can join, but no guilt if you don’t want to come.”
Meal times are another important component of family camps—part of what gives families the feeling of relaxation and renewal that they crave on a vacation. At Camp Arcadia, for example, the chaos and expense of the restaurant meals required on most vacations is replaced by home-cooked food, served family-style. And this isn’t the camp food of your childhood. “It’s the No. 1 thing people make comments about at the end of the week—how great the food is,” says Chip May.
Delicious food, beautiful scenery and great programs certainly make camp attractive, but one of the main reasons families return year after year is because they can focus on each other and build meaningful friendships with other families and staff. Every year the Moormans reconnect with families they have met in the past. “Even though it’s been a year since we’ve seen them, it’s like we never left,” Pam says. While a week at camp is busy, Pam says it’s still a true vacation. “I don’t have to cook. They ring a bell, and we all go to dinner [and] sit down together,” she says. She also relishes the chance to watch her kids enjoy the same activities she did when she was young.
The Moormans have been to Disney World, and Pam says it was great. “But if I gave my kids the option of Disney World or Camp Arcadia, all four would pick Camp Arcadia,” she says.
And when it’s time to pack up the pop-up or say goodbye to lodge life, campers leave motivated and inspired. As Pam says, “We come back renewed in mind, body and spirit.”
Kate Peterson, a writer in Granger, Indiana, covered personal finance in the Spring 2006 issue of Thrivent magazine.
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