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Abstract

Christian camping is rapidly growing as an experiential education ministry in the Global South. Whereas most scholarship and resource development has historically taken place in the West, programs like Church-based rites of passage in Kenya expose sparsely documented camp ministry contextualization elsewhere. This qualitative study explored the experience of Kenyan Christian camp practitioners through focus groups and semi-structured interviews (N = 37). Four themes emerged from analysis, describing camps as reforming the East African Revival, extending faith-based kinship, discipling intergenerationally, and facilitating transformation. Christian camps in Kenya are temporary communities that also redeem some traditional rituals for whole-person formation.

Keywords

Christian camping contextualization experiential education East African Revival rites of passage global Christianity

Introduction

Why do churches, families, and other institutions in Kenya send children and youth to Christian camps? How do campers perceive this fast-growing school-holiday phenomenon? What is the story and history of Christian camping in the country? Is the ministry uniquely African or how does it compare with other global expressions? In July 2021, 37 former and current Christian camp leaders participated in a phenomenological study of their lived experience with the ministry (Saldaña, 2016, p. 199). Thematic data analysis revealed that organized Christian camping in Kenya meets a deep cultural need to form young people by deepening relationships that echo traditional kinship ties. The ministry's roots can be traced to the indigenously led East African Revival (EAR) which swept through the region in the mid-twentieth century. Later influenced by missionaries, Christian camping is forging to become more experiential and sustainable in its homegrown, mostly church-led expressions.

Organized Christian camping is said to have evolved from nineteenth-century revival movements in Europe and North America, burgeoning after the Second World War (Mattson, 1998, p. 27). Camps are now known to be present in at least 80 countries around the world, according to Christian Camping International (CCI), which promotes the ministry globally (CCI Worldwide, n.d.). Existing Western literature correlates Christian camping with wholistic spiritual formation, character growth, and the multidimensional Positive Youth Development (Bialeschki et al., 2007; Povilaitis & Tamminen, 2018; Ramey & Rose-Krasnor, 2012; Schnitker et al., 2014; Thuber et al., 2007). Camps are also said to be leadership development “laboratories” for facilitators and campers (Martin, 2018; Ribbe, 2010; Robinson & Ribbe, 2022). Literature is sparce, however, on Christian camping in the Global South, home to 78% of the world's over 1.2 billion 15–24 year olds (United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs, 2015).

Over the last century, Christianity has rapidly grown in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, exceeding its former numerical centers in Europe and North America (Jacobsen, 2015, pp. 8–13; Jenkins, 2002, pp. 1–2). This growth proceeds “without Western organizational structures, including academic recognition” (Sanneh, 2003, p. 3). CCI maps camp ministry similarly growing in non-Western contexts (CCI Worldwide, n.d.). Camp leaders in these places are however trained with resources mostly developed in the West. Yet the existence of programs such as church-based rites of passage in East Africa (Tanari Trust, n.d.), leadership training in India (ICCA, n.d.), and deep family involvement in Latin America (CCI America Latina, n.d.) suggest the likelihood of uniquely homegrown camp expressions. This qualitative study explored the nature of Christian camping from the lived experience of practitioners in one East African country.

Literature Review

Christian Camp and Conference Association (CCCA) in the USA defines Christian camping as “An experience within a temporary community using outdoor settings and trained leaders to meet spiritual objectives” (Williams, 2002). In their promotional campaigns, CCCA outlines factors that make camp ministry so effective (CCCA, n.d.). Temporary community, they write, offers campers respite from distractions of ordinary life, making space for reflection, exploration and growth (Miles, 1964; Miller, 2014; Slater, 1984; Williams, 2002). Moreover, encounters in nature have generative and palliative benefits for the healthy development of youth and children. Positive peer influence at camp leverages young people's inherent need to belong (Eccles & Gootman, 2002, p. 100; Schwartz, 2006). Finally, non-family adults who facilitate camps powerfully influence campers through loving, immersive relationships (Scales et al., 2006).

Kenyan Camp Context

Kenya, an East African nation, gained independence from the UK in 1963. According to a recent population census, roughly a third of its 47.6 million people live in urban centers (Kenya National Bureau of Statistics [KNBS], 2019, Volume II, pp. 10–11). Those aged 25 and below—the general camp ministry target—constitute 59.4% of the population (KNBS Vol III, p. 14). English is the official language (Priest & Barine, 2017, p. 8) while Kiswahili, the National language, unites the country's 41 ethnic groups (KNBS Vol IV, pp. 423–424). A self-reported 85.5% of the population identify as Christians—reformed Protestants, Catholics, and Evangelicals in numerical rank order (KNBS Vol IV, p. 12).

Western Christian missionaries began accessing interior Kenya in the mid-1800s. Alongside political self-determination in the 1960s, the country enjoyed rapid growth in educational institutions, many with missionary roots. This was accompanied by the emergence of movements such as the high-school focused Kenya Student Christian Fellowship (KSCF) in 1958, and later targeting tertiary institutions, the Fellowship of Christian Unions in 1973 (Mugambi, 2020, pp. 74–77). These movements have offered school holiday camps since the late 1950s.

In 2001, the first recorded indigenous Christian camp-owning organization, Tanari Trust, was formed by five non-denominational churches in Nairobi (Tanari Trust, n.d.). Tanari Trust is best known for systematizing rites of passage camps and other youth ministry innovations, availing them widely to churches. Kenyan communities are familiar with traditional tribal, life transition rites of passage, especially initiation from childhood to adulthood, (Githiga, 2009; Karianjahi, 2015; Kenyatta, 1962; Mahdi et al., 1996). Though Western influences caused their decline over time, their efficacy remains in the memory of many Kenyans. In recent decades, alternative rites of passage, some faith based, have emerged (Hughes, 2018, pp. 274–275). Over the last three decades, church-based rites of passage have become a distinctive feature of homegrown Christian camping in Kenya.

Other indigenous camp facilities have emerged in the last 20 years, including Daystar University's Doulos Freedom Base camp (Daystar, n.d.), and privately owned facilities such as Wendo Retreats and Arboretum (Wendo Retreat, n.d.) and Shunem Retreat Center. Mobile programs such as Camp Winning Ways (Camp Winning Ways, n.d.) have no facilities of their own. Encouraged by CCI, networking of emerging and established camp programs led to the formation of African Christian Camping, whose growing membership straddles seven Eastern African nations (ACC, n.d.). It is increasingly evident that Christian camping is growing as a significant ministry in the region. However, literature on its origins, characteristics and growth trajectory remains sparce.

Method

Although the broader East African camp landscape covered by ACC was of interest, data collection was limited to Kenya by COVID-19 restrictions in July 2021. Notably, however, Kenya has an outsized influence and representation in ACC compared to the rest of the region and offers a good starting point to begin understanding Christian camping in the region.

A collection of 37 purposively recruited (Battaglia, 2008) current and past camp leaders (23 male, 14 female, median age 49) shared their experiences over 3 weeks of qualitative inquiry on the origins, purpose, benefits, challenges and operational definitions of Christian camping in Kenya. Seven participants self-identified as pastors or clergy, 14 were full-time camp workers, and the rest were volunteers. Over three quarters were parents with 8 grandparents, while 7 participants were single.

Initial invitations via a WhatsApp social networking group maintained by ACC yielded 14 who participated in two focus groups; one for “veterans” involved in Christian camping for more than 10 years and the other for younger, more recent entrants. Both took place in Nairobi city. This was followed by semi-structured, individual interviews with 23 practitioners recruited through selective snowball sampling and direct networking in Nairobi, Uasin Gishu, Nakuru and Embu Counties. Conversations, all held in English (with responses flavored by local colloquialisms), were guided by the following questions:

Describe your personal experience with Christian camping since your first encounter.

How would you define Christian camping as practiced in this region?

What is the history of Christian camping in Kenya?

What are current trends, challenges, and desires?

What elements of Christian camping serve what felt needs in the region?

The researcher, previously involved in Christian camping in Kenya as a founder of Tanari Trust and ACC, was personally familiar with all but a handful of the participants. Researcher bias was mitigated by recruiting through intermediaries, broadening the pool of participants beyond both organizations, and confirming results via member checking. All data was audio recorded and transcribed by a local consultant. It was then uploaded onto NVivo computer program for thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Results

Four main themes emerged from data analysis: camp as a reformation of the EAR, extending kinship, discipling intergenerationally, and facilitating transformation. Participants described Christian camping as temporary, immersive gatherings that extend kinship-like belongingness through intergenerational discipleship and redeem traditional rituals for whole-person transformation.

Reforming the Revival

An overarching theme emerging from this study was that Christian camps have over succeeding generations reformed the enduring heritage of the EAR, serving as a bridge to more effectively reach young people. Like their Western counterparts, Kenyan practitioners defined Christian camping as temporary communities gathered for spiritual objectives. People gather in temporary communities for defined time periods with common purposes, often in locations separate from everyday permanent communities (Miles, 1964, p. 50). Participants agreed that whereas African communities had always retreated for spiritual reasons, the EAR was the likely forebearer of temporary, multi-day gatherings for Christian renewal in the region.

It is said that in the West, camp is a noun—focused on facilities, while in the majority world it is a verb—focused on programming (D. Bolin, personal conversations, n.d.). This is true of Kenya, where most camps must find venues to host their programs. Boarding facilities range from school dormitories to classroom floors, church buildings, private homesteads, farmhouses, and when affordable, retreat centers and guesthouses. Whenever available, tents are preferred. A veteran camp patron and Senior Pastor of a large Baptist church in Nairobi summarized:

Of course (facilities such as) Word of Life camps already had living facilities and dormitories and things like that. Some other camps we used … tents. So a camp meant you would see tents, you would see a lot of nature, trees and all that. And then the Word of God would be basic. In our heads, we call [those] Christian camps, it was not a conference, it was not a convention, it was a camp where there is just a lot of activity but outside your norm of church …[or] the city. People would have to go away.

This pastor used terminology (italicized by author) commonly understood by participants. It is desired that campers spend time outside, “in nature.” “Conferences” are indoor gatherings with seminar-like programs focused on a theme, e.g. a leadership conference. A Deliverance Church bishop explained that the term “convention” was introduced by East African Revivalists whose events lasted several days and were “geared [towards] holiness.” A “crusade,” he added, is an evangelistic outreach in public places such as shopping centers or open-air markets.

From its Rwandan origins in the 1930s, the EAR spread, becoming ecumenically ubiquitous throughout Eastern Africa by the 1950s (Ward & Wild-Wood, 2012, pp. 3–4). Revivalism demanded radical conversion, and “walking in the light” in transparent testimony-sharing and accountability (Bruner, 2011, p. 479; Peterson, 2012, p. 106). Young converts found themselves disaffected by meddlesome requirements. A veteran, motherly camp co-director who experienced this in the late sixties shared:

I got saved through a school friend but the only fellowship available for born again people was the Revival. Well, Biblically, I would say I learned a lot, but I found ungodly restrictions as a young person. You are not supposed to do your hair, it has to be cut all the time, you are not supposed to wear a necklace, you are not supposed to wear a straight dress, it has to have pleats …

A retired Bishop of the Anglican Church in Kenya well known for his enduring camp advocacy added:

But now, you know, young people always think … they know better … Yes. Christianity was there, but on the other side as a young people, we thought it was a little bit backward, … restrictions, you cannot wear this, you cannot do this. And … also we had to separate with young girls … We could not be together at any time. So even when we entered the camp hall, the ladies had to sit very far, and we had to sit very far, and in the middle, there were these old people, men and women sitting on each side.

A Kenyatta University professor shared how this youth alienation inspired the eventual formation of the KSCF.

…. a gap was noticed and the only way they could manage was … camp. … And I think if you go to the details of the vision, the mission, and the objectives of KSCF … to where they began in the 1950s, … it was a concern for growth, spiritual growth … (of) teenagers in secondary school…

The General Secretary of KSCF concurred, adding that during one such camp held at Thogoto Teachers Training College in Kabete in 1958, the leaders formalized KSCF as an organization. Instructively Kabete, which straddles Nairobi and Kiambu counties, was also the venue of Kenya's first EAR convention 20 years earlier (Hoehler-Fatton, 2012, p. 73). “So, from 1958 to 2019,” he continued, “… there's no year which [KSCF] never had camp,” till COVID pandemic interruptions. Some veteran focus group participants said they first attended “Sonrise Camps” in the seventies, run by the Deliverance Church (Joe Kayo Ministries, n.d.). Deliverance Church, one explained, emerged as a vibrant, youthful, church alternative for Revivalist descendants. Other churches, notably Presbyterians and Anglicans, eventually caught on and began organizing youth camps during school holidays.

Missionary camps with Western-style relational, small-group focus and youthful fun experiences arrived in the late sixties. The earliest were Word of Life (WOL) (Word of Life Kenya, n.d.), Die Gute Nachricht Für Afrika - DIGUNA (Diguna, n.d.), and eventually the Navigators (Navigators Kenya, 2018), all represented in this study. A former WOL Country Director described tensions that arose between early church camp convention styles and the missionary introductions.

The church camps that we used to see in the 70 s, were really a pain. I mean, imagine teenagers sitting down in a camp convention-style, and somebody is preaching to you, you take a break, you go have either tea or porridge, you come back, there is another preacher, in the afternoon you are dozing, there's another preacher. If you're seen playing games, you are not serious, you are rebuked in the Name of Jesus. … And we got the flack … that our camps were not serious. We had all these jokes and fun and games…But, after a while, people realized, this is what was attracting young people. The young people were getting transformed …. So this became a good model to emulate.

Missionaries, who tended to be well funded, built camp facilities and heavily subsidized costs to campers. In the 1980s, continued the WOL Director emeritus, missionary funding declined after the fall of the Soviet Union led to competing ministry interests in Eastern Europe. This created challenges for emerging Kenyan leaders who were at the time taking the helms of the camps. He continued,

…the funding helped a lot of young people. … But I think it also gave a lot of the young people who are now parents … the impression that there was a bottomless money bag somewhere. And … when we ask them now to pay what it costs to run camp for their children, they … take offense.

Underfunding emerged the most reported challenge facing Christian camp practitioners in the study. They agreed that this was not due to lack of local resources. As missionary camps struggled, a veteran focus group member explained,

… the churches were embracing camping. … At least now they are saying, ‘No, we now think we can run our own (camps) and so we don't need your facility. We can run our own camp.’

Church camps now constitute the largest share of camp activity in the country, riding the memory of the impact that EAR type retreats had in the region almost a century earlier. Camp ministry continues to experience the tensions of reforming the Revivalist convention-ethos into contemporary, contextualized indigenous expressions of experiential programming that allows youth to be youth, and reforming missionary funding models to indigenous resources. It is into this Kenyan camp milieu that networking organizations such as African Christian Camping, the local regional association of the global CCI, are finding footing.

Extending Kinship

A second theme that emerged from this study was that Christian camping in Kenya presents opportunities to create and enhance deep, wholistic, kinship-like relationships. Kenyans are a highly relational people whose worldviews espouse an African ontological dictum “I am because we are; and since we are, therefore I am” (Mbiti, 1969/1989, p. 106). This belongingness traditionally expressed itself through layers of kinship that started with extended families and included age-set cohorts, older or younger sibling agemates, parental figures and elders (Githiga, 2009; Kenyatta, 1938/1962). Kinship as a cultural construct has been defined as the ways in which people selectively interpret the common human experiences of reproduction and nurturance (Howell & Paris, 2010, p. 166). Whereas this refers to biological reproduction, anthropologists describe ritual kinship which goes beyond blood relations, and brings together would be strangers and other unrelated persons into purposive, lifelong relationships (Ishino, 1953, pp. 695–696). Study participants rarely used kinship terminology, but described deep, long-term camp-fueled relationships akin to this African concept of belongingness. Traditional kinship ties were nurtured at village gatherings, rituals and celebrations. Participants similarly described camps as opportunities to form new and celebrate existing relationships. A veteran camp leader who now pastors a non-denominational mega-church recalled:

… it was just so exciting to go to a new town. And it's almost like you have a group of people you know, but you have another 200 people you don't know. So, the rest that you don't know become the exciting thing. I get to develop new friends. But there was still the safety of a few people that you know. You never quite felt a stranger because you've come with a group.

Residential camps, as would be expected, better nurture round the clock relational rewards. Another pastor and veteran camp leader fondly remembered his days as a camper,

… one of the things that God did in the 90 s, was to take us to (camp) meetings together, to sit and be taught. And we went every year. And we got to know which people snored when they sleep, and how they react when they have no money in the pocket. So I can tell you ‘Huyu hana! Huyu hana pesa sasa! (This one is broke!).’

Kinship is a lifetime commitment. Participants described relationships forged at camps the same way one might describe discovering a relative who thereafter remains connected. A mother whose family would sometimes offer their home as a camp venue, shared:

… some of these relationships are going to be lifetime relationships. They make friends. Like when I think of our own children going to camp, even though it was [at] our house, the relationships they built as young kids, they still hold them dearly. And those are the people … now influencing them in their lives.

A veteran camp patron and bishop of a large Deliverance Church congregation in Nairobi reminisced:

One of the things that I miss currently where I am is the warmth of the brethren as they prayed together. Because the focus of camp, depending on the theme, and every speaker speaking towards the theme, you leave a camp equipped, trained, and you also make friends. Some of the greatest friends that I have today are the ones that I made between 1972 and 75…

The celebrative and fun nature of camps is kinship glue. The former WOL Director recounted how as a young camper decades ago, he was surprised that “… it was possible to be a Christian and enjoy yourself, have a lot of fun. I met … some of the funniest people I ever met at camp.” Even chores, some as menial as washing dishes or cleaning toilets, are part of this fun because as a young focus group participant shared, “they are …things we are doing together.”

For one veteran leader, camp was a refuge from toxic relationships at home in her youth. Camp kinship addresses internal and external brokenness. “We had … from the poorest to the richest,” said the WOL Director emeritus. Their day camps, situated close to informal settlements, met not only spiritual needs but also social and physical.

These are kids from the slums, and they are not sure they're going to get a cup of tea and a piece of bread (at home). We can assure them of that … and to ensure that they come early, we serve breakfast. Then we start the program on time. … we have a Bible hour, we have discussions, we have sports and fun times …

At traditional African communal events, feasting enhanced kinship. Similarly, study participants described camps as immersive opportunities that facilitate extended, kin-like relationships. This kinship reaches beyond the adage “blood is thicker than water,” and is better captured by “faith is thicker than blood” (Gans, 2016, pp. 13–14).

Discipling Intergenerationally

Closely related to extending kinship, intergenerational discipleship is at the heart of Christian camping in Kenya. Participants described how opportunities to share faith, knowledge, wise counsel, life skills, social capital and other forms of relational currency motivates camp involvement. Using traditional age-cohort language, the retired Anglican bishop gave examples:

The age-group, you see, of young people, according to the KAYO [Kenya Anglican Youth Organization] constitution, (are) all people from 15 years to 35. That's the people we used to call the youth…. Of course, there were other elderly people, but these people were friends of the youth, … capable of overseeing these others. And … we could spot other gifts from these young people … we could now call them in the mid-year, in August for training. … they were like the trainers of trainers so that they can duplicate this in their parishes. And … now we could call them leaders.

Such leadership development emerged as a major subtheme of intergenerational discipleship. A veteran focus group participant who co-leads an ecumenical youth ministry alongside her husband remembered her ad-hoc leadership immersion.

A lot of us would never get a chance to lead actively within the church setting. … in a camp setting they need more leaders, and they need more volunteers. That's how we sort of plugged into leadership. I don't think I was prepared to be a leader in a camp the first time I went. … they looked at me and said, ‘Oh you, lead a small group!’ And I was like, ‘Really? I've never led a small group.’ And it … after that [experience] I was like ‘Wow! I can do this.’ And so it built confidence … the fact that they trusted me to lead a small group in a camp.

As in her case, most study participants rose to leadership due to the dire need for volunteers at camps. The term “volunteers” was used in two ways. In the first, veteran patrons—who in this study included denominational Bishops, senior pastors, college professors and parachurch leaders—avail themselves as patrons, offering camps social capital, wisdom, mentoring and resources. The second category are younger, sometimes untrained volunteers who serve as “older siblings” at camp primarily because they are available, often without formal screening or training. Their recruitment to serve, and their leadership development, is often organic, reflecting a broader cultural expectation that older kin mind younger siblings.

Some organizations such as Diguna, WOL, Tanari Trust, Wendo Retreats and Arboretum, and the regional African Christian Camping association, now offer intentional volunteer training programs. Some churches are also intentional about developing leaders through camp ministry. A mega-church senior pastor whose youth ministry days spanned multiple churches recounted his strategy:

The committee of the youth camps were teenagers, they would organize everything for the camp. So it was very fresh because it's not led by the pastor. It's not led by a group of adults. It's teenagers…. they plan everything, they plan it, and they decide who's speaking among themselves. The pastor obviously would give them ideas, … but then those camps, the unique part of those camps is they were probably the most Word focused camps I have ever been at.

Some in the study used the term “life skills” as a desired outcome of the intergenerational discipleship. Life skills are defined as possessing requisite mastery or knowledge of useful preventative and proactive abilities, social and emotional competencies, and critical thinking (Murphy-Graham & Cohen, 2022, p. 18). Participants articulated desired discipleship outcomes such as “character building,” “responsible citizen, … a sense of discipline,” “kindness, sharing, … the simple things, … punctuality,” “confidence, … self-esteem, …respect,” “growing up,” and “values, … entrepreneurship.” These are often acquired at camp through incarnational relationships, chores, initiatives and adventure activities.

The term discipleship was used to by participants to mean “traditional mentoring,” defined as “transmitting and maintaining cultural, societal, or organizational standards, structures, values, and processes. In this type of mentoring, the mentor is the teacher and the mentee is the learner” (Kochan & Pascarelli, 2012). The expectation is that the recipient grows, and in turn disciples others (2 Timothy 2:2). The term discipleship was also used to mean evangelism.

Intergenerational kinship and the need to pass on cultural values, knowledge and skills is therefore deeply ingrained in local cultures. The round the clock immersive setting of camps makes for ideal life-on-life, gospel-sharing, leadership training and life skills transmitting discipleship across generations.

Facilitating Transformation

Whereas youth are largely drawn to camp by the promise of relationships, the top reason why facilitators and patrons invest their time, wisdom and treasure on camps is that they fully expect campers to be transformed. Study participants communicated their innate motivation to multiply and nurture Christ-like disciples who are equipped with life skills requisite to their life stages and are better connected to healthy intergenerational community. Camps in Kenya are ritual spaces for transformation.

The assumed efficacy of camps to transform may be described as mythical, where myth refers not to naïve falsities as sometimes understood, but to stories that give expression “to deep commonly held beliefs and felt emotions” (Moreau, 2018, p. 101). Camp is expected to engender deep, wholistic change. A young focus group participant shared:

… it is creating somebody new. I mean, camp has to bring somebody else out of you. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. It's kind of a re-creation, not recreation in the way we know it…re-creation as in God creating somebody new.

A veteran focus group member recalled an experience that exemplified this:

When they landed in that place, they were so ready for God. They were in this hut where the revival began, and we were supposed to be there for 10, 15 min…just to get a briefing … and something just…I mean…God just checked in. And we were in that room for about two hours. I was not leading anything, the kids were praying, this one starts a song, this one starts praying, people got healed, people got saved. When we got out of that place, it was a different crowd of people. And all of them now…now they are adults.

Significant efforts are expected to go toward sharing the Gospel, Bible teaching and corporate worship. Proprietors of one camp in Embu County were clear that their facility is designed to provide space for worship and retreat. They discourage loud activities “…because if we have just groups that want to jump and sing, and dance the whole day, and these other people who are just concentrating on prayer, … (they are) disturbing them.” This camp nevertheless also facilitates experiential programs such as faith-based rites of passage.

Rites of passage programs emerged as the most prominent contextualization of camp ministry in the study. A veteran focus group participant shared why Rites of Passage Experiences (ROPES), a program run by roughly 60 churches each year and supported by Tanari Trust (Tanari Trust, n.d.), resonates with an African ethos:

I think … ROPES has sort of borrowed and mirrored a bit of our African culture in terms of … transitioning a young person from childhood to adulthood …. I think it's unique to our culture that we have a ceremony… To give memories, we have symbols that we use, we have a process that they … go through, and there is content for teaching and helping them to transition well. I think that has been sort of a unique element … that Ropes … incorporate[s] the camping element …[and] they have the moment when they talk to their parents and… have a heart-to-heart conversation about … going into adulthood. …. I think it's beautiful that way!

Some churches serving communities that value male circumcision as part of transitions plan the medical “cut” as part of the larger faith-based program. Most work hard to ensure that girls are equally celebrated without female circumcision (which would be illegal). A college professor involved in a Presbyterian parish in the Rift Valley shared how his church engages intergenerational community with candidates of both genders:

… the Women's Guild [works]… in conjunction with the Men's Fellowship … because we have to work in sync and also because the topics that we (men) handle are also taught to the girls. So the girls go to another venue and they have people coming to train them on the diverse topics that I mentioned. … So yes, the girls get to benefit out of this program. And … the girls will also graduate at the same time as the boys.

Faith-based rites of passage programs in Kenya have gained recognition and adoption since the mid-1990s. This study identified at least four apparently independent geneses of such programs. Denominational Presbyterian and Anglican programs whose origins are uncertain are likely the most widespread. Faculty from two colleges, Jomo Kenyatta University in Nairobi and Moi University in Uasin Gishu County independently started programs, convicted of the need for such interventions by their research. Tanari Trust, whose seminal rites of passage camps started in 1997, focuses on training churches and other youth-focused entities to run their own ROPES programs (Tanari Trust, n.d.). Some study participants were drawn to camp ministry by these programs.

The foremost reason why churches, families, camp leaders and other stakeholders in Kenya send children and youth to camp emerged as belief in the ministry's efficacy to transform and establish them firmly into the extended kinship of faith by facilitating connectedness, discipleship and rites of passage.

Conclusions, Implications and Recommendations

This study explored Christian camping as described by local Kenyan practitioners. Camp ministry in Kenya may be described as an emergent reformation of the EAR that extends Christian kinship through intergenerational discipleship and contextualized indigenous rituals.

The almost mythical expectation that wholistic, Spirit-led transformation will take place when people retreat to camp gatherings is a legacy of the EAR. Initially a counter-cultural, youth-led movement, Revivalists confronted the plateauing, tepid faith of local churches, while rejecting wider social and cultural norms they considered unredeemed (Ward, 2012, p. 19). Over time, however, revivalists failed to remain relevant to changing generational culture, leaving gaps that were tackled by youth camps. Young people are now sent to camp with the expectation that they will return changed. Families, churches, schools and other youth institutions have much to learn from how camps remain relevant to the everchanging, outsized youth demographic. I propose starting by adopting relational, small-group focused, experiential ministry formats and limiting convention-type preaching and lecturing which appealed to generations past.

Young people's proclivity for intergenerational relationships evidenced at camp offers opportunities to engage them better as members of Christ's household (Ephesians 2:19–22). Revivalists “were not isolated individuals. They wanted to model a purified form of traditional community, emphasizing their membership of a new clan, recreating old communitarian values in a new form…” (Ward & Wild-Wood, 2012, p. 5). Fellowship energized at conventions transitioned to permanent community and grew extended families of brothers and sisters (Larsson, 2012, p. 124). The explicit kinship language of siblings, parents, uncles and aunties, elders and other clan members appeals more to young people than that of “community.” Kinship connotes direct, long-term connectedness, while in Kenyan parlance, community is more distant, utilitarian and transient, with overtones of local government patronage. Embracing a kinship mindset may influence the church's overall ministries of evangelism, discipleship, care and even restoration of the penitent (Luke 15:11–32).

The burgeoning of church-based rites of passage camp programs is an instructive contextualization of traditional practices for contemporary times. Africans embrace a wholistic worldview that seamlessly integrates the physical and spiritual. They accept rituals, proclamations and blessings as mystery which “… [constitute] spiritual power that is not of human origin but is at the foundation of everything that exists” (Magesa, 2013, pp. 24–25). Revivalists rejected what they considered “idolatrous practices of the old religion” (Ward & Wild-Wood, 2012, p. 5), reflecting the era's ambivalence toward African Traditional Religions. African theologians have since boldly reclaimed some traditions as evidence of God's redemptive work long before the advent of Western missionaries (Gatũ, 2016; Mbiti, 1989; Mugambi, 2020; Sanneh, 2003). The efficacy of church-based rites of passage validates such claims (Karianjahi, 2015). More broadly, experiential elements of Christian camping are often contextualized to reflect a distinctly African flavor. Worship songs at camp are African in expression and dance. Activities that tend to focus on individual experience (such as solos) generally reflect Western influence, while kinship-enhancing elements reflect indigenous culture. Camp therefore serves as a place where the best Western and African motifs are creatively integrated into a distinctively African expression of worship (2 Timothy 2:20–21).

The claim that Christian camping is a contemporary reformation of the EAR that extends Christian kinship through intergenerational discipleship and contextualized indigenous rituals requires further interrogation. To what extent, for example, do the themes of kinship, intergenerational discipleship, expectation of transformation and the strong link to the EAR resonate with camp practitioners in the country? This study offers a springboard for possible quantitative exploration of how practitioners can leverage on distinctly contextual camp elements to train existing and emerging leaders as the ministry gains momentum in the East African region and beyond.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Muhia Karianjahi

References

ACC. (n.d.). African Christian Camping | Home. Retrieved September 21, 2021, from http://acc.rocketspark.co.nz/

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Extending Kinship Through Christian Camping in an East African Nation

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Literature Review

Kenyan Camp Context

Method

Results

Reforming the Revival

Extending Kinship

Discipling Intergenerationally

Facilitating Transformation

Conclusions, Implications and Recommendations

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

ORCID iD

References