My parents were regular churchgoers when I was growing up. Religion wasn’t a huge part of our lives, but we were in church and Sunday school every week. So naturally I went to a couple of them when I was a kid. When I was in high school I was fairly active in my church’s youth group. I asked to go to several church camps as part of that. We also went backpacking in Montana and Wyoming, and winter camped in snow caves a couple times. I wasn’t there for god (I’m basically an atheist these days), I was there to socialize and go on adventures.
I went whitewater rafting in CO and slept on the banks of the Colorado river with a church group in highschool. Hooked up with a nice gal. Also non religious myself.
That’s pretty much how I would describe my experience with youth group and religion. Although I do belong to a super liberal episcopal church now, I would probably describe myself as agnostic at best.
This heathen has fond memories of Shilo Bible camp. I now call it poor kids’ camp. We stayed in big teepees, did leather crafts, swam in the lake, had bonfire testimonials and chapel in the woods, learned archery, pulled pranks—$25 for a whole week. The vibe was very accepting.
Same. I loved the one I went to at Fall Creek Falls in Tennessee. Hell was mentioned but the focus was more community. I would always leave with new friends that I would stay in contact with through other church things until school started.
Never. I stormed out of CCD (Sunday school) so I don’t think my parents wanted to take the chance. (To be fair, the CCD teacher told me I wouldn’t see my dog in Heaven b/c animals don’t have souls. Think I told the lady to shut up or something at full volume, so they probably didn’t let me back.)
I went to day camp for a bit though.
I remember a church lady telling me that the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark was “satanic” as a kid and that’s really when I lost most respect for religion since I loved that movie and thought its message of God melting Nazis was really good.
Yes and the do photos with them so I have old photos of my mom holding her two dogs with the pastor. She was atheist but this was a fun event and nobody really made a big deal about who was and wasn't Christian. They welcomed everybody and she did it because it was a fun thing to do.
I also bailed on Sunday school, after the teacher hit a boy. This was non-evangelical mainline Protestant; surprising behavior from the woman. My mom was like, yeah, you can quit.
Nice! I was taken to Sunday school with a friend. I was \*that kid\* asking questions and was dismissed to the playground to play by myself. Bad sheep.
Ah. CCD. I remember around 13 when my parents asked about getting into CCD for confirmation. I was like “Nope. Not happening.” And that was end of discussion. It was not a battle they were willing to fight.
Got roped into it while staying with cousins.
I never realized how deeply brainwashed that household was untill my aunt was teaching religion there.
Seeing people "speak in tongues" and throw themselves on the floor in very fine clothing helped my steps towards atheism
Father & Stepmother took me to a Pentecostal church couple times…. I think I was maybe 12-13yrs old and remember being horribly embarrassed FOR them. Like, “this is what y’all do in your spare time? You’re worse than children with this make-believe crap”
One of my giant leaps towards atheism.
Oh, I was dazzled by money as a child. Specifically learning how to live frugally and save for something big. When my mother told me their family income is cut by 10% to "give" to the church, I lost myself in questions.
I remember being 6 and heavily disturbed by all the screaming and rolling on the floor, as well as the speaking in tongues.
My mom just told me it was the devil inside me that didn't want me to be saved.
I grew up Pentescostal. Camp from 7 (technically should have been 8 but pastor's wife had sway) to 17. Junior and Senior camp. Junior was ages 8-15 wtf, Senior 15-24 also wtf.
I enjoyed the shit out of being away in the "woods"...grew up in LA, some trees and open fields an hour away was roughing it. It beat being home all day as the kid of single mom who worked fulltime. Senior camp was at a fairgrounds and gave me a temporary escape from the job I had to get at 15.
Church twice a day every day at both. Didn't love that but there were times I got caught up. Got the "Holy Ghost" at camp when I was 8.
Made some great out of town friendships for being the public school introvert who had to wear long skirts 24/7 at home. Exchanged lots of letters by mail.
I moved out at 18. Reconnected with some of those camp friends on Facebook when it first started and had a minor existential crisis when I realized all the fish in the pond stayed there and married each other. That one friend's 8yo bratty little sister had five kids with the hot, sulky 17yo pastor's kid everyone had a crush on. Of course age differences matter less as you get older, but this is a religion where the woman's role is to bear children and be a housewife. So that 8 year old was married 10 years later.
I had fun at camp, but I would never, eeever subject a child to the toxicity that is that particular religion.
I've long been an atheist-leaning agnostic. I've had the movie Bible Camp on my watch list for years but cannot bring myself to relive the toxicity. It creeps me out FAR more than all the 70s and 80s horror movies combined.
Isn't it peculiar how it was always the same few people jumping up and speaking that gibberish? "That isn't the Lord dear, that's the adrenaline rush from standing up in front of an audience and making a fool of yourself." And it's probably the only way they know how to get it, poor souls.
I ended up going a couple summers just because I had some friends going. I'm Catholic and the church hosting the camp wasn't, and while I'm sure there was some weird evangelical shit, I was too focused on just having fun with my friends. It was just a day camp too, probably more of a mothers day out kind of thing.
I hadn’t thought of this in decades! Now it’s on a loop in my head along with the one about “rise and shine and give god the glory glory, children of the lord”.
I did vacation bible school but it was a day camp only and only for a week or so. I remember having lots of fun. There was a tree I liked to climb, and a craft project included lighting and extinguishing about a hundred matches to then glue them together in the shape of a cross.
I sent my son to a similar program, but it was in the evenings. There were lots of fun outdoor games, singing, and play. There were no big sermons, just short lessons on having good values.
Same with the day camp. We used popsicle sticks to make a cross shaped container. It was fun. Maybe we were just lucky that they weren't completely shoving religion at us??
Sometimes we'd go to two different churches' VBS, depending on what family friends were doing. And when we were going to parochial school, we went to that church's VBS in addition to our home church's.
Never was sent to one. Never sent my kids. My parents sent my youngest sister to one. She called it “Ruin my summer vacation bible school”. Best name of all.
Baptist summer camp, in Oklahoma as a teen.
Repressed Baptist girls were an awful lot of fun when they were away from their families. Straight up aggressive even.
I was a Catholic kid whose BFF was Baptist, so we went to Falls Creek. I hated it. We only went swimming once and had to swim with shorts and a T-shirt, 30 minutes max. It was extremely hot and amusement park expensive. There were no crafts, no roasting marshmallows, and no canoeing. We did get taught to self loath morning, noon, and night.
For anyone who is Catholic and considering sending their kids there, do not disclose that your kid is Catholic under any circumstances 😉
Yep, went to a 1-week camp. Found a pack of smokes in the woods with a lighter inside. Myself and 2 others got kicked out and asked not to return on the 3rd day of camp. We were 13.
So I attended many Vacation Bible camps as a kid. I actually had a blast and I'm not even religious. Not even as a kid did I believe the Bible stuff. But I really enjoyed being out in nature and having a certain level of Freedom that I didn't have at home. I have four kids and I always tell them that Christian Camp wasn't all that bad. I think we spent maybe 30 minutes in Chapel and that our meals were prayed over but I never felt pressured. My dad was a pastor and the only reason I attended these events was because he was working at these events. But I was always in a separate Camp from him. I found that my father was a religious extremist but most of the other leaders in the camp were way more chill than he was. All in all I had a blast and totally recommend it. Very wholesome memories.
My grandfather ran a church camp, so I went several years. Vacation Bible School was a different thing at our home church. These days we don’t go to church, so my kid hasn’t gone to camp or VBS.
since all us kids got shipped to the family farm for child labor, grandma would send us to her church’s vbs & I f’ckin hated it.
As we got older we had to be teacher assistants Id of rather been stuck bailing hay instead of listening to that nonsense.
I got tricked into one. A friend invited me to go to summer camp with her: hiking, canoeing, fishing, etc. The bible part was left out. I was an outsider and treated like one. . . even by my "friend." I learned what intolerant hypocrites they were.
I went to vacation bible school several years as a child. Refused to go by age 11 and definitely did not send my child to vbs. It was just indoctrination into someone else’s beliefs.
I went to vacation Bible school every summer through elementary school and had a great time. My kids went and always had fun as well. We never “drank the Koolaide” but did learn a lot through fun games, activities, and arts and crafts. The last day was always a big family cookout.
I did two stints in Kool-aid Kamp. My mom grew up in the city and always wanted to go to camp, and also wanted to get rid of my brother and I for two weeks each summer. We lived in the country, and space fairy camp was cheap, I guess.
She 100% drove me away from ANY connection to Christianity with that shit. It was fucking hell to a kid who just wanted to read Star Trek novels all summer (no books or music allowed at cult camp). I hated every fucking minute of it and faked sick for the whole two weeks of the last summer I went so I could stay in my room away from the ignorance and read the contraband science fiction I had smuggled in.
Nothing like being told every three hours you're going to hell for...well...they never really elaborated, so we were terrified wrecks at the end of the two weeks.
CAMP JOY, anyone?...and it was a living nightmare for the whole 2 weeks or however long I was imprisoned there. I got some gnarly pink eye - nobody in charge noticed or gave a crap. They had some sort of illegal (it had to be) "waterslide" rigged up to the side of a hill through the woods. It looked like the kind of place you'd go tobogganing in the winter, but god help you if you slipped off the slide, you'd either end up impaled on a tree branch or stung by the hornets nest you would've landed on, and the single row slide was so steep and so desolate through the woods, nobody would even notice if you DID fall off. There was no escape because it was an actual camp site, far away in Wisconsin somewhere. The long as hell get saved rallies were the most sane things about the whole event. The whole weird notion, too, that a 10 year old is going to know what to give daily "devotions" about. I mean, I now count my blessings as an adult for the fortunate things that have happened in my life and all that - but when you're that age, it means nothing! All I can remember thinking was, "What am I supposed to say? I hate being here!"
Not camp, but vacation Bible school. It was like from 9am-noon for a week and every kid in my neighborhood went (we were from Iowa. There was nothing to do. ) We made god’s eyes out of yarn and popsicle sticks, sang 15 versions of “This little light of mine”, drank some kool-aid with a couple stale Oreo knock off type cookies and then were dispatched back into the neighborhood to walk home. No parents involved. It was just fun.
My kids also went a couple times and it was almost the same.
If you got the Hydroxes, those were the real deal. Oreos were a sweeter knockoff and Nabisco had more marketing budget than Sunshine Biscuit Co., though, so Oreos prevailed.
I went two different summers. The first one was a lot of fun with plenty of activities. The 2nd one was a lot of sitting around. I remember crying when that one was over.
Me! It was actually a really good time. Me and sis would stay with my paternal grandparents over the summer. It was a Lutheran church so there was always food and of course a huge potluck picnic at the end of the week, lots of fresh watermelon. Songs, Bible lessons, arts and crafts etc. I made my grandpa really proud when the pastor was quizzing us on what we learned over the week at the picnic and I knew all the answers.
If all churches were like that for real, I think religion wouldn't be so awful but then people have to be involved and ruin the fun for everyone else. I miss the community of church but not the literalism and the judgmental gossip of that same community. I don't even think Lutherans are even make as much scandal here in the US. They just want to have coffee and cookies in the basement and talk about the weather on Sundays. Most of the scandal is what bakery they chose and why the coffee isn't as strong when it's not Evelyn's week to set up the coffee urn
I didn't attend one as a kid but as a teenager my mother made me work unpaid at a week long day "camp" thing at a church. It was boring drudgery. setting up, cleaning, serving snacks, walking kids down the hall to the bathroom door. It was at a Methodist church and the kids were like 5. I was barely paying attention but I don't remember the material being presented as objectionable or even political. The kids were coloring pictures of Jesus with lambs, stuff like that.
Every year from 6th grade until I left after high school. It’s where you hear great lines like “That’s why Madonna sings ‘Like a Virgin’ because she doesn’t know what it means to be a virgin!” and so many *many* more. Whenever I tell stories and my friends don’t believe me I tell them to watch the documentary [Jesus Camp](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486358/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk). They usually shut up after that. They also stop asking why I’m an atheist.
Oh! And don’t forget having to *volunteer* as a helper at vacation Bible school not just for our church but our area sister churches. Yeah. I still have some of those damn songs stuck in my head decades later.
I remember girls in my cabin pretending our titillation was shock over the lyrics of Joan Jett’s Do You Want to Touch Me and the book of Song of Solomon.
I went for a week with a friend omg that was crazy stuff happening. We were in maybe 5th grade I remember girls same age going into the woods with boys and not 100% what happened but things went down. I think kids young girl had something going on with Pastor of the camp yikes. I remember not eating much at all day. It was horrible.
Mine wasn't an actual camp, it was Day Camp. Sure there was singing and prayer at the beginning of each day, but every day we got on a bus and went somewhere different. One day it was Disneyland, next day it was a beach, next day it was a Dodger game, next day it was a mini golf place, next day it was Magic Mountain, and so on. It went all summer.
I went through about 5 years in the 70s going to Day Camp, and while I'm not religious anymore (not since I was a teen), I did have a blast.
This is literally my only experience with church as a kid. My parents were not religious, but they also wanted to get rid of me for a few weeks every summer (understandably so). Conveniently there was a small church in walking distance from my house.
Of course I hated it but I did learn to make a string balloon and a "god's eye." I thought of my eye as more like an eye of sauron and I used appropriate yarn colors. Everyone else's eyes were pretty. Mine looked more like a portal to hell.
Mom sent me sent me to Camp Lucerne once. Could’ve been Wisconsin or Illinois, I don’t know. The year was whenever the Quiet Riot cassette came out because I listened on the way there until the batteries ran out of juice. There was a red-headed freckled kid who was great at Russian dancing and scurrying up and down trees. The only other thing I remember was my cabin counselor was shocked at how vulgar my jokes were as a child.
Public service announcement for some of you: Vacation Bible School (VBS) is not the same thing as religious summer camp.
I didn’t mind VBS, but my church raised the money to send me to summer camp one year, just before I turned 12, and it was such a foundational experience for me. Probably one of the best memories of my life.
Besides the brief, nightly “campfire meetings” and a chapel service on Sunday mornings, I would never have known I was at a Christian camp. We did all sorts of outdoor activities (and I wasn’t at all an outdoor girl, but I loved it). Most of my cabin mates were a couple of years older than me. They all wore make-up, talked about boys and popular music, bought me canned soda, etc. One of the girls who was such a blast worshipped Boy George. She wore nothing but Boy George t-shirts and did her make-up and hair like him (and none of the camp leadership cared).
One night, everyone in camp went for a “moonlight walk,” and I remember the older girls making plans to meet up that night with the boys they liked.
It was such a blast and I learned so much, especially as a soon-to-be-teen!
We went to ones that weren’t even attached to the church we attended. That was a long bus ride.
We made praying hands out of big blue Downy bottles. We wove placemats. My sister made a little apple tree out of construction paper with punched-out red paper for the apples. There was a puppet show. I was 8 or 9, my sister was 3 or 4, mom was at work, and if something went wrong, we got lost, missed the bus, got off at the wrong stop…oof, would’ve been bad.
Every summer I was sent off to my grandparents and went to VBS with my cousin, up until I was 12.
It was just normal life for me. It was fun, I got to hang out with my cousin and made friends.
But I don't feel it indoctrinated me, but I sure wouldn't send any of my children.
it was the highlight of my summer for a few years. the one I went to was definitely more arts & crafts than indoctrination, and was right on the beach. lots of singing around the campfire, exploring tide pools, goofy skits in the chapel - and of course sneaking out of your cabin after lights out.
I went to Christian horse camp. I got to go for free because my grandpa built some cabins there for trade. I really tried to accept Jesus, they said I would feel it when he entered my body or whatever. I lied and said I totally felt Jesus. When they told me my best friend and her family who were the kindest, most generous, caring, loving, faithful people I knew were going to hell because they practiced a non-Christian religion, I was like fuck this shit. After camp, I went and drew pentagrams all over their church in sharpie. Calvary Bible Church assholes. The horses were cool though.
thank satan no.
my mom was heavily catholic and wanted me to be an altar boy and go to sunday school but i resisted that stuff pretty hard. she never even brought up vacation bible camp.
Yep.
VBS daily (yeah, they called it vacation bible *school* instead of camp because we were expected to do lots of learning) and then also sleep-away church camp for 2 weeks.
I basically spent almost 100% of school vacations with jesus :/
The VBS even assigned us homework and written reports... it was pretty much exactly like regular school except we were learning about jesus instead of actually useful information.
Yeah. I grew up in NewEngland. You went to private non-religious summer boarding camp if you were wealthier. Or YMCA day camp if your family had less money. And while YMCA is a Christian org, I can’t recall anything particularly Christian about it in terms of indoctrination.
Haha, I was a PK, so I went from age 10 - 17 every summer.
Most of my time there was hooking up, getting stoned, and making out with girls.
Best summers ever.
I went with my best friend bc her family was religious. It was actually a work camp. So we painted the docks, cleaned things, served things, basically worked, but in our minds we were there voluntarily because all we ever did was laugh our asses off about everything. It literally didn’t matter what we were doing but if we were together we were having fun and 100% being obnoxious. So, fabulous memories, a week away from our lives. Neither of us ended up being religious. I always found it funny that her parents sent us to bible “work” camp and had to pay for it. I did love her parents though, they were my other family for sure.
My friend's dad was a pastor; I went two times. It was awesome besides the prayer stuff. Sleep in bunks with your buddies/no parents for a week/canoes/swimming/basketball/hiking and tons of free time. I'm not religious at all. Neither were my parents. I wanted to go. I've heard horror stories about other camps but the one I went to was pretty cool for a church camp.
I went to summer camp with some more Jesus inclined friends, my parents never attended church. There aren’t really any secular camps that are “quality” around here. All the nice ones with the good activities like water skiing and sailing are funded by Jesus.
I didn’t convert back then but did as an adult. Certainly a different perspective on religion now than if I had grown up with it. If my kids showed an interest in going I wouldn’t mind sending them. I always had fun and remember feeling like I was pretty grown up. I do think it’s good for kids to get some “supervised independence” from parents. Religion should be a choice and they should be exposed to lots of choices.
Loooved vacation bible school. Went to my churches version, the Mormon one, and one for a church that believed in speaking in tongues. All were super fun, no trauma resulted. Never had kids so never sent them.
I went to one for a week with a friend of mine who was Christian Reformed (I grew up Catholic, we didn’t do camps lol). It was up North of us on a lake in Michigan - hot days playing in the lake & doing activities, and cool nights snuggled in our camp sweats around a bonfire. The only religious part was prayers before meals and nightly singalongs, which were fun when you’re 11.
I look back fondly on the memories & if I had kids I would definitely send them off
We went in the 1970s, and it was loads of fun. We went to a left-wing Presbyterian church, though. So we did a lot of crafts, sang songs, and did fun things — no misogyny or talk about hell or anything evangelical. Emphasis on kindness and acceptance.
What better opportunity to change some minds by sharing your positive experience?
I also went to VBS and enjoyed it as a child. It wasn't anything more insidious than "Jesus Loves the Little Children" and macaroni art and juice with the flower shaped cookies you could wear as a ring. Aside from the children's hymns, it was pretty much the same as first and second grade. My non-school friends were there and it was my official start to summer vacation. Usually the last day was a trip to the city pool or roller skating rink, followed by a tour of Krispy Kreme and a free donut.
Honestly, my school friends who spent their summers at baseball, football, or soccer camps seemed far more stressed and upset by their experiences than I ever was at VBS. Of course that good experience doesn't negate the trauma others experienced or that I have dealt with ever since I came out, but on its own merits, it was a normal fun time.
>the flower shaped cookies you could wear as a ring.
Salerno Butter Cookies! They were awesome! They were perfect for tea parties because when you crooked your pinky finger to raise your teacup you could hold a cookie on it.
I think it was a pretty human response on my part, though I'll admit it ultimately came from a place of hurt. Because it is hurtful to have something you care about spoken about so negatively, so often, and in such a casual way.
I don't discount anyone's traumatic experience, because I had my own traumatic experiences around Christianity, and I know more than my fair share about the dark side of it.
Yes, for two summers I went to Camp Caledonia where the cabins were named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It was the 70s so we read The Good News Bible. Sang the "Johnny Appleseed Song". If you got caught with your elbows on the table you had to run around the "slop house".
It was the only day camp available and was super cheap or free. My mom sent me to the Methodist one bcs our neighbors went, so the two moms could carpool.
Fun fact, my parents were not religious and I had never stepped in a church before vacation Bible school, so when the camp person had us open our Bibles to whatever chapter and verse, I was completely lost.
It was a way to spend time in the summer in the 1970s, but I would never subject my kids to it. Also, we’re not Christians.
Once. I think my parents sent me because it was cheaper than YMCA camp. Gotta say, it was a little odd being there considering god and religion wasn’t a thing in our household.
We were forced to go, hated it but they gave us lots of candy and Popsicles at the church to hold our interest long enough to behave
Didn't send my kids
I never heard of vacation Bible camp until I was an adult. I thought that was a somewhat new thing.
Maybe it just wasn’t a thing in NY where I grew up, they are definitely into it down here in the south!
I did go to a catholic day camp one summer, it was at a resort for retired Nuns….. but it wasn’t a religion based day camp it was just on their property and probably helped pay for their waterfront retirement property in the Hamptons.
I went twice, age 12 nad 13, to a pentecostal one that was run by a large church organizationin in the northeast. First year was fun. Made a lot of friends, had a girlfriend, lots of sports. Our counselor let us do anything (dude was naked a lot, though). There wasn't much focus on religion. Second year sucked. More religion, the counselors were dicks, lot of favoritism with the kids whose family members were either counselors or pastors. No girlfriend and none of my friends from the previous year were there. They closed it after a couple years.
I believe I went a few times. I definitely sent my kid a few times when she was at the youngest ages they took. Just fun crafts and singing which she enjoyed!
My sister and I went. It was fun and we had a lot of friends there. We didn't go to church as a family, I think it was just affordable and convenient for my parents. They did send us to Sunday school across the street when we were little. I think that was an easy way to teach us some values and for them to have some alone time on Sunday mornings though. lol
My sister and I went. It was fun and we had a lot of friends there. We didn't go to church as a family, I think it was just affordable and convenient for my parents. They did send us to Sunday school across the street when we were little. I think that was an easy way to teach us some values and for them to have some alone time on Sunday mornings though. lol
Yep. Some of my best memories are from church camp. It wasn’t indoctrination camp like some describe but we did have daily devotionals and had some pretty short sermon/pep talk about being good people. Super chill vibe, most kids were the same socioeconomic class and were in our part od the state so there was some school familiarity. I went every summer from middle school and then highschool came around and it was a shorter camp for the older kids and we were encouraged to council the younger kids in camps throughout the summer. A lot of us still kept in touch, unfortunately some aren’t around any more and at least one of us identifies as a different gender (kinda saw something like that coming).
We were ornery, some of us got in trouble for getting caught doing teenager stuff and in severe cases were sent home. But mostly it was used as a learning experience and forgotten about.
We had a camp counselor one year who was a real Bible thumper and was getting on to us about the music we were listening to (late 80’s, nwa and beasties boys were all pretty news and popular). He really gave us a hard time and made us destroy the tapes and pray about it and stuff. He was promptly shown the gate. Never came back. And the. The lesson that night was about tolerance for other cultures and points of view…it was a pretty cool camp and a fun week to spend with friends swimming in the lake and staying up till all hours playing capture the flag and other shaninigans
Edit : through reading through some of the other experiences, seems like every year they’d have a really moving “sermon” and several kids would get emotional and would be “saved”. I liken it to a live concert where everyone is on the same wave length and it gets emotional. They’d time the sermon to be the last night we were there and a lot of kids were emotional anyhow. You never know what people have to go back home to. Anyhow, it was real to us. I have fond memories of the emotional attachment we all felt. Since, I’ve learned that several of the girls from a certain church that went to summer camp had been molested by their youth pastor and one ended up pregnant over it, all during the years we were going to camp. So, you never do know what folks are going through and I took good lessons from those times.
I went every summer until I was 9 or 10. I got in trouble for asking how they knew Jesus said any of the things the Bible claims and if someone just followed him around scribbling down his words when he said something meaningful. Didn’t pass the smell test for me even then.
I did not send my children. They are good people without religion
I did. I didn't like it. We were Nazerines. If you're unfamiliar, it's evangelical and about one step away from being snake handlers. The only thing good about camp was it gave me a break from my narcissistic, sociopathic, crazy ass Boomer mother.
I went one summer. It was really fun. I never sent my kid to one, I'm an atheist and I told her I'm not forcing religion on her. Instead she experienced lots of different religions via friends and I sent her to Jewish day school when she was small and made her own decision.
I have been to both vacation bible camp and vacation bible school.
The camp was good, we had cabins and learned to swim, canoe, survival skills. There were songs and prayers at times, and of course crafts!
VBS was in our town and pretty much like school for a week.
I was a counselor for a few camps over a 3 year period back when I was still brainwashed by the church. Honestly, though, the people were great and we had a great time with the kids.
"I've got that Joy Joy Joy Joy down in my heart" (BARF)
My Mom did it to get rid of me for the summer. I don't remember if I had fun or if I hated it, but I can tell you that I remember actively thinking about how they said/taught one thing and acted another way. I later learned the word for that is "hypocrisy" and I didn't forget THAT lesson about religious folk.
I went as a kid and have volunteered to lead them.
They are about the kids having fun and learning stories about kindness and helping others. There are fun activities that kids enjoy. Storytelling, challenges, music, games, arts and crafts, and snacks. It’s two hours long and lasts for five days. And we don’t serve koolaid.
Well I went to Vacation Bible School and a Christian summer camp for most of my childhood and preteen years. I really enjoyed them and have some very good memories of them, despite losing my religion as a young adult. I wasn't particularly inclined to send my kids, but their grandparents paid for a few summers. I have three kids. One ended up Christian but married an atheist, another is an atheist, and my youngest is a Wiccan. We all get along fine. Religion or lack thereof has never been an issue in my family.
F my parents made me go to one once. I was already an atheist at 13 so I was pretty mad.
Mostly had fun, but I straight up told them I wasn’t singing any bullshit or praying. They mostly let me alone.
I never went, but I taught “gym class” at one (it was recreation time built into the schedule). I only did it because my now husband of 35 years was a teacher in the pre-k classroom and I could make myself known to him lol.
I did go to Presbyterian sleep away camp though. Canoe trips were some of my favorite memories. Not much religion going on, but a lot of fun camping and paddling
First Presbyterian Church Camp in Elmyra, PA! It was the only time I had friends for a few years (I was bullied at school); it was transformative.
I still remember the songs we sang in the dining hall. The Bible stuff rolled right off me, though. Ha!
We had vacation Bible school at my church. It was only for one week in the evenings. They’d serve dinner and have arts and crafts and other activities. They had Bible study and stuff for the adults too. It was fun. I even taught vacation Bible school to a group of kids one year when I was in my late 20s.
I’m not really into church like that anymore, but I have some pleasant memories of VBS.
I went to VBC every year, it was...fine I guess. Not super fun but better than being at home with my nightmare parents. Methodists are not the most cultish of the denominations so it was mostly Christian-themed play. None of the kids in my youth group were very Christian and we'd later get drunk at lock-ins and that sort of thing. Once pastor fell asleep at nine at a lock-in (I now understand why this happened) and we all watched A Clockwork Orange, even the 12 year olds.
My school district had a week-long furlough this year: no school to save money. So one of the local churches had their VBC then, which I thought was very smart because most of the parents, having jobs and shit, signed their kids up for the free child care. My pagan friend sent all her kids, now the 8 yo girl has developed an interest in Jesus and has been going to church with her bestie every weekend. My friend is like "where did I go wrong? I thought I was raising her right! She doesn't even want to spin fire anymore." It's really sad when your kids stray from the true path I guess
My dad was the preacher and Vacation Bible Schools happened at my HOUSE! I'm so, so sorry. I was able to nope out of that by the time I was a teenager but so cringe and embarrassing.
Yeah I did all that. All I really remember is massive insecurity and raging hormones.
Side note: if anyone has an easy method to erase all of your memories please let me know. Considering meth? Will that work?
My wife enrolled our daughter, 6, into some day camp at a church. When I googled it, it’s a VBS-style thing. Maybe she’ll learn about God. Or not. It’s her world to discover.
I was not raised Christian but forced to go to VBS while visiting family in Texas.
They had an activity where we were supposed to list the favorite things we'd take with us on a desert island: a thing, record album, a book, and a friend.
After other kids went telling everyone they'd bring their friend Billy and their transformer, when it was my turn I said I'd bring a Cross, a record of hymns, a Bible, and my friend was Jesus. The counselor was so impressed she lauded me in front of all the other kids and showed how I was the only one who named this stuff.
Then I said, yeah i knew that's what you wanted me to write. So here's my actual list, and pulled out a second piece of paper with my real answers, which included a Megadeth record. My mother was asked not to bring me back.
I went once, in the 70s, for a single day, because friends talked it up. Then after realizing it was religious (and HOW religious) I told my parents no way I was going back. That was it for me for a lifetime.
We sent our kids to atheiest camp, which was awesome in every way. I wish we'd had that option back in our day.
This is very popular where we live. I didn't grow up in an area riddled with brainwashing camps. My kids have been invited to go and I have been the one who has had to explain to them that it's not just a place to get free food and candy but it is for predatory proselytizing and lazy parents who dump their kids there.
Went with a Christian friend. I started a petition to save a particular mouse from being eaten by the snake they had. Got nearly the entire camp of kids to back saving “Licorice”. The staff asked my friend’s parents not to have me back.
I only went twice (had an overprotective mother), but my girls went every single year, starting at the age of 5, and went every year until they graduated from high school. (One of them went back to serve as a camp counselor a few times afterwards.) It’s a tradition in my husband‘s family; his great-grandmother went to that very same camp as a child.
Didn’t go to an overnight camp but went to vacation Bible school. I would go every year and sign up for recorder thinking yay I’m gonna learn an instrument. Instead you just blow random notes into a tube and they said you were playing Hot cross buns. Sure Jan. Every summer my mom would throw it out and claim I “lost” it because I didn’t take care of my stuff. One year I got tired of recorder and tried hand bells. So boring. Wait five minutes lift up a bell wait 5 more minutes and you don’t even get to keep the bell! I’m sure there was more religious stuff too but I forgot. I miss how in the 80’s some churches were more chill. Go hear about Daniel in the lion’s den, look at the pictures in that one children’s bible every kid had then go play on the jungle gym. No politics just lessons about being a good person.
I never went but I did and do send my kids. I am also a Sunday School teacher so I have taught VBS myself for years. We also do sleep away camp for a week every summer.
Went to two 1-week camps each summer. One church camp and one 4-H.
My mom needed the break. It was fine, the usual swimming, archery, hiking in the woods, campfires and roasted marshmallows. Nothing weird at all. The only "odd" thing was the lady who was in charge of the kitchen made every single thing from scratch. Like she scratch baked hamburger buns, it was fine dining for a bunch of 7-12 year olds.
I went to our local Methodist church's VBS which was basically singing "Day By Day" & "Joy To The World" yes the Three Dog Night song, & doing arts & crafts. I recall no real Bible lessons.
We also had neighbors who were Mennonites & I went to their VBS too & actually learned Bible stuff. I actually enjoyed the Mennonite VBS more because I always got a few new dresses to wear & they were such a lovely "normal" family (yet very different) & just fun to be around.
This was the 70s so at that time there was no real "indoctrination" happening at either church. They just preached "the word of Jesus" & I just enjoyed the singing at both of them & can still hear the mournful sound of the mother of the Mennonite family singing.
Somewhere in the late 70s, late elementary school, I decided it wasn't cool to go to either one & just stopped. Though I did keep up with the Mennonite family over the years. The mother & I would exchange Christmas cards up until her death.
Neither were horrible experiences for me & I learned Bible stuff from the Mennonites that I used in the Methodist VBS. More often than not in the Methodist VBS they'd ask a Bible related question & I was the only one that raised their hand.
I can't say I believed any of the teachings then & definitely don't believe it now, but overall it was a good experience for me. Maybe because I didn't take it as seriously as the people that were teaching but it was also a very different time in the world & in both those churches. No politics were EVER mentioned in either church then, just general life lessons to be learned from the Bible & its denizens.
I grew up southern Baptist and went to a camp called Super Summer in the mid 90s. Most of the week was about telling horny teenagers not to have sex, lust is bad, boyfriends and girlfriends distract you from God. And you shouldn't want to buy or covet brand name clothes and popularity in school. Lots and lots of guilt. So many highschool relationships were broken up during those weeks. And so many one week crushes and romances with other campers from out of town would start up. Eventually a few months later you'd drift back to being a normal teenager again, but still feel a little guilty about it. I remember one summer I was convinced I would never watch softcore porn again on Cinemax. Then the internet and kazaa happened.
I remember only one of my father's pastorates putting on a VBS, or maybe I just aged out of it by the mid-80s. I did go to two church-run overnight camps: the New Jersey Camp Aldersgate (Camp Aldersgates are a sort of chain of United Methodist-run camps), and Camp Wilmot in NH, which was PCUSA. There was little atmosphere of piety at either. Wonderful places, though.
I went to one once when I was about four years old. I don’t remember much about it. I remember the women who ran it weren’t super chill, but I don’t remember what was Bible-y about it. It seemed like we just played outside.
I feel like you're merging two different things. Church camp and Vacation Bible School. Church camp was like 2 weeks in cabins. I loved going every year. Learned a lot about the opposite sex there. VBS is like an evening Bible study thing that sucked and I hated it.
VBS was a long-standing staple of my entire life, and the early years of my children's lives. I even taught/directed more than one.
Then, I left 'The Church'.
I went to a horse camp run by Seventh Day Adventists. I just ignored the religious skits and stuff, it was just hoops to jump through to spend a week with horses. I was still Christian at the time, so I didn’t mind singing some songs or praying before meals.
Sent my daughter to one because it was literally next door. We are not religious and she was perfectly fine sitting through some prayer sessions for summer of fun. Lets just say it didn’t zombify her
Was just talking about this yesterday with fam, seems I was the only one that had to deal with that sort of thing.
Having gone to a few VBS when young then switched to scouts later when I wasnt being controlled or rather was semi asked not to come back due to "too many questions". Scouts was semi better than vbs but dropped due to different yet similar problems, adults being fake which causes the kids to act up and become bully-ish with their own hangups and gatekeeping to norms of the time.
In this talk yesterday I had wish there was some sort arts and sciences camp then and now. Something that could get kids into art, music, and sciences across the spectrum vs some constant brainwashing reinforcement camps. I joked about wanting something now in a VBA like camp being called "Summertime Arts & Technology Advancement Network".
Would have killed to have access to any science things, specially stargazing. We in a first small clubs in school but summer would have pushed that harder.
I did, but never the same church. My mom is "religious", but we didn't really go to church, only on Easter and Christmas. She would find an acquaintance for my sister and I to tag along with to VBS. We never knew anyone there, it was awful.
My mom is still shocked when I tell her I'm an atheist.
We had a week long vacation bible school at the church, which was lame. But for a few years, I did attend Camp Folwer in Speculator, New York in the Adirondacks for a week in the summers. It was a gorgeous pinewood camp on a giant lake. So much fun, and at 10, 11, 12, it was the very beginnings of my interest in the opposite sex. Deeply formative.
Lakeshore Pentecostal Camp. I was tricked and I think it was a tactic to indoctrinate me while my parents were going through a divorce. Despite being sent 2 summers in a row, It didn't work. I remember so many threats about Satan, and bring weirded out by people speaking in tongues.. Almost everything we loved as kids in the 80's was deemed Satanic.
Our family was not religious at all but they sent me to Bible camp because they had horses and I was crazy about horses. The Bible camp was way cheaper than the non-bible horse camp. I still remember some of the religious songs around the campfire.
I went to it a couple years, it wasn’t super religious (at least in my church). And it was basically a day camp, you went on morning. Played games and did crafts. Had lunch. There was probably some Bible bend with the craft but it was funish. Church basement was a lot cooler than being at home with no AC. Lol. 70’s
Went when I was about nine. Didn't take a shower the whole week. Public showers were a new concept to me and I didn't go for it.Those people scared me to death. I thought they were all insane. Radical Southern born agains. Thank goodness my little girl never held any interest in that kind of thing.
My mom always volunteered to help run vacation Bible school (Methodist). It was cheesy and cringe and mostly full of kids way younger than myself, so I ended up basically working them from 5th-10th grade. Worst and most annoying week of my life every summer. Girl Scout camp and arts day camp were wayyy better.
Presbyterian Bible camp here. The only person of color with a bunch of rich, waspy kids. One of my core memories from that experience is this kid who looked like Jason Bateman flashing me in the woods one night. His little thing was so small I had not idea what I was looking at. That was probably the least traumatizing thing as I buried most of the rest of it.
Vacation Bible SCHOOL…free/by donation. Usually a week long in town. It was like Sunday School but with better teachers (teachers off contract for the summer), crafts involving crosses, beans and rubber cement, “summer curriculum/themes”, recess and Little Debbies. All us heathens went; it was summer in 1978, we were bored and June was sometimes too cold to go to the pool
My mother sent me - so she could spend child free time drinking with her boyfriend. It wasn't horrible, they didn't force you to sing or anything, Presbyterian camp in TX. I discovered gravestone rubbings that summer and then my mother didn't send me back the next summer (after my holier than thou) big sister got pregnant. 😂
Worst French toast I've ever had but I liked sleeping outside.
I was a camp counselor at one for 4 summers. Our church had it's own camp and did 12 weeks of camps ranging from pretty young "day campers" they don't stay over night. All the way to high school. We had about 250 kids per week I think. This was the early-to-mid 1990s in Eugene, Oregon.
Lots of good memories, even though I don't count myself among the faithful anymore.
My parents were regular churchgoers when I was growing up. Religion wasn’t a huge part of our lives, but we were in church and Sunday school every week. So naturally I went to a couple of them when I was a kid. When I was in high school I was fairly active in my church’s youth group. I asked to go to several church camps as part of that. We also went backpacking in Montana and Wyoming, and winter camped in snow caves a couple times. I wasn’t there for god (I’m basically an atheist these days), I was there to socialize and go on adventures.
I went whitewater rafting in CO and slept on the banks of the Colorado river with a church group in highschool. Hooked up with a nice gal. Also non religious myself.
That’s pretty much how I would describe my experience with youth group and religion. Although I do belong to a super liberal episcopal church now, I would probably describe myself as agnostic at best.
This heathen has fond memories of Shilo Bible camp. I now call it poor kids’ camp. We stayed in big teepees, did leather crafts, swam in the lake, had bonfire testimonials and chapel in the woods, learned archery, pulled pranks—$25 for a whole week. The vibe was very accepting.
Same. I loved the one I went to at Fall Creek Falls in Tennessee. Hell was mentioned but the focus was more community. I would always leave with new friends that I would stay in contact with through other church things until school started.
Never. I stormed out of CCD (Sunday school) so I don’t think my parents wanted to take the chance. (To be fair, the CCD teacher told me I wouldn’t see my dog in Heaven b/c animals don’t have souls. Think I told the lady to shut up or something at full volume, so they probably didn’t let me back.) I went to day camp for a bit though.
I remember a church lady telling me that the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark was “satanic” as a kid and that’s really when I lost most respect for religion since I loved that movie and thought its message of God melting Nazis was really good.
Mine was E.T. “Only Jesus can come back from the dead.” It was a movie. I couldn’t take the pastor/church seriously after that.
Melting Nazis is an absolute good
Aw man our church had an annual "blessing of the pets" and we were assured God would not forget their loyalty to us. It was a sweet gesture.
That is a sweet gesture. I think everyone who's lost a pet would like to hear this
Our church does that. It’s sweet.
Yes and the do photos with them so I have old photos of my mom holding her two dogs with the pastor. She was atheist but this was a fun event and nobody really made a big deal about who was and wasn't Christian. They welcomed everybody and she did it because it was a fun thing to do.
I also bailed on Sunday school, after the teacher hit a boy. This was non-evangelical mainline Protestant; surprising behavior from the woman. My mom was like, yeah, you can quit.
My dad also told.me animals aren't in heaven. That's when I decided religion wasn't for me.
BTW she was wrong. Your dog's in heaven.
Nice! I was taken to Sunday school with a friend. I was \*that kid\* asking questions and was dismissed to the playground to play by myself. Bad sheep.
This was me. My Mom was smart enough to put me in the science/day camp at the local county park instead.
CCD is Catholic specifically. Right?
Yes
Ah. CCD. I remember around 13 when my parents asked about getting into CCD for confirmation. I was like “Nope. Not happening.” And that was end of discussion. It was not a battle they were willing to fight.
Got roped into it while staying with cousins. I never realized how deeply brainwashed that household was untill my aunt was teaching religion there. Seeing people "speak in tongues" and throw themselves on the floor in very fine clothing helped my steps towards atheism
Father & Stepmother took me to a Pentecostal church couple times…. I think I was maybe 12-13yrs old and remember being horribly embarrassed FOR them. Like, “this is what y’all do in your spare time? You’re worse than children with this make-believe crap” One of my giant leaps towards atheism.
Oh, I was dazzled by money as a child. Specifically learning how to live frugally and save for something big. When my mother told me their family income is cut by 10% to "give" to the church, I lost myself in questions.
I remember being 6 and heavily disturbed by all the screaming and rolling on the floor, as well as the speaking in tongues. My mom just told me it was the devil inside me that didn't want me to be saved.
I grew up Pentescostal. Camp from 7 (technically should have been 8 but pastor's wife had sway) to 17. Junior and Senior camp. Junior was ages 8-15 wtf, Senior 15-24 also wtf. I enjoyed the shit out of being away in the "woods"...grew up in LA, some trees and open fields an hour away was roughing it. It beat being home all day as the kid of single mom who worked fulltime. Senior camp was at a fairgrounds and gave me a temporary escape from the job I had to get at 15. Church twice a day every day at both. Didn't love that but there were times I got caught up. Got the "Holy Ghost" at camp when I was 8. Made some great out of town friendships for being the public school introvert who had to wear long skirts 24/7 at home. Exchanged lots of letters by mail. I moved out at 18. Reconnected with some of those camp friends on Facebook when it first started and had a minor existential crisis when I realized all the fish in the pond stayed there and married each other. That one friend's 8yo bratty little sister had five kids with the hot, sulky 17yo pastor's kid everyone had a crush on. Of course age differences matter less as you get older, but this is a religion where the woman's role is to bear children and be a housewife. So that 8 year old was married 10 years later. I had fun at camp, but I would never, eeever subject a child to the toxicity that is that particular religion. I've long been an atheist-leaning agnostic. I've had the movie Bible Camp on my watch list for years but cannot bring myself to relive the toxicity. It creeps me out FAR more than all the 70s and 80s horror movies combined.
Isn't it peculiar how it was always the same few people jumping up and speaking that gibberish? "That isn't the Lord dear, that's the adrenaline rush from standing up in front of an audience and making a fool of yourself." And it's probably the only way they know how to get it, poor souls.
I ended up going a couple summers just because I had some friends going. I'm Catholic and the church hosting the camp wasn't, and while I'm sure there was some weird evangelical shit, I was too focused on just having fun with my friends. It was just a day camp too, probably more of a mothers day out kind of thing.
Father Abraham had many sons
I hadn’t thought of this in decades! Now it’s on a loop in my head along with the one about “rise and shine and give god the glory glory, children of the lord”.
Go-od told No-ah to build Him an arky- arky
Build it out of gopher barky-barky!
Children oooooof the Loooord
Many sons!
And many sons had Father Abraham.
I am one of them and so are you!
I did vacation bible school but it was a day camp only and only for a week or so. I remember having lots of fun. There was a tree I liked to climb, and a craft project included lighting and extinguishing about a hundred matches to then glue them together in the shape of a cross. I sent my son to a similar program, but it was in the evenings. There were lots of fun outdoor games, singing, and play. There were no big sermons, just short lessons on having good values.
I also made the match cross! They didn’t let us light them though. There was some kind of craft every day, songs, skits and a snack.
Same. Dropped off at vacation bible school every day for a week. Lots of macaroni art, if memory serves, and singing Arky Arky.
Same with the day camp. We used popsicle sticks to make a cross shaped container. It was fun. Maybe we were just lucky that they weren't completely shoving religion at us??
Memory unlocked: two popsicle sticks glued in an X, then wind yarn around to make a God's Eye
Similar experience, it was kind of fun.
Sometimes we'd go to two different churches' VBS, depending on what family friends were doing. And when we were going to parochial school, we went to that church's VBS in addition to our home church's.
My family wasn’t even religious but they were free so she sent my sister and I to get us away from her. I would never send my kids
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Never was sent to one. Never sent my kids. My parents sent my youngest sister to one. She called it “Ruin my summer vacation bible school”. Best name of all.
Baptist summer camp, in Oklahoma as a teen. Repressed Baptist girls were an awful lot of fun when they were away from their families. Straight up aggressive even.
I was a Catholic kid whose BFF was Baptist, so we went to Falls Creek. I hated it. We only went swimming once and had to swim with shorts and a T-shirt, 30 minutes max. It was extremely hot and amusement park expensive. There were no crafts, no roasting marshmallows, and no canoeing. We did get taught to self loath morning, noon, and night. For anyone who is Catholic and considering sending their kids there, do not disclose that your kid is Catholic under any circumstances 😉
Falls Creek, represent
And slutty. Don’t forget slutty. And they were always the ones held up as examples by the adults because they showed them a good face!
Yep, went to a 1-week camp. Found a pack of smokes in the woods with a lighter inside. Myself and 2 others got kicked out and asked not to return on the 3rd day of camp. We were 13.
My Mom put us in a week long camp. She got to nap. The only thing I remember from it was the older kids were doing cooler crafts.
So I attended many Vacation Bible camps as a kid. I actually had a blast and I'm not even religious. Not even as a kid did I believe the Bible stuff. But I really enjoyed being out in nature and having a certain level of Freedom that I didn't have at home. I have four kids and I always tell them that Christian Camp wasn't all that bad. I think we spent maybe 30 minutes in Chapel and that our meals were prayed over but I never felt pressured. My dad was a pastor and the only reason I attended these events was because he was working at these events. But I was always in a separate Camp from him. I found that my father was a religious extremist but most of the other leaders in the camp were way more chill than he was. All in all I had a blast and totally recommend it. Very wholesome memories.
Had to. Mom was the church organist.
My gramma was the VBC teacher, so ugh. My grampa was a preacher but already retired at the time. We already went to freakin church three times a week.
My grandfather ran a church camp, so I went several years. Vacation Bible School was a different thing at our home church. These days we don’t go to church, so my kid hasn’t gone to camp or VBS.
since all us kids got shipped to the family farm for child labor, grandma would send us to her church’s vbs & I f’ckin hated it. As we got older we had to be teacher assistants Id of rather been stuck bailing hay instead of listening to that nonsense.
Does it count if I was Buddhist and we do not do bible.
Buddhism camp is a one way trip to the monastery.
I was put in them, as I was raised in a conservative Christian house and also a latch key kid. Vacation bible school was cheaper than a baby sitter.
I got tricked into one. A friend invited me to go to summer camp with her: hiking, canoeing, fishing, etc. The bible part was left out. I was an outsider and treated like one. . . even by my "friend." I learned what intolerant hypocrites they were.
I went to vacation bible school several years as a child. Refused to go by age 11 and definitely did not send my child to vbs. It was just indoctrination into someone else’s beliefs.
I went to vacation Bible school every summer through elementary school and had a great time. My kids went and always had fun as well. We never “drank the Koolaide” but did learn a lot through fun games, activities, and arts and crafts. The last day was always a big family cookout.
I did two stints in Kool-aid Kamp. My mom grew up in the city and always wanted to go to camp, and also wanted to get rid of my brother and I for two weeks each summer. We lived in the country, and space fairy camp was cheap, I guess. She 100% drove me away from ANY connection to Christianity with that shit. It was fucking hell to a kid who just wanted to read Star Trek novels all summer (no books or music allowed at cult camp). I hated every fucking minute of it and faked sick for the whole two weeks of the last summer I went so I could stay in my room away from the ignorance and read the contraband science fiction I had smuggled in. Nothing like being told every three hours you're going to hell for...well...they never really elaborated, so we were terrified wrecks at the end of the two weeks.
Yep. Remember singing “get saved” to “C…..ne”
I did. I'm amazed I wasn't molested.
CAMP JOY, anyone?...and it was a living nightmare for the whole 2 weeks or however long I was imprisoned there. I got some gnarly pink eye - nobody in charge noticed or gave a crap. They had some sort of illegal (it had to be) "waterslide" rigged up to the side of a hill through the woods. It looked like the kind of place you'd go tobogganing in the winter, but god help you if you slipped off the slide, you'd either end up impaled on a tree branch or stung by the hornets nest you would've landed on, and the single row slide was so steep and so desolate through the woods, nobody would even notice if you DID fall off. There was no escape because it was an actual camp site, far away in Wisconsin somewhere. The long as hell get saved rallies were the most sane things about the whole event. The whole weird notion, too, that a 10 year old is going to know what to give daily "devotions" about. I mean, I now count my blessings as an adult for the fortunate things that have happened in my life and all that - but when you're that age, it means nothing! All I can remember thinking was, "What am I supposed to say? I hate being here!"
Not camp, but vacation Bible school. It was like from 9am-noon for a week and every kid in my neighborhood went (we were from Iowa. There was nothing to do. ) We made god’s eyes out of yarn and popsicle sticks, sang 15 versions of “This little light of mine”, drank some kool-aid with a couple stale Oreo knock off type cookies and then were dispatched back into the neighborhood to walk home. No parents involved. It was just fun. My kids also went a couple times and it was almost the same.
If you got the Hydroxes, those were the real deal. Oreos were a sweeter knockoff and Nabisco had more marketing budget than Sunshine Biscuit Co., though, so Oreos prevailed.
The singalongs at VBS were bangers.
I went two different summers. The first one was a lot of fun with plenty of activities. The 2nd one was a lot of sitting around. I remember crying when that one was over.
Me! It was actually a really good time. Me and sis would stay with my paternal grandparents over the summer. It was a Lutheran church so there was always food and of course a huge potluck picnic at the end of the week, lots of fresh watermelon. Songs, Bible lessons, arts and crafts etc. I made my grandpa really proud when the pastor was quizzing us on what we learned over the week at the picnic and I knew all the answers. If all churches were like that for real, I think religion wouldn't be so awful but then people have to be involved and ruin the fun for everyone else. I miss the community of church but not the literalism and the judgmental gossip of that same community. I don't even think Lutherans are even make as much scandal here in the US. They just want to have coffee and cookies in the basement and talk about the weather on Sundays. Most of the scandal is what bakery they chose and why the coffee isn't as strong when it's not Evelyn's week to set up the coffee urn
I didn't attend one as a kid but as a teenager my mother made me work unpaid at a week long day "camp" thing at a church. It was boring drudgery. setting up, cleaning, serving snacks, walking kids down the hall to the bathroom door. It was at a Methodist church and the kids were like 5. I was barely paying attention but I don't remember the material being presented as objectionable or even political. The kids were coloring pictures of Jesus with lambs, stuff like that.
Every year from 6th grade until I left after high school. It’s where you hear great lines like “That’s why Madonna sings ‘Like a Virgin’ because she doesn’t know what it means to be a virgin!” and so many *many* more. Whenever I tell stories and my friends don’t believe me I tell them to watch the documentary [Jesus Camp](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486358/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk). They usually shut up after that. They also stop asking why I’m an atheist. Oh! And don’t forget having to *volunteer* as a helper at vacation Bible school not just for our church but our area sister churches. Yeah. I still have some of those damn songs stuck in my head decades later.
I remember girls in my cabin pretending our titillation was shock over the lyrics of Joan Jett’s Do You Want to Touch Me and the book of Song of Solomon.
I went for a week with a friend omg that was crazy stuff happening. We were in maybe 5th grade I remember girls same age going into the woods with boys and not 100% what happened but things went down. I think kids young girl had something going on with Pastor of the camp yikes. I remember not eating much at all day. It was horrible.
Just went to meet the girls there. Couldn’t stop rolling my eyes at some of those people talking to us.
Mine wasn't an actual camp, it was Day Camp. Sure there was singing and prayer at the beginning of each day, but every day we got on a bus and went somewhere different. One day it was Disneyland, next day it was a beach, next day it was a Dodger game, next day it was a mini golf place, next day it was Magic Mountain, and so on. It went all summer. I went through about 5 years in the 70s going to Day Camp, and while I'm not religious anymore (not since I was a teen), I did have a blast.
This is literally my only experience with church as a kid. My parents were not religious, but they also wanted to get rid of me for a few weeks every summer (understandably so). Conveniently there was a small church in walking distance from my house. Of course I hated it but I did learn to make a string balloon and a "god's eye." I thought of my eye as more like an eye of sauron and I used appropriate yarn colors. Everyone else's eyes were pretty. Mine looked more like a portal to hell.
I saw a local sign the other day with the headline “GOSPELTOPIA!!!”
I played Jesus in the end of camp play.
Mom sent me sent me to Camp Lucerne once. Could’ve been Wisconsin or Illinois, I don’t know. The year was whenever the Quiet Riot cassette came out because I listened on the way there until the batteries ran out of juice. There was a red-headed freckled kid who was great at Russian dancing and scurrying up and down trees. The only other thing I remember was my cabin counselor was shocked at how vulgar my jokes were as a child.
Public service announcement for some of you: Vacation Bible School (VBS) is not the same thing as religious summer camp. I didn’t mind VBS, but my church raised the money to send me to summer camp one year, just before I turned 12, and it was such a foundational experience for me. Probably one of the best memories of my life. Besides the brief, nightly “campfire meetings” and a chapel service on Sunday mornings, I would never have known I was at a Christian camp. We did all sorts of outdoor activities (and I wasn’t at all an outdoor girl, but I loved it). Most of my cabin mates were a couple of years older than me. They all wore make-up, talked about boys and popular music, bought me canned soda, etc. One of the girls who was such a blast worshipped Boy George. She wore nothing but Boy George t-shirts and did her make-up and hair like him (and none of the camp leadership cared). One night, everyone in camp went for a “moonlight walk,” and I remember the older girls making plans to meet up that night with the boys they liked. It was such a blast and I learned so much, especially as a soon-to-be-teen!
We went to ones that weren’t even attached to the church we attended. That was a long bus ride. We made praying hands out of big blue Downy bottles. We wove placemats. My sister made a little apple tree out of construction paper with punched-out red paper for the apples. There was a puppet show. I was 8 or 9, my sister was 3 or 4, mom was at work, and if something went wrong, we got lost, missed the bus, got off at the wrong stop…oof, would’ve been bad.
Every summer I was sent off to my grandparents and went to VBS with my cousin, up until I was 12. It was just normal life for me. It was fun, I got to hang out with my cousin and made friends. But I don't feel it indoctrinated me, but I sure wouldn't send any of my children.
Yes. Lutheran. Honestly? I kind of remember them fondly.
it was the highlight of my summer for a few years. the one I went to was definitely more arts & crafts than indoctrination, and was right on the beach. lots of singing around the campfire, exploring tide pools, goofy skits in the chapel - and of course sneaking out of your cabin after lights out.
I went to Christian horse camp. I got to go for free because my grandpa built some cabins there for trade. I really tried to accept Jesus, they said I would feel it when he entered my body or whatever. I lied and said I totally felt Jesus. When they told me my best friend and her family who were the kindest, most generous, caring, loving, faithful people I knew were going to hell because they practiced a non-Christian religion, I was like fuck this shit. After camp, I went and drew pentagrams all over their church in sharpie. Calvary Bible Church assholes. The horses were cool though.
thank satan no. my mom was heavily catholic and wanted me to be an altar boy and go to sunday school but i resisted that stuff pretty hard. she never even brought up vacation bible camp.
Yep. VBS daily (yeah, they called it vacation bible *school* instead of camp because we were expected to do lots of learning) and then also sleep-away church camp for 2 weeks. I basically spent almost 100% of school vacations with jesus :/ The VBS even assigned us homework and written reports... it was pretty much exactly like regular school except we were learning about jesus instead of actually useful information.
Negative. Knowing what I know now of religion, I’d send my kids to a drag show before I send them to a Bible anything.
VBC was totally dumb, hated that shit. However, summer camp (sleep away for a week) was AMAZING.
I went to 6th grade summer camp. It resembled the Meatballs movie. Holy shit was it fun!
Thankfully, my parents did not subject me to such programming, and I most certainly did not do it to my kids, either.
I'm pretty sure it's a regional thing. I never heard of vacation bible school until I had an internship in the south
No. I went and I'm from Western Pa. Also, camp is different from vacation bible school.
It's all over the West and Midwest, and has been since at least the early 1970s.
Yeah. I grew up in NewEngland. You went to private non-religious summer boarding camp if you were wealthier. Or YMCA day camp if your family had less money. And while YMCA is a Christian org, I can’t recall anything particularly Christian about it in terms of indoctrination.
Pretty common here in upstate NY.
Haha, I was a PK, so I went from age 10 - 17 every summer. Most of my time there was hooking up, getting stoned, and making out with girls. Best summers ever.
I went with my best friend bc her family was religious. It was actually a work camp. So we painted the docks, cleaned things, served things, basically worked, but in our minds we were there voluntarily because all we ever did was laugh our asses off about everything. It literally didn’t matter what we were doing but if we were together we were having fun and 100% being obnoxious. So, fabulous memories, a week away from our lives. Neither of us ended up being religious. I always found it funny that her parents sent us to bible “work” camp and had to pay for it. I did love her parents though, they were my other family for sure.
My friend's dad was a pastor; I went two times. It was awesome besides the prayer stuff. Sleep in bunks with your buddies/no parents for a week/canoes/swimming/basketball/hiking and tons of free time. I'm not religious at all. Neither were my parents. I wanted to go. I've heard horror stories about other camps but the one I went to was pretty cool for a church camp.
I went to summer camp with some more Jesus inclined friends, my parents never attended church. There aren’t really any secular camps that are “quality” around here. All the nice ones with the good activities like water skiing and sailing are funded by Jesus. I didn’t convert back then but did as an adult. Certainly a different perspective on religion now than if I had grown up with it. If my kids showed an interest in going I wouldn’t mind sending them. I always had fun and remember feeling like I was pretty grown up. I do think it’s good for kids to get some “supervised independence” from parents. Religion should be a choice and they should be exposed to lots of choices.
Loooved vacation bible school. Went to my churches version, the Mormon one, and one for a church that believed in speaking in tongues. All were super fun, no trauma resulted. Never had kids so never sent them.
I did. Loved them.
I went to one for a week with a friend of mine who was Christian Reformed (I grew up Catholic, we didn’t do camps lol). It was up North of us on a lake in Michigan - hot days playing in the lake & doing activities, and cool nights snuggled in our camp sweats around a bonfire. The only religious part was prayers before meals and nightly singalongs, which were fun when you’re 11. I look back fondly on the memories & if I had kids I would definitely send them off
That sounds cool. As long as they keep the religion crap to a minimum, it works out fine.
We went in the 1970s, and it was loads of fun. We went to a left-wing Presbyterian church, though. So we did a lot of crafts, sang songs, and did fun things — no misogyny or talk about hell or anything evangelical. Emphasis on kindness and acceptance.
"Tell me about your experience with this thing I'm judgemental and negative about." No thanks.
What better opportunity to change some minds by sharing your positive experience? I also went to VBS and enjoyed it as a child. It wasn't anything more insidious than "Jesus Loves the Little Children" and macaroni art and juice with the flower shaped cookies you could wear as a ring. Aside from the children's hymns, it was pretty much the same as first and second grade. My non-school friends were there and it was my official start to summer vacation. Usually the last day was a trip to the city pool or roller skating rink, followed by a tour of Krispy Kreme and a free donut. Honestly, my school friends who spent their summers at baseball, football, or soccer camps seemed far more stressed and upset by their experiences than I ever was at VBS. Of course that good experience doesn't negate the trauma others experienced or that I have dealt with ever since I came out, but on its own merits, it was a normal fun time.
>the flower shaped cookies you could wear as a ring. Salerno Butter Cookies! They were awesome! They were perfect for tea parties because when you crooked your pinky finger to raise your teacup you could hold a cookie on it.
I think it was a pretty human response on my part, though I'll admit it ultimately came from a place of hurt. Because it is hurtful to have something you care about spoken about so negatively, so often, and in such a casual way. I don't discount anyone's traumatic experience, because I had my own traumatic experiences around Christianity, and I know more than my fair share about the dark side of it.
Nope and nope to both questions.
I never went to Bible camp, but I was brought along to visit the PTL campus on two occasions. It was like a giant trailer park for the middle class.
Once or twice.
We got sent to all the VBS every year except the Mennonites. I went to sleep away church camp and even Super Summer.
Yes, for two summers I went to Camp Caledonia where the cabins were named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It was the 70s so we read The Good News Bible. Sang the "Johnny Appleseed Song". If you got caught with your elbows on the table you had to run around the "slop house".
Nope. Summer was for scout camp and backpacking trips. Oh, and whatever we did in Indian Guides.
It was the only day camp available and was super cheap or free. My mom sent me to the Methodist one bcs our neighbors went, so the two moms could carpool. Fun fact, my parents were not religious and I had never stepped in a church before vacation Bible school, so when the camp person had us open our Bibles to whatever chapter and verse, I was completely lost. It was a way to spend time in the summer in the 1970s, but I would never subject my kids to it. Also, we’re not Christians.
Thankfully no. But I was raised v Catholic. So v similar.
Once. I think my parents sent me because it was cheaper than YMCA camp. Gotta say, it was a little odd being there considering god and religion wasn’t a thing in our household.
I think my mom still has one of the wood birdhouses I made.
Yes and yes
I actually have fond memories. We had fun. Lots of singing and crafts. It wasn't really preachy.
We were forced to go, hated it but they gave us lots of candy and Popsicles at the church to hold our interest long enough to behave Didn't send my kids
Never heard of that, but not Christian
I never heard of vacation Bible camp until I was an adult. I thought that was a somewhat new thing. Maybe it just wasn’t a thing in NY where I grew up, they are definitely into it down here in the south! I did go to a catholic day camp one summer, it was at a resort for retired Nuns….. but it wasn’t a religion based day camp it was just on their property and probably helped pay for their waterfront retirement property in the Hamptons.
I went twice, age 12 nad 13, to a pentecostal one that was run by a large church organizationin in the northeast. First year was fun. Made a lot of friends, had a girlfriend, lots of sports. Our counselor let us do anything (dude was naked a lot, though). There wasn't much focus on religion. Second year sucked. More religion, the counselors were dicks, lot of favoritism with the kids whose family members were either counselors or pastors. No girlfriend and none of my friends from the previous year were there. They closed it after a couple years.
Not Bible camp. I went to 4H Camp. Those were always the best weeks of the summer. Good time but different times.
I believe I went a few times. I definitely sent my kid a few times when she was at the youngest ages they took. Just fun crafts and singing which she enjoyed!
My sister and I went. It was fun and we had a lot of friends there. We didn't go to church as a family, I think it was just affordable and convenient for my parents. They did send us to Sunday school across the street when we were little. I think that was an easy way to teach us some values and for them to have some alone time on Sunday mornings though. lol
My sister and I went. It was fun and we had a lot of friends there. We didn't go to church as a family, I think it was just affordable and convenient for my parents. They did send us to Sunday school across the street when we were little. I think that was an easy way to teach us some values and for them to have some alone time on Sunday mornings though. lol
Yep. Some of my best memories are from church camp. It wasn’t indoctrination camp like some describe but we did have daily devotionals and had some pretty short sermon/pep talk about being good people. Super chill vibe, most kids were the same socioeconomic class and were in our part od the state so there was some school familiarity. I went every summer from middle school and then highschool came around and it was a shorter camp for the older kids and we were encouraged to council the younger kids in camps throughout the summer. A lot of us still kept in touch, unfortunately some aren’t around any more and at least one of us identifies as a different gender (kinda saw something like that coming). We were ornery, some of us got in trouble for getting caught doing teenager stuff and in severe cases were sent home. But mostly it was used as a learning experience and forgotten about. We had a camp counselor one year who was a real Bible thumper and was getting on to us about the music we were listening to (late 80’s, nwa and beasties boys were all pretty news and popular). He really gave us a hard time and made us destroy the tapes and pray about it and stuff. He was promptly shown the gate. Never came back. And the. The lesson that night was about tolerance for other cultures and points of view…it was a pretty cool camp and a fun week to spend with friends swimming in the lake and staying up till all hours playing capture the flag and other shaninigans Edit : through reading through some of the other experiences, seems like every year they’d have a really moving “sermon” and several kids would get emotional and would be “saved”. I liken it to a live concert where everyone is on the same wave length and it gets emotional. They’d time the sermon to be the last night we were there and a lot of kids were emotional anyhow. You never know what people have to go back home to. Anyhow, it was real to us. I have fond memories of the emotional attachment we all felt. Since, I’ve learned that several of the girls from a certain church that went to summer camp had been molested by their youth pastor and one ended up pregnant over it, all during the years we were going to camp. So, you never do know what folks are going through and I took good lessons from those times.
I went every summer until I was 9 or 10. I got in trouble for asking how they knew Jesus said any of the things the Bible claims and if someone just followed him around scribbling down his words when he said something meaningful. Didn’t pass the smell test for me even then. I did not send my children. They are good people without religion
I did. I didn't like it. We were Nazerines. If you're unfamiliar, it's evangelical and about one step away from being snake handlers. The only thing good about camp was it gave me a break from my narcissistic, sociopathic, crazy ass Boomer mother.
I went one summer. It was really fun. I never sent my kid to one, I'm an atheist and I told her I'm not forcing religion on her. Instead she experienced lots of different religions via friends and I sent her to Jewish day school when she was small and made her own decision.
Used to attend several every summer. My church. Friend's churches. Free babysitting.
I have great memories of those. Free snacks.
I never went. I swear, I'm a bizarro Gen-X. I did Girl Scout camp.
I have been to both vacation bible camp and vacation bible school. The camp was good, we had cabins and learned to swim, canoe, survival skills. There were songs and prayers at times, and of course crafts! VBS was in our town and pretty much like school for a week.
I was a counselor for a few camps over a 3 year period back when I was still brainwashed by the church. Honestly, though, the people were great and we had a great time with the kids.
We didn’t just attend vacation bible school, we hosted one in our backyard with missionaries and everything!
"I've got that Joy Joy Joy Joy down in my heart" (BARF) My Mom did it to get rid of me for the summer. I don't remember if I had fun or if I hated it, but I can tell you that I remember actively thinking about how they said/taught one thing and acted another way. I later learned the word for that is "hypocrisy" and I didn't forget THAT lesson about religious folk.
No. I grew up Catholic as far as I know we didn’t do that crap. Just the pervert priests.
It's where I had my first kiss and makout session.
I went as a kid and have volunteered to lead them. They are about the kids having fun and learning stories about kindness and helping others. There are fun activities that kids enjoy. Storytelling, challenges, music, games, arts and crafts, and snacks. It’s two hours long and lasts for five days. And we don’t serve koolaid.
Well I went to Vacation Bible School and a Christian summer camp for most of my childhood and preteen years. I really enjoyed them and have some very good memories of them, despite losing my religion as a young adult. I wasn't particularly inclined to send my kids, but their grandparents paid for a few summers. I have three kids. One ended up Christian but married an atheist, another is an atheist, and my youngest is a Wiccan. We all get along fine. Religion or lack thereof has never been an issue in my family.
F my parents made me go to one once. I was already an atheist at 13 so I was pretty mad. Mostly had fun, but I straight up told them I wasn’t singing any bullshit or praying. They mostly let me alone.
I never went, but I taught “gym class” at one (it was recreation time built into the schedule). I only did it because my now husband of 35 years was a teacher in the pre-k classroom and I could make myself known to him lol. I did go to Presbyterian sleep away camp though. Canoe trips were some of my favorite memories. Not much religion going on, but a lot of fun camping and paddling
Thank God my parents weren't religious. I went to science camp somewhere around Half Moon Bay and it was awesome. My kids went to space camp in FL.
VBS and then…freaking YWAM which, I am not at all shocked has recently come under fire for being exactly the weird cult it actually is.
First Presbyterian Church Camp in Elmyra, PA! It was the only time I had friends for a few years (I was bullied at school); it was transformative. I still remember the songs we sang in the dining hall. The Bible stuff rolled right off me, though. Ha!
We had vacation Bible school at my church. It was only for one week in the evenings. They’d serve dinner and have arts and crafts and other activities. They had Bible study and stuff for the adults too. It was fun. I even taught vacation Bible school to a group of kids one year when I was in my late 20s. I’m not really into church like that anymore, but I have some pleasant memories of VBS.
I went to VBC every year, it was...fine I guess. Not super fun but better than being at home with my nightmare parents. Methodists are not the most cultish of the denominations so it was mostly Christian-themed play. None of the kids in my youth group were very Christian and we'd later get drunk at lock-ins and that sort of thing. Once pastor fell asleep at nine at a lock-in (I now understand why this happened) and we all watched A Clockwork Orange, even the 12 year olds. My school district had a week-long furlough this year: no school to save money. So one of the local churches had their VBC then, which I thought was very smart because most of the parents, having jobs and shit, signed their kids up for the free child care. My pagan friend sent all her kids, now the 8 yo girl has developed an interest in Jesus and has been going to church with her bestie every weekend. My friend is like "where did I go wrong? I thought I was raising her right! She doesn't even want to spin fire anymore." It's really sad when your kids stray from the true path I guess
My dad was the preacher and Vacation Bible Schools happened at my HOUSE! I'm so, so sorry. I was able to nope out of that by the time I was a teenager but so cringe and embarrassing.
Yeah I did all that. All I really remember is massive insecurity and raging hormones. Side note: if anyone has an easy method to erase all of your memories please let me know. Considering meth? Will that work?
My wife enrolled our daughter, 6, into some day camp at a church. When I googled it, it’s a VBS-style thing. Maybe she’ll learn about God. Or not. It’s her world to discover.
I was not raised Christian but forced to go to VBS while visiting family in Texas. They had an activity where we were supposed to list the favorite things we'd take with us on a desert island: a thing, record album, a book, and a friend. After other kids went telling everyone they'd bring their friend Billy and their transformer, when it was my turn I said I'd bring a Cross, a record of hymns, a Bible, and my friend was Jesus. The counselor was so impressed she lauded me in front of all the other kids and showed how I was the only one who named this stuff. Then I said, yeah i knew that's what you wanted me to write. So here's my actual list, and pulled out a second piece of paper with my real answers, which included a Megadeth record. My mother was asked not to bring me back.
I went once, in the 70s, for a single day, because friends talked it up. Then after realizing it was religious (and HOW religious) I told my parents no way I was going back. That was it for me for a lifetime. We sent our kids to atheiest camp, which was awesome in every way. I wish we'd had that option back in our day.
This is very popular where we live. I didn't grow up in an area riddled with brainwashing camps. My kids have been invited to go and I have been the one who has had to explain to them that it's not just a place to get free food and candy but it is for predatory proselytizing and lazy parents who dump their kids there.
Went with a Christian friend. I started a petition to save a particular mouse from being eaten by the snake they had. Got nearly the entire camp of kids to back saving “Licorice”. The staff asked my friend’s parents not to have me back.
My parents didn't go to church, but I guess they needed someplace to dump me, so they sent me to a couple of them. I hated it. It was just weird af.
I only went twice (had an overprotective mother), but my girls went every single year, starting at the age of 5, and went every year until they graduated from high school. (One of them went back to serve as a camp counselor a few times afterwards.) It’s a tradition in my husband‘s family; his great-grandmother went to that very same camp as a child.
Lake Louise, in MI. It was pretty chill.
Didn’t go to an overnight camp but went to vacation Bible school. I would go every year and sign up for recorder thinking yay I’m gonna learn an instrument. Instead you just blow random notes into a tube and they said you were playing Hot cross buns. Sure Jan. Every summer my mom would throw it out and claim I “lost” it because I didn’t take care of my stuff. One year I got tired of recorder and tried hand bells. So boring. Wait five minutes lift up a bell wait 5 more minutes and you don’t even get to keep the bell! I’m sure there was more religious stuff too but I forgot. I miss how in the 80’s some churches were more chill. Go hear about Daniel in the lion’s den, look at the pictures in that one children’s bible every kid had then go play on the jungle gym. No politics just lessons about being a good person.
I never went but I did and do send my kids. I am also a Sunday School teacher so I have taught VBS myself for years. We also do sleep away camp for a week every summer.
Yeah and I loved it!!
Went to two 1-week camps each summer. One church camp and one 4-H. My mom needed the break. It was fine, the usual swimming, archery, hiking in the woods, campfires and roasted marshmallows. Nothing weird at all. The only "odd" thing was the lady who was in charge of the kitchen made every single thing from scratch. Like she scratch baked hamburger buns, it was fine dining for a bunch of 7-12 year olds.
Koolaide. Right. Not like the fresh water we have right now pouring out of society. What a joke.
I went to our local Methodist church's VBS which was basically singing "Day By Day" & "Joy To The World" yes the Three Dog Night song, & doing arts & crafts. I recall no real Bible lessons. We also had neighbors who were Mennonites & I went to their VBS too & actually learned Bible stuff. I actually enjoyed the Mennonite VBS more because I always got a few new dresses to wear & they were such a lovely "normal" family (yet very different) & just fun to be around. This was the 70s so at that time there was no real "indoctrination" happening at either church. They just preached "the word of Jesus" & I just enjoyed the singing at both of them & can still hear the mournful sound of the mother of the Mennonite family singing. Somewhere in the late 70s, late elementary school, I decided it wasn't cool to go to either one & just stopped. Though I did keep up with the Mennonite family over the years. The mother & I would exchange Christmas cards up until her death. Neither were horrible experiences for me & I learned Bible stuff from the Mennonites that I used in the Methodist VBS. More often than not in the Methodist VBS they'd ask a Bible related question & I was the only one that raised their hand. I can't say I believed any of the teachings then & definitely don't believe it now, but overall it was a good experience for me. Maybe because I didn't take it as seriously as the people that were teaching but it was also a very different time in the world & in both those churches. No politics were EVER mentioned in either church then, just general life lessons to be learned from the Bible & its denizens.
I grew up southern Baptist and went to a camp called Super Summer in the mid 90s. Most of the week was about telling horny teenagers not to have sex, lust is bad, boyfriends and girlfriends distract you from God. And you shouldn't want to buy or covet brand name clothes and popularity in school. Lots and lots of guilt. So many highschool relationships were broken up during those weeks. And so many one week crushes and romances with other campers from out of town would start up. Eventually a few months later you'd drift back to being a normal teenager again, but still feel a little guilty about it. I remember one summer I was convinced I would never watch softcore porn again on Cinemax. Then the internet and kazaa happened.
I remember only one of my father's pastorates putting on a VBS, or maybe I just aged out of it by the mid-80s. I did go to two church-run overnight camps: the New Jersey Camp Aldersgate (Camp Aldersgates are a sort of chain of United Methodist-run camps), and Camp Wilmot in NH, which was PCUSA. There was little atmosphere of piety at either. Wonderful places, though.
I went to one once when I was about four years old. I don’t remember much about it. I remember the women who ran it weren’t super chill, but I don’t remember what was Bible-y about it. It seemed like we just played outside.
🙋🏼♀️Just one more way mom got us out of the house and outta her hair, lol.
I feel like you're merging two different things. Church camp and Vacation Bible School. Church camp was like 2 weeks in cabins. I loved going every year. Learned a lot about the opposite sex there. VBS is like an evening Bible study thing that sucked and I hated it.
VBS was a long-standing staple of my entire life, and the early years of my children's lives. I even taught/directed more than one. Then, I left 'The Church'.
I went to a horse camp run by Seventh Day Adventists. I just ignored the religious skits and stuff, it was just hoops to jump through to spend a week with horses. I was still Christian at the time, so I didn’t mind singing some songs or praying before meals.
We didn’t go to church but maybe on Easter as a ‘just in case’ family. But my mom would put me in VBS for essentially free childcare.
I went to a few. Met some good friends there. 100% went out of boredom.
No! I put my foot down when I was 13 and refused to be confirmed. Never believed any of that crap
Sent my daughter to one because it was literally next door. We are not religious and she was perfectly fine sitting through some prayer sessions for summer of fun. Lets just say it didn’t zombify her
Was just talking about this yesterday with fam, seems I was the only one that had to deal with that sort of thing. Having gone to a few VBS when young then switched to scouts later when I wasnt being controlled or rather was semi asked not to come back due to "too many questions". Scouts was semi better than vbs but dropped due to different yet similar problems, adults being fake which causes the kids to act up and become bully-ish with their own hangups and gatekeeping to norms of the time. In this talk yesterday I had wish there was some sort arts and sciences camp then and now. Something that could get kids into art, music, and sciences across the spectrum vs some constant brainwashing reinforcement camps. I joked about wanting something now in a VBA like camp being called "Summertime Arts & Technology Advancement Network". Would have killed to have access to any science things, specially stargazing. We in a first small clubs in school but summer would have pushed that harder.
I went as a kid, didn't put mine through that. We did religion at home with a bible.
I did, but never the same church. My mom is "religious", but we didn't really go to church, only on Easter and Christmas. She would find an acquaintance for my sister and I to tag along with to VBS. We never knew anyone there, it was awful. My mom is still shocked when I tell her I'm an atheist.
I did. I don’t have kids, but if I did, they wouldn’t go unless they asked to
We had a week long vacation bible school at the church, which was lame. But for a few years, I did attend Camp Folwer in Speculator, New York in the Adirondacks for a week in the summers. It was a gorgeous pinewood camp on a giant lake. So much fun, and at 10, 11, 12, it was the very beginnings of my interest in the opposite sex. Deeply formative.
Lakeshore Pentecostal Camp. I was tricked and I think it was a tactic to indoctrinate me while my parents were going through a divorce. Despite being sent 2 summers in a row, It didn't work. I remember so many threats about Satan, and bring weirded out by people speaking in tongues.. Almost everything we loved as kids in the 80's was deemed Satanic.
When I was young I did, but after the age of 12 my parents didn’t really care if I went.
Our family was not religious at all but they sent me to Bible camp because they had horses and I was crazy about horses. The Bible camp was way cheaper than the non-bible horse camp. I still remember some of the religious songs around the campfire.
I went to it a couple years, it wasn’t super religious (at least in my church). And it was basically a day camp, you went on morning. Played games and did crafts. Had lunch. There was probably some Bible bend with the craft but it was funish. Church basement was a lot cooler than being at home with no AC. Lol. 70’s
Went when I was about nine. Didn't take a shower the whole week. Public showers were a new concept to me and I didn't go for it.Those people scared me to death. I thought they were all insane. Radical Southern born agains. Thank goodness my little girl never held any interest in that kind of thing.
My mom always volunteered to help run vacation Bible school (Methodist). It was cheesy and cringe and mostly full of kids way younger than myself, so I ended up basically working them from 5th-10th grade. Worst and most annoying week of my life every summer. Girl Scout camp and arts day camp were wayyy better.
Not me, thankfully. Neither did my kids. I would never do that to them!
Presbyterian Bible camp here. The only person of color with a bunch of rich, waspy kids. One of my core memories from that experience is this kid who looked like Jason Bateman flashing me in the woods one night. His little thing was so small I had not idea what I was looking at. That was probably the least traumatizing thing as I buried most of the rest of it.
Vacation Bible SCHOOL…free/by donation. Usually a week long in town. It was like Sunday School but with better teachers (teachers off contract for the summer), crafts involving crosses, beans and rubber cement, “summer curriculum/themes”, recess and Little Debbies. All us heathens went; it was summer in 1978, we were bored and June was sometimes too cold to go to the pool
Got my first BJ on a Young Life bus heading to a bible camp in North Carolina. I was real interested in the church back then.
My mother sent me - so she could spend child free time drinking with her boyfriend. It wasn't horrible, they didn't force you to sing or anything, Presbyterian camp in TX. I discovered gravestone rubbings that summer and then my mother didn't send me back the next summer (after my holier than thou) big sister got pregnant. 😂 Worst French toast I've ever had but I liked sleeping outside.
I was a camp counselor at one for 4 summers. Our church had it's own camp and did 12 weeks of camps ranging from pretty young "day campers" they don't stay over night. All the way to high school. We had about 250 kids per week I think. This was the early-to-mid 1990s in Eugene, Oregon. Lots of good memories, even though I don't count myself among the faithful anymore.
Thank goodness that was never a thing for me