He has served previously as program director of the Johnsonburg Conference Center in N.J., at Westminster Woods in Occidental, Calif., and at the Heartland Center in Kansas. He also has served as president of the board of Presbyterian Camp and Conference Center Association.
JH: After all those years of program leadership in camps, what brings you to Louisville?
BF: I love what goes on at camps individually. I love to watch summer staff grow. I love to watch the young people develop and experience their faith personally, not just corporately, to have a personal understanding, an ‘ah-hah’ — God is there for me individually. I now get to do that on a national scale, to help the camps and conference centers partner with the larger church.
JH: You’ve been there just a couple months so far. What do you think?
BF: You hear stories of angst and inertia and lack of movement happening at GAC, but that hasn’t been my experience. I’m in [the Office of] Evangelism and Church Growth. I work directly for Eric Hoey. He and Tom Taylor, whom I’ve known just briefly, and the whole area of evangelism and church growth are just fresh and alive, well beyond the in-fighting I used to hear about. The only focus I hear in the center is, “What’s God calling us to do as Presbyterians?” I’m in the right place.
JH: What role does camp and conference ministries play in the faith development of our church?
BF: Camps and conference centers provide a place away, a place apart — sacred ground but also common ground. (They provide) a place to get away from the busyness of our lives, to hear God through people around us, through the leaves around us, the trees around us. They’re places to reflect on God’s call to us individually. When we allow ourselves to relax and stop listening to the Blackberry, we are just present. We can reconnect to our church lives, our individual lives. Jesus used to take time away to pray and go away from the busyness around him. And when he came back he was able to carry that on. And while I’m not comparing myself or us specifically to Jesus, there’s a beautiful model in that you can’t refocus without taking a step away.
JH: In what ways has your own faith been shaped by camp and conference ministry?
BJ: My first experience at camp came in 7th grade. I had grown up in church, been active in church, but I went because my parents went. But I didn’t fit in well at school, and it wasn’t until I went away to camp that I was welcomed for who I was, not for what I could do. And I really got an understanding that summer that God really loves me for who I am, a creation of God. So the experience of grace and the welcome into community were transforming for me. From that point on I’ve been able to own my faith rather than simply repeat the faith of my parents.
JHH: How do camp and conference centers support the various ministries of our denomination?
BF: Many ministries within the PC(USA) need space, a place to get away, to regroup. The centers provide a shared experience, whether a person goes alone for a pre-planned program or a whole Session goes for the shared experience. Camps and conference centers also are partnering with other valuable ministries. Examples include the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance regional center set up at Ferncliff (see page 10.) Ferncliff is also starting a solar university to try to address our need to care for creation. We’ve created the Presbyterian Conservation Corps to empower our youth to live out their vocation, and to respond to God’s call. Lots of other partnerships are ongoing.
JH: Why send children and youth to PC(USA) camps, conferences, and retreats?
BF: We send our children as an extension of our education of our church family. When they are baptized, the family welcomes them. When they are active in the church they have a larger community. And when they go to camp, they have a place where they individually can question, can encounter and experience God in a way that connects directly to them.
JHH: This is a new office in the GAC, and you’re new to it. What can this office hope to bring that will really be a value added for the PC(USA) camps and conferences centers in particular and for the denomination as a whole?
BF: We have 140 Presbyterian camp and conference centers around the country. They’ve been around 50 to 100 years. And they were started with a purpose to get people out of their busy lives into nature, into connection with God, uncluttered by their daily activities. That is needed today more than ever. I can’t go a day without responding to e-mail, without answering the phone, without busyness. These spaces are necessary for us to reconnect. As for my role, well, there needs to be somebody who can tell that message and can provide linkage between the centers and the broader church.
JHH: What is the promise and future of PC(USA) camps and conference centers?
BF: My hope and my vision is that our camps and conference centers will enable an ever-increasing number of people to encounter Christ and that, in the process, the church will be strengthened.
