Organic Camp Turley: A Jesus Thing

So, the Methodist Church here in Turley, OK near Tulsa used to always go off to Camp a few counties away during Labor Day weekend. It was one of those great fun experiences of my life growing up with family in that church. Over the years it would be a way to go and reconnect with the church family even though I had left Methodism. But as the congregation split and aged and the community around it changed more than it did, the attendance at camp dwindled and became a family thing rather than a church thing. Then last year we decided not to try to go off to camp as we always had, good as it had been, but a kind of ghost of what it had been, and decided instead to try to have it here in Turley. I named it Camp Turley. All of a sudden it began to be transformed from a church or single family thing and into a community thing, ecumenical, a Jesus thing.

That is the inversion, the story of what the missional organic church does. Instead of the experience and group being an institutional thing and where people went off to an isolated place to "have a spiritual time" we would bring Camp to the Community. It is still a work in progress. We will look for ways to provide here some of the things missed by not getting off on retreat in a pretty wilderness area, with climbing the camp hill, fishing, etc. But we can develop that nature creation part of God's blessing as we develop up the experience year to year--we have our great Turley Hill, and we are going to be able to do things like service projects that we didn't do off at camp run by other people.

This Saturday is "Camp Turley" at our "a third place" center. Begins with potluck lunch at noon, 1-3 p.m. tye-dye tshirts lessons provided and group games, 3-4 p.m. community service projects, 4-5 p.m. workshop on meditating the Lords Prayer, 5-6 p.m. ecumenical communion service, 6:30 to ? backyard hot dog roast (or what you want to bring) at 6302 N. Quincy Ave. just a few blocks away from the Center.

Lots of possibilities for creating community, reconnecting community, healing, working with other faith communities. A good start. It begins with the mission and grows organically. Stay tuned (or come on by if you are in our area). End.

Type rest of the post here