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Along with duffels full of wet, dirty clothes and an assortment of cuts and bruises, the kids who leave central Michigan's SpringHill Camp every summer take with them a videotaped chronicle of their stay. Shot in the quick-cut style of mtv, the tape documents the standard activities of camp: mud fights, tetherball, tugs-of-war, horses, archery, screaming teenagers, a variety of water sports, and the occasional softball game.

It also depicts a new range of activities: mountain and BMX bikes, a skate park, rappelling, something called a zip line, a winding water slide worthy of an amusement park, dramatic productions, and a rock band complete with what looks for all the world like a mosh pit.

Welcome to the new world of Christian camping.

The setting is familiar. SpringHill, 750 acres of pine trees and lakes, lies just outside of Evart, a town of fewer than 2,000 people close to the center of Michigan's lower peninsula. Every summer 13,500 campers pass through SpringHill (and another 18,300 camp in the fall and spring). They billet in a variety of habitations: a string of cabooses, tepees, a frontier village, covered wagons, a MASH compound, an old military transport aircraft.

Activities abound. The junior-high campers staged a hoedown one evening, complete with a tug-of-war, a bubble gum-chewing contest, potato-sack races, a chance to toss inner tubes, and competitive root-beer belching.

"This is awesome," a camper named Mindy beams. Another says, "I think I'm sick."

At the ropes course, an elaborate web of ropes and poles requiring balance and skill and sheer determination, a counselor shouts encouragement to a sixth-grader. "I can't feel my legs," the climber says frantically, before completing the course to a cascade of cheers. Nearby at the climbing wall, a female counselor calls up to a nervous camper, "Nice work, girlfriend. You're doing great."

Affirmation is a major component of any counselor's job description at SpringHill. "As a culture, we are trying to raise sons without fathers, daughters without mothers, children without guidance," one of SpringHill's brochures reads. Scott, a 16-year-old from Midland, Michigan, has been coming to SpringHill since age 8.

"'Cause it's fun," he says, when asked why. "I enjoy learning about God." He adds that he came from a single-parent household and that Big Brothers Big Sisters of America financed his camping. Indeed, even a casual stroll through the campground yields stories about everything from drunkenness and drug abuse to parents with schizophrenia.

SpringHill also makes a conscious effort to integrate disabled campers into the program. The camp has constructed a special facility, Freedom Hall, to accommodate their needs. SpringHill even provides one-on-one counselors to those who require it.

"All kids are crucial in the eyes of God," says Jenny Weinberg, coordinator of the program for the disabled. "There is no better place to be accepted than at camp."

Christian camping is on the upswing. According to Bob Kobielush, president of Christian Camping International/USA, an association of 1,075 evangelical camps and conference centers, the number of campers and guests has risen from 5.1 million in 1989 to 8.5 million today.

But the "camping industry," as he calls it, has changed. Small camps of fewer than 150 beds are struggling, in part because they are unable to offer the range of amenities that young people have come to expect. Larger camps like SpringHill, on the other hand, thrive because of their marketing savvy and because they have developed what Kobielush calls "a respectable business model."

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September 2003, Vol. 47, No. 9