Reasons to Volunteer at Special Session: SPIRITUAL GROWTH

This post was written by Michael Erwin, a Special Session counselor.

I went to church my entire life. I grew up praying every night and before every meal. I attended services at St. James Episcopal Church every Sunday morning and went to EYC every Sunday night. At 17 years old, I thought I had a strong relationship with God and was as spiritually enlightened as one person could possibly be. That summer I had the privilege of being a camp counselor at Special Session. Seeing that it was my first year, I had no earthly idea what I was getting into and in all honesty, I had never felt more fear in my entire life than I did the day before the people I now call my best friends arrived. I spent that week with some of the most wonderful human beings I have ever met, and it was not until the Talent Show on Thursday night, that my life was changed forever. I remember the moment so vividly because it was the moment I first saw the Kingdom of God. I was standing in the back of The Doug during the Talent Show and was trying to discern which people were campers, which were support staff, and which were counselors. I came to find out that I was physically unable to discern who was who, and then I had the realization that it does not matter. I was trying to put people in these boxes that society has constructed, and I was not seeing the world the way God intended. We are all children of God and there was no difference between any of us. In the years since that moment, I have only felt that close to God when I am back at camp among my closest friends. I go to camp each year not because the camp needs me. I go each year because my soul needs to be at camp.

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