How St. John the Divine and Camp Allen Formed My Faith

This year’s Christmas offering benefits Camp Allen, an Episcopal camp in the Piney Woods. Learn more about Camp Allen’s impact on their website and make your Christmas offering during one of our Christmas services or online.

What fun to reflect on two incredibly formative places in my life and my faith – St. John the Divine and Camp Allen! I began regularly attending St. John the Divine in 2008 when I joined the youth group for confirmation class in middle school. As one of the confirmation requirements, I attended my first-ever church retreat and had SO much fun hanging out with my newfound friends, singing songs, and playing goofy games. After I was confirmed, I kept coming back to youth group events and loved every minute of it. I attended youth group every week, lock-ins, the 30-Hour Famine, and anything else the youth ministry offered.

When I entered high school, an older youth, Tim Hawkins, attended a Happening weekend at Camp Allen and came back raving about it. I knew immediately I wanted to go and see what all the hype was about. Finally, during my junior year of high school, I was able to attend Happening. That weekend changed my life. While I had a great support network in my faith at SJD and in the youth ministry here, I thought my friends and I who got together and went to church multiple times a week were probably the only teenagers out there who did so. When I arrived at Camp Allen that weekend, I not only knew a few people from my youth group – there were DOZENS of other teenagers just like me from all over Texas who also loved Jesus. I truly had no idea the church was so big, and I never imagined that when my friends and I got together on Wednesday nights to eat pizza and worship, hundreds of other teenagers were doing the same all over Texas.

At Happening, you are placed in small groups for discussion and reflection. My small group turned out to be full of people who went to Camp Allen every summer and served as volunteer cabin counselors for younger campers. My new friends not only encouraged me to keep coming back to Happening retreat weekends but also encouraged me to apply for summer staff at Camp that summer. I was hesitant at first, but I’m so glad I did. In the summer of 2014, I served as a Resident Cabin Counselor (RCC) for three weeks and was hooked. I applied to come back the next summer as an RCC again and worked almost every week.

When I went off to college, my friends from the youth group at SJD and my friends from camp sustained me in my faith when I was 1,000 miles away from home. They were the people I could call when I got lonely, when I didn’t know where to go to church on Sunday, and when I just wanted someone to really know me as I navigated being a freshman. Through their encouragement and prayer, I decided to apply for Senior Staff at Camp. Through my service on Senior Staff, I was first introduced to the idea of discernment – of opening yourself up to God’s work in your life beyond anything you’d ever dream for yourself. My two summers serving on Senior Staff pushed me to articulate my faith to my peers, the campers, and myself in a way I never had before.

My Camp Allen folks encouraged me to get involved in a church where I was going to college and to take ownership of my faith outside of the piney woods. Their encouragement set me on the path I am on today.

I am writing this piece from Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, where I am in my final year of Seminary. God willing and the people consenting, I will be ordained in The Episcopal Church this June. Reflecting on the journey that got me to this point, I am so grateful for the years of mentorship, examples of faithfulness, and a commitment to youth ministry that shaped me both at St. John the Divine and Camp Allen. As you read this, I encourage you to pray for the youth and young adults in your life – those you know well and those you don’t know well yet. Each of us grows in our faith when we are given a safe place to feel like we belong, ask questions, laugh together, and share our burdens when life gets hard. I am so grateful to St. John the Divine for introducing me to Christianity, and to Camp Allen for molding me into the Christian I am today.

“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:9-11)

This year’s Christmas offering benefits Camp Allen, an Episcopal camp in the Piney Woods. Learn more about Camp Allen’s impact on their website and make your Christmas offering during one of our Christmas services or online.