Student 2.0
Longridge 2.0 : Directed By Mark Shivers
June 4-8, 2011 (Sat Night through Wed Morn) - $220
Longridge 2.0 is a small-group driven camp experience in which relational connections between students and God, students and staff and students with each other are nurtured and developed. As we learn when God declared that it is not good for humans to be alone, we are social beings who are created not to be isolated but to be a part of community. The ethic of this community arises from the inseparable call and model of Jesus who told the Jewish leader to love God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength and to love his neighbor as himself. In this way, 2.0 seeks to highlight the multiple dimensions of the salvation story that not only include individuals but also communities, countries and this world.
Following the way of Jesus who put it all on the line by coming to us not with an army but in a manger, we seek to operate with an ethic of risk. We intentionally design and create worship experiences that
acknowledge the possibility and reality of failure, an inherent part of life in a broken world. We think hard about what it means to fail gracefully and then invite students into the creative process to join us in the risk-taking. Students co-create worship experiences for the morning chapel services and over the past 5 years, we have continuously awed by their creative and faithful explosions of grace.
Of course we have fun too as Godly play is an essential part of what it means to be faithfully human, living in one shared world together as those who have chosen to live our lives in the story of God. We laugh, swim, smile, cry and sweat together believing that being faithfully human in God’s image is a fully embodied life.
At the end of the week, our goal is holistic conversion. When you encounter God in deep ways, you are forever changed. When you encounter others in deep ways, whether it be staff or those in your small group, you are forever changed. You give a part of you and you receive a part of them. When this honest and open exchange occurs in the relational matrix among God, self and others, we begin to understand what it means to live into the Kingdom of God that threatens to change everything.
Meet our Director
Mark Shivers, graduate of Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, GA, licensed Baptist minister and current graduate student at Vanderbilt directs our Longridge 2.0 summer camps. Mark has always had a heart for pushing students and leaders alike to engage God in both new and ancient ways. Always seeking to engage the emerging culture, a week with Mark will urge you to ask and explore, seek and be sought, imagine and engage.
Summer Staff
Our Super Summer Camps utilize a staff of 18 college students. These students are selected to serve on our staff based upon their devotion to the Lord, exemplary lifestyle, involvement in the local church, biblical convictions and giftedness. It is our goal in their selection that your students will experience the highest 
quality of leadership and spiritual mentorship.
Staffers are assigned to each cabin and are responsible for the students of that cabin all week. He/she is their spiritual shepherd and overseer and seeks to foster growth both spiritually and emotionally in them through devotions, play, example and sharing.
Staff Praise Team
The Longridge Worship Team, formed from members of the summer staff, lead worship for Longridge 2.0 It is always amazing to see the talent and ability of these college students to meld together and be incredibly effective worship leaders. It is truly a special attribute of Longridge that the same staff who are with the students all day, lead them in worship during services. At 2.0, we seek to de-centralize the worship team as the focus of attention and move away from the concert model and develop an alternative theology of “worship.”
Go Deeper: Sample Schedule | Mission Statement | 2010 Pictures |
A Spatial Focus
Theory
The summer camp experience can have multiple theologically supported and culturally appropriate focuses. These focus points become the foundation (with various degrees of flexibility) around which the week is constructed. Programming, staff training, worship preparation, etc., all are in some manner shaped by a camp’s choice of these central foundations.
Perhaps one of the more common focus points/foundations for the camp experience is “event.” Whether it be, for example, the event of worship each day or the allure of certain amenities, the “event” not only draws students in but becomes the defining experience of the week. These events are usually experiences that cannot easily be reproduced in the world of the everyday and are instead a constructed communal experience in which that which is “holy other” is in some way encountered. Charisma can also be a substructure on and around which a camp week is constructed. Most usually embodied in a highly authoritative charismatic individual (preacher, director) or small group of leaders (band, skit team), the shape and direction for the week flow out of this charismatic authority. Place can also be a central force in the shaping of a camp experience. Locations such as the beach or mountains set a backdrop that actively contributes to a camp’s theoretical structure and actual practices.
In reality, all camps draw on parts of these as well as many other foundations or focuses when designing their camp mission and programming. While certainly influenced by such forces, we at Longridge 2.0 intentionally attempt to shape our week around sacred space.
Why describe the space as sacred? Is this not simply a cliché that could be used any place? Perhaps, but I choose to describe the space as sacred due to its incarnational and eschatological potential. That is, camp is a space in which the kingdom of God is deeply embodied (incarnation) and in which new space is created that was not previously contained in our being-in-the-world (eschatological). In other words, we believe that God encounters our lives not in some ethereal mental/introspective sphere but instead in a fully bodied reality. This embodied encounter pushes our programming, worship and staff training towards critically designed somatic engagements. We seek to cultivate the space of 2.0 in such a way as to offer the potential of these incarnational engagements with each other and with our God. Further, through these engagements and beyond, we believe God is creating new space in which interactions, conversations and friendships that were previously impossible or severely constricted can be risked. Our desire is not to participate in the tired theological wars over ground believed to be constrained and constricted in closed fields but instead to invite God to eschatologically move us towards new ground that has not yet existed.
Practice
Of course we don’t always succeed in these efforts. Here are a few ways we try.
Small-Group Driven
…attempting to cultivate a spiritual and pedagogical environment in which experiences, ideas and emotions can be freely shared in a directed but not authoritative group context.
Participatory Worship
…a fully bodied experience that invites students to actively search out the intersections between God’s story and the story of their lives…
Student Input Matters
…students have the opportunity to lead out in morning worship sessions through their small groups as well as construct the invitation experience for Thursday night…
Games that are more celebratory than competitive
…competition is not evil but here we attempt to use activity times to celebrate the bodies, emotions and personalities that God has gifted us with…
Time To Be
…optional time to be still – disconnect – form loose ties – explore beauty – risk creativity.
Trying not to Take ourselves too Seriously
…as a part of opening ourselves to space God at times surprisingly creates, we attempt to be sensitive to those moments of grace that trump our schedules, plans and theories…
