Student 2.0
Longridge 2.0 : Directed By Mark Shivers
June 28-2 : 2010 - $230
God has intentionally formed us with many senses, many ways in which to worship and engage our Creator. Why have neglected all but one or two for so long? Longridge 2.0 is about asking truthful and difficult question
s and being ready to not end up with the answers we may like. Longridge 2.0 is about re-imagining what the world can be and seeking to live out these visions of a new reality. Longridge 2.0 is about a community of believers on a journey towards the kingdom.
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 | 2008 Pictures |
Striving to be Fully Human
There are times in life that are hard to describe. There are moments that are difficult to express.
When a person is fully engaged into an activity, totally immersed in the moment with all the senses engaged, this person is gets a glimpse into what it is to be fully human. That first date when all you notice is the other person and although you’re in a loud restaurant, the rest of the world fades away. That moment on the football field when all stress and worry are driven to the background by the adrenaline induced surge of passion that focuses all energy on the now. The times where you fully lose yourself; when you let go to fully live into a moment.
And you exit exhausted, clear-headed, still, peaceful, calm. You can’t describe it but there was something right about that time, something healthy, and something that connected at a deep level. You felt alive. What if we were to seek to live every moment in that way?
What if we desired to engage every minute with all of ourselves?
I think about God. Creation. God in the moment. Pouring God’s self into the act of imagination and creativity. Incarnation. God pouring all of God’s self into the moment. Death. Empty Tomb. God doesn’t do anything half-hearted. There is this deep passion within that urges God to invest all of God’s self.
And we were created in God’s image. Created with this potential for passion. And maybe these moments are brief glimpses into what it is to be fully human, reconnected with ourselves, the holy and others. Glimpses that teach us what life can be. 2.0 seeks to be a place and time to follow our God into life.
