A Parent’s Guide to Conversations After Camp

Questions for the Car-Ride Home

First things first, whether attending day camps or overnight camps, you can use these questions to help your camper begin talking to you about their camp experience on the way home, or around the dinner table!

1. What were some of your favorite activities you go to do? Why?
2. Did you learn anything new at camp? What?
3. Who are some new friends you met?
4. Which skill was your favorite? Why?
5. What was your favorite thing about the day/week? Why?
6. What do you remember most from what you learned during Worship?
7. What was your favorite game this week? How do you play it?
8. Describe your counselor. What did you like about him/her?
9. Tell me about a new friend you made at camp?
10. How did it feel to give up technology for the week/session?
11. Is there anything you did at camp that you’d like to do more often in your everyday life?
12. How is worship at Camp different from worship at church? How is it the same?
13. What was your favorite camp song? Can you teach it to me?
14. What did you learn about Jesus this week/session?

Extending Today’s Truth’s at Home

This summer at camp, your Camper will head off into Uncharted waters to explore God’s love and faithfulness!

In Matthew 4:19, 20, Jesus invited two brothers, Peter and Andrew, to follow Him and they did. We have the same invitation and can make the same choice. Our faithful and loving God invites us to follow Him today and into all our tomorrows. When we follow Him, we can trust that He’s leading us on the best course and will never leave us to find our way alone.

As your camper sets sail on this journey, we invite you to come along, too. For each truth, we’ll share what your Camper saw, heard, and learned, along with Scripture to read, a few questions to talk about, and some prompts for you to share your own personal experience with these truths.

We’ll even include a few short videos to help bring these truths home. Watch alone, or with your camper! Let’s keep the conversation—and the journey—going together!

Today’s Truth #1:

God is Faithful to Invite Me In, So Now I Can Follow Him

Read It 📖

• Read Matthew 4:18-22 with your Camper.
• Read Matthew 14:13-21 with your Camper.

Talk About It 🗣️

1. What was your favorite part of the stories we read? Why?
   (Let them explain their drawing or retell part of the story.)
2. What does it mean to follow someone? What do you think it means to follow Jesus?
3. Peter and Andrew dropped their fishing nets to follow Jesus right away. What do you think that meant for them?
4. Jesus said He would make them “fishers of people.” What do you think that means?
5. In the second story, the disciples didn’t have enough food to feed the crowd. How did Jesus help solve that problem?
6. What does this story show us about how Jesus takes care of people?
7. How would you feel if Jesus invited you to follow Him like He did with the disciples?
8. Why do you think it’s important that God invites us in and wants us to follow Him?

Share It 🤲

Is there a moment when you accepted Jesus’ invitation to follow Him?

If so, share with your camper why you accepted that invitation and how it has been the most important decision of your life.

If you haven’t had such a moment, discuss Jesus’ invitation with your camper. What do you learn about God’s love from this?

Today’s Truth #2:

God Is Faithful to Be With Me, Both in Calm and Stormy Seas.

Read It 📖

• Read Matthew 14:28-30 with your Camper.
• Read Matthew 16:16 with your Camper.

Talk About It 🗣️

1. What happened in the story when the disciples were in the boat during the storm?
2. How would you have felt if you were in the boat with the wind, waves, and storm?
3. Peter got out of the boat to walk on the water. What do you think helped him have that kind of faith?
4. Why did Peter start to sink? What did Jesus do when that happened?
5. What do these stories show us about how Jesus helps us when we’re scared or struggling?
6. Peter called Jesus the Messiah, the Son of the living God. What does that mean to you?
7. What do you believe about who Jesus is?
8. How does it help you to know that God is always with you—whether things feel calm or stormy?

Share It 🤲

Have you experienced the God being with you (comforting, leading, helping you) in the middle of a tough situation?

If so, share with your camper how you knew God was with you and how you have learned to focus on following Him, no matter the situation you’re facing.

If you haven’t had this experience, discuss with your campers what it might be like to follow God and to trust that you never face any situation alone because God is faithful to be with His people.

Today’s Truth #3:

God Is Faithful Through The Cross, to Restore What Was Lost.

Read It 📖

• Read John 3:16 with your Camper.
• Read Romans 3:23 with your Camper.
• Read Romans 6:23 with your Camper.
• Read Romans 10:9,10 with your Camper.

Talk About It 🗣️

Use the following questions to talk with your camper about this verse.

1. Do you remember the four pictures you learned about today? Can you tell me what each one means?
   • What does the heart mean? (God Loves)
   • What does the broken heart mean? (We Sin)
   • What does the cross mean? (God Gave)
   • What does the gift mean? (I Receive)
2. What happened that caused our relationship with God to be broken?
3. How did God show His love for us, even when we were far from Him?
4. Why is Jesus so important in the story of how we get reconnected to God?
5. How do we receive the gift of eternal life that God offers us through Jesus?
6. How does it feel to know that God sees you, knows you, and still loves you so much?
7. Why do you think God would go so far—giving His own Son—to fix our relationship with Him?
8. What does Today’s Truth mean to you now: God is faithful through the cross, to restore what was lost?

Share It 🤲

Share your personal thoughts about those four images with your camper. What does it mean to you to hear that God Loves and, even though We Sin, God Gave?

Can you identify with this response to this statement: I Receive? If so, share with your camper how your life is different because you have believed in Jesus and received His gift of eternal life.

If not, share with your camper how your life might change if you were to believe Jesus came to reconnect you in close relationship with God and you received eternal life from and with Him.

Share from your heart and encourage your camper and/or other family members to do the same. This could be an awesome conversation that none of you will ever forget.

Today’s Truth #4:

God Is Faithful to Make Me Bold, So His Story Can Be Told.

Read It 📖

• Read Acts 4:13, 14, 18-20 with your Camper.
• Read 1 Peter 5:10 with your Camper.

Talk About It 🗣️

Use the following questions to talk with your camper about this verse.

1. Can you tell me what happened in the story with Peter and John?
2. Why could it have been scary or hard for Peter and John to keep talking about Jesus?
3. What choice did Peter and John have to make—and what did they decide to do?
4. What did the leaders notice about Peter and John? Who had they been with?
5. What does it mean to be bold, strong, firm, or steadfast? Can you show me what that might look like?
6. Sometimes it can feel scary to talk about Jesus. How does it help to know that God gives us everything we need to do what He asks?
7. Why do you think God wants us to tell others about Jesus?
8. Why is Today’s Truth important for us today: God is faithful to make me bold, so His story can be told?

Share It 🤲

Have you learned anything about sharing Jesus’ invitation with others you didn’t know or realize before?

If so, share those things with your camper. If you are following Jesus and sharing His truth with others, share with your camper how that has affected your life.

If you haven’t, discuss with your camper what it might be like to follow Jesus and share His invitation with others. How might that change how you think, feel, speak, live every day?

Invite your camper and/or other family members to share their thoughts about God’s continual love and faithfulness.

Today’s Truth #5:

God Is Faithful to Invite Me In, So Now I Can Follow Him.

God Is Faithful to Be With Me, Both in Calm and Stormy Seas.

God Is Faithful Through The Cross, to Restore What Was Lost.

God Is Faithful to Make Me Bold, So His Story Can Be Told.

Read It

• Read Matthew 4:19, 20 with your Camper.

Talk About It 🗣️

Use the following questions to talk with your camper about this verse.

1. What’s something really special you learned about God this week?
2. Can you think of a time this week when you felt close to God or saw His love at work?
3. Why do you think it’s good news that God is always with us, no matter what we’re going through?
4. Why do you think God wants us to share His story with others?
5. If someone asked you what you learned about God at camp, what would you tell them?
6. Who is someone in your life you’d like to tell about Jesus or show His love to this week?
7. How has your friendship with God grown or changed this week at camp?
8. How would you describe this week of camp, exploring Uncharted?

Share It  🤲

What have you learned this week from sharing these Family moments with your Camper?

Ask your Camper and/or other family members to share their biggest takeaway from their time at camp.

As a family, discuss how everything you have learned this week might affect how you live and interact in your home, in your neighborhood, and everywhere you go.

We hope this guide has been helpful as you and your Camper begin to process your camp experience and will soon head into the new school year. Thanks for joining us this summer for the Summer of a Lifetime! See you next summer!