Get Out!

Seen the latest edition of Newsweek? It's got a poignant cover story revealing the latest research on the effects of "screen time" on our lives ... and especially the lives of our kids.

Here are a few snapshots: 

• "In less than the span of a single childhood, Americans have merged with their machines, staring at a screen for at least eight hours a day, more time than we spend on any other activity including sleeping."
• "Teens fit some seven hours of screen time into the average school day; 11, if you count time spent multitasking on several devices".
• "More than a third of users get online before getting out of bed."
• "Texting has become like blinking: the average person, regardless of age, sends or receives about 400 texts a month, four times the 2007 number."
• "The average teen processes an astounding 3,700 texts a month, double the 2007 figure."
• More than two thirds of people report feeling their phone vibrate when in fact nothing is happening. Researchers call it “phantom-vibration syndrome.”

3,700 texts a month: that averages out to 125 texts each day for the average teen!

No wonder evaluations coming back from parents on their kid's week at a Lutherhaven summer camp say the reason they choose to send their child to camp is not so their kid makes new friends, learns new skills, becomes a better leader, or even so their kid grows in their faith ... (even though parents say their child gets all those things at Lutherhaven.)

The biggest reason BY FAR that parents sent their child to a Lutherhaven summer camp: because "My camper is able to spend time in the outdoors."

Outdoors: away from all the electronic influences that more and more occupy every minute of our young people's free time, social time, and play time.

"Encounter creation!" is the first ingredient of Lutherhaven's mission. We get campers of all ages outdoors into the beauty of God's creation: forests, fields, lakes, rivers, and streams. It's one of the "Wow Factors" of coming to camp: deer on the ballfield, moose in the willows, thunder rolling over the hills, frogs, squirrels, long-horned beetles, crackling fires, blazing stars.

Then campers "Create community!" ... the second part of our mission. Camp builds life-long, life changing relationships: among friends, with significant adults, across generations.

Then it's "Commune with Christ!" -- the third part of our mission trey. What better place to deepen faith, grow in purpose, and enlarge our sense of God's call in our lives.

Lutherhaven helps kids "Get out!" in the awesome beauty of north Idaho; "Get real" in friendships new, friendships deepened, friendships for life; "Get lost!" in God's forever love for us in Jesus!

We can't wait to serve you at camp!

(Here's that Newsweek article: skip over the first blah, blah, blah and get to the jist on page 2: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/07/08/is-the-internet-making-us-crazy-what-the-new-research-says.html.)