DEBORAH POTTER: At times, it's like any summer camp, with the standard menu of games and crafts. But what you see doesn't tell the whole story. Just listen:
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Hopefully you will live your life in a different way. You're going to be a different person at the end of these two weeks. Hopefully.
MATTHEW SCHLIMM (Ministry Coordinator, Duke Divinity School): Each work of art is going to bear the fingerprint of its creator. What's really important here is that this is an opportunity for us to use our entire bodies to communicate our faith. Ultimately this is a chance to worship God.
POTTER: This is summer camp at Duke University's Divinity School, by application only, where Christian teenagers explore their faith and learn about the faith practices of others.UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: They pass the bread and grape juice in little cups down the aisle. I've seen it before, but not very often. When I was little I went to church with someone who ... they did that in their service. And I was like, "What are they doing?" It was so weird.
POTTER: For two intensive weeks each summer, 50 high school juniors and seniors are steeped in prayer and worship, in fellowship and study.
The program here at Duke is one of 48 at seminaries and divinity schools across the country. They're all a little different, but they share the same goal: helping young Christians hear what God is calling them to do.
FRED EDIE (Faculty Program Director, Duke Divinity School): Today I want to focus primarily on calling.POTTER: Fred Edie is the program's director -- a PhD in theology who guides the students through what he calls "part pilgrimage, part boot camp."
MR. EDIE: We want our students to understand themselves as gifted by Christ, and also called to share in Christian ministry.
POTTER: So you're trying to make ministers here?
MR. EDIE: Yes. Yes. Not that we're trying to make them, but trying to help them realize what they already are by virtue of their baptisms.
Reverend LAURA BENSON (Network Manager, National Interfaith Hospitality Network, Durham, N.C.): We really need your help, and are really glad you're here. We are a shelter for homeless families.
POTTER: Service is part of the routine. On this day, a homeless center gets some T.L.C.
MANI SHABAZZ: It's hard for people to get back on their feet and have to worry about cleaning up.POTTER: Mani Shabazz is a Baptist from Chesapeake, Virginia.
MS. SHABAZZ: It's good to do them a favor, helping yourself as well, growing as a person.
POTTER: Forrest Boone, an Episcopalian from Tallahassee, Florida, helped a formerly homeless woman move into her new apartment.
FORREST BOONE (Camp Participant): It certainly makes me feel good that I can respond to God's grace upon me and show that same sort of faith to someone else.POTTER: Okay, they're not typical teenagers, and that's to be expected.
MR. EDIE: We say to them, "You have already identified yourselves as odd and peculiar, in that you would devote two weeks to something like this." On a deeper level, I think that people are restless until they find the fullness of their being in God. Part of what drives people to come here is that restlessness, a sense that there's something to be had in life with God they have not yet fully grasped.
POTTER: The program is built around the theme of baptism, which in the Christian tradition signifies rebirth to a new life in Christ.
ELISE ERICKSON BARRETT (Ministry Coordinator, Duke Divinity School): I have news for all of you -- you're dead. You, my friends, you have already died. It's already over, and your new life is already joined to Jesus. Here's what that means: you have been set free from our subtly oppressive society that tries to teach you that your main purpose in life is to get an education so that you can get a good job so that you can buy a good car, buy a nice house with a garage to put the car in. And once you've got all that stuff, there's nothing to strive for except making it all bigger and better. You've been set free from that lie.
POTTER: The program, now in its fourth year, deliberately challenges popular culture and pushes students toward radical change.
POTTER: It can be confusing, but that's part of the plan. Students are supposed to think and pray deeply. They take Communion every night. And some will be different when they go home.
POTTER: That's the kind of Christian commitment the program hopes to build in its students, conceding it will make their lives not easier, but more complex. For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, this is Deborah Potter in Durham, North Carolina.
