**These are 100% true events that I witnessed and partook in from my time involved in the evangelical church from ages 14-26. Names of individuals, groups and institutions have been changed. **
I dedicate this to anyone who ever went to a 1 week church camp, whether it was on the beach, in the mountains, at the lake… It doesnt matter where it was…we are all united by one common smell.
If you are unfamiliar with church camps, let me fill you in.
In the Christianity I was involved in, it was not uncommon for your church or youth group to go to summer camp together for about a weeks time every year. This was always a super fun time because it’d be you and all your friends and you’d just pile onto these vans and buses and drive to God only knows where. I’ve gone to church camps at the beaches, in the mountains and in the middle of America and in very rural areas of Georgia and other middle American states. Sometimes these weeks would revolve around community service or philanthropy, in which we would go to communities and help clean a church or roof a house or something like that, then in the evenings there would always be services. The nicer camps had more famous and well known worship leaders and guest preachers, which I guess were a larger draw to the whole affair. I’ve been to some camps on the beach where literally entire strips of condos were booked out with thousands of high school kids from around the country. Those were insane times…
Each camp would follow a similar formula, where the peak of the emotional outpouring would happen around the 3rd or 4th day after we’ve been in the camp for a couple days. Everyone would always call that night “cry night” because typically there would be an invitation to accept Christ during a pretty emotional service and for whatever reason we would all collectively agree that that was the night to finally break down and renew your vows to God to be a better Christian when you came home. As a young Christian guy, this was the night you typically made another promise to God to never watch porn or masturbate again, crying out to God through a stream of tears that you were finally done with being a dirty little sinner. I never knew what the girls were always crying about, but if you ever were in a Christian camp and saw a young boy crying on a Wednesday or Thursday evening service about something, it was 99% probably about watching porn.
Today’s story about an experience I had at camp is as weird as it is hilarious. And as time has gone on it’s gotten weirder and more hilarious to me. So, without further adeiue, the story of the Heart Shaped Booty.
The Blooms Crusades Chapter 4: "The Heart Shaped Booty"
By the time I got to college, I was getting hired to be the worship leader at these week long summer camps for other churches. So, I’d go down there for a week and lead the music for the morning and evening services for high school and middle schoolers. The particular camp that this story takes place in was set at the beach.
On about the 3rd or 4th day, it had arrived. It was time to split the guys and girls off and have a good talking to these youngins about the worst sin of all time. LUST. In our leadership meetings about what was going to happen that night, there was no mention of who was going to lead the talk for the young boys, since there was no official male leader set in place for the youth group, so when we did finally split off, I had no idea what we were going to tell this group of high school boys or even what we were supposed to talk about. It was definitely implied that we were supposed to talk about lust and how we were not supposed to watch porn or masturbate, but there was no clear blueprint for how this conversation was going to go.
Lowkey I was preparing myself to start the conversation because the only people in any sort of leadership position present at the meeting were myself, my friend who came to play music with me, and at the time, the childrens pastor of the church who was there helping at the camp.
So we all gather on one of those square wooden dock-like things on the boardwalk going out to the beach. It was a somber mood cause I think everyone knew what was about to go down. So we all got situated on the dock, heads hung low in the salty breeze. I just thought, well, I’ll just go ahead and get this over with…
And Just as I took a breath to begin my shining pastoral moment, the childrens pastor began his ministry (Please keep in mind that this is about a 40 year old man at the time. We’ll call him Ross.) So suddenly Mr. Ross gets up before all of us young men and proclaims:
“YOUNG MEN, I WANT YOU TO GO OUT THERE ON THAT BEACH AND I WANT YOU TO THINK ABOUT THE VICES OF BEING A YOUNG MAN IN TODAYS WORLD. FOR ME, IT’S THE HEART SHAPED BOOTY. EVERYTIME I SEE A HEART SHAPED BOOTY OUT THERE ON THAT BEACH I JUST HAVE TO SQUEEZE MY WIFES HAND. NOW I WANT YALL TO GO OUT THERE ON THAT BEACH AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOUR HEART SHAPED BOOTY IS AND ASK GOD FOR FORGIVENESS”
And with that, about 20 of us young men went out on that beach and sat alone, contemplating the vices of being young men in the world. For me, it just made me think more about heart-shaped booties. At the time, such a concept wasn’t even in my paradigm. I just kept thinking, “what in the hell is a heart shaped booty?” I couldn’t even put the concept together in my mind. But there I was, staring out into the Atlantic ocean, praying to God to take my desire for the heart-shaped booty away from me.
And, while Mr. Ross’s intention for our time of solace and contemplation of heart-shaped booties was to lead us young men away from temptation, I can’t help but wonder if this forced contemplation of heart-shaped booties only further fueled my lusts in the time to come… as all I thought about on that beach was heart-shaped ass. For me, no forgiveness was found that night.
The end.
More stories to come. some long, some short, some serious and some not. just things I never really talked about.