A gentle invitation · Aug 14, Lake Arrowhead

Come back to the fire that started it.

On the fourteenth of August we return to Camp Pinecrest, up the mountain at Lake Arrowhead, for our annual summer retreat — and if the name rings a bell, it should, because it is the very fire this fellowship once sat around and did not leave until we had twenty-two songs. That was 2014, and the record is Camp Songs, Vol. 1, and every singalong on it was caught live, in one weekend, in whatever key the crackling would hold, by people who had come up the mountain for rest and went home with an album. We make no promise of a repeat. We only note that the fire pit is back this year, and that we have learned never to sit near it with a guitar unless we mean it. Come for the day if the day is what you have; come for the whole weekend if the whole weekend is a thing you are allowed. There is no pressure here and there never has been — only pine, and lake water cold enough to wake a person up, and decaf in the big urn, and the plain gladness of singing outdoors with people who came a long way to do it. Bring a chair. Bring a friend. Bring, if you would, a light heart; we will provide the fire.

• ✚Day pass or the whole weekend — Come how you are able. A day pass gets you Saturday: the morning circle, the lake, the afternoon singalong, and the fire once the sun goes. The full weekend adds Friday night and Sunday worship, a cot in a cabin with people who snore in harmony, and the slow kind of fellowship that only happens when nobody has to drive home in the dark.
• ✚What the twenty-eight dollars covers — Registration is twenty-eight dollars, and it buys you lunch on the mountain and a retreat workbook we put together ourselves — Scripture, a few hymns, blank pages for whatever the weekend gives you to write down. It is not a fundraiser. It is lunch and a workbook and gas up the grade, and if twenty-eight is a stretch, say so quietly to Sister Petra and it will be handled and never mentioned.
• ✚The fire pit returns — After a year's rest for repairs, the ring is rebuilt and lit again, in the same clearing where Camp Songs, Vol. 1 was recorded live around it in 2014. We will gather there each evening. We make no plans to record a Volume 2 — that one remains, as ever, in eternal preparation — but we would be lying if we said we would leave the guitars in the cabins.
• ✚What to bring — A folding chair, a water bottle, a swimsuit if the lake calls you, a flashlight for the walk back to the cabins, and a layer for when the mountain remembers it is a mountain after dark. Hymnals and workbooks we provide. A casserole is welcome for the Saturday potluck; pasta salad, up here as down below, remains gently unclaimed.
• ✚No pressure, only pine — This is a retreat, which means rest is the assignment. Nap in the shade if the sermon of the pines is enough for you. Sit at the fire and never once sing. Come up for a single afternoon and leave before dark. However much of it you take, you will have taken the whole of what we came for, which is simply to be together, outdoors, unhurried, and glad.

Pre-register so we bring enough lunch, enough workbooks, and enough chairs. Fellowship in song since 2007. The fire is warm and the mountain is patient; there is always room for one more.