One of my classmates last year mentioned the idea of thin places, or places where the kingdom of God is more visible than others. When he mentioned this, Calvin Crest immediately came to my mind.

What does it mean to see the kingdom of God? When Jesus began his ministry the gospels record he preached, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." What was the kingdom of God and why did Jesus call people to repent because it was near? Dallas Willard explains this phrase thusly. If I were walking with you downstairs and down the hall, I would stop you, point my hand to the door and say to you, "Turn for the cafeteria is at hand." Jesus was announcing the availability of the realm of God's rule that he embodied in his very presence in their midst.

Jesus went on throughout the region preaching, teaching and healing. He proclaimed the Kingdom, he taught about it, and he demonstrated the reality of it's presence in miraculous healings.

It is my desire to consider ministry in this pattern. I desire to proclaim that the kingdom is at hand, teach people about it and show it to them as well. I believe that particularly in times like these in a world that is skeptical of our arguments, our dogma, and our claims to a uniquely true understanding of the world, more than ever we now need to demonstrate or manifest the kingdom of God.

If we want to impart our faith to others, we need to show it to them. It is exactly this that I wish to make a central focus in camping ministry. I want to focus on creating a community with the intentional self understanding that it exists to be a visible manifestation of the kingdom of God... a people living in the realm of God's rule.

I still haven't found a way to articulate the point I was trying to make about the Kingdom of God at Calvin Crest in response to Tyler's question. We are speaking of the kingdom of God in different ontological (types of existence) terms. Tyler is describing an eschatological (end times) reality. I, on the other hand am describing something like an intersection of two coexistent visible and invisible realities.

When Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God, he embodied it. It was present in his being. He brought with him the kingdom of God where ever he went. When people were with Jesus, they encountered the kingdom of God. Jesus sent his disciples out to preach, and they too brought with them the kingdom of God, or the realm of God's rule. Jesus did not say, 'behold, a facet of the kingdom of God is at hand,' or 'behold an incomplete part of the kingdom of God is at hand.' Rather, what was in their midst was the kingdom of God in all its reality and authenticity. He announced it, and he invited people to enter into this realm of God's rule.

I expect that people were more able to perceive the kingdom of God when Jesus spoke than when the disciples spoke. I expect that being in Jesus' presence as he preached, taught and healed conveyed a powerful sense of God's work, God's rule and realm in their midst. So too, though we as local congregations are manifestations of the kingdom of God in so much as we gather as people in grace and obedience under the rule of God, the kingdom may not be as visible as it would be in the community up in the mountains who have set themselves apart for the purpose of devoting themselves to God's service, to each other and to the guests who come into their presence.

Camp would not be the kingdom of God in contrast to other elements of God's church. Rather it is a place where God's realm is unusually apparent and demonstrable. In this place, people may come and spend time away from their world, be shaped and moved by God and perhaps gain a certainty about God's existence and presence in their lives that they had never before.

When I was a junior in high school, one of my friends who had been exposed to church but on the fence regarding God and our faith went to camp with me. He told me sitting above the basketball courts in the middle of the week that he could say with a new certainty that God existed and was present in his life.

Another friend said from the perspective of a week in this community that she could see that it was God who was keeping her life together, and keeping her sane. It was a window into the reality of God's presence and work in our lives and in the world.

A thin place. A place where the blinds are drawn between this world we live in and the active working presence of God and his rule. A place where people can better see the realm of God's rule and consider the call to enter into the abundant life participating in God's work under his rule.

I really like the description of the thin places. That makes a lot of sense to me and I can follow you in describing the kingdom's presence in our daily reality. I guess I still follow the C. H. Dodd formulation: the "Already and Not Yet" understanding of the kingdom. (I am, however, shamefully forgetful about the particulars of that theology; I simply enjoy the phrase.) So I can wholeheartedly agree with your description of announcing the kingdom's presence here and now and I can still say that until the end of all things, we won't see or experience the kingdom in its fullness.

To use a rough analogy (and it's off the top of my head, so it may not be that accurate), I think we can be at camp and say, "The kingdom of God is here," just like I can stand in Sacramento and say, "This is America." Sacramento does not encapsulate America. Rather it is a piece of America. There are parts of it that don't embody what America is about, but Sacramento is still a piece, a sign, a facet of America. It's not a perfect analogy since you are rightly describing two separate realities and Sacramento is a part of the whole.

My gut is telling me that Willard's description—"Turn for the cafeteria is at hand"—is a good way of looking at it, but that could be due to the fact that my gut is very hungry at the moment.

"Camp would not be the kingdom of God in contrast to other elements of God's church. Rather it is a place where God's realm is unusually apparent and demonstrable. In this place, people may come and spend time away from their world, be shaped and moved by God and perhaps gain a certainty about God's existence and presence in their lives that they had never before."

This is really good, but I have a clarification question: Is the kindgom of God "unusually apparent" at camp because we there is something different about camp that makes the kingdom more apparent? Or is the kingdom "unusually apparent" at camp because there is something different about us that makes the kindgom more apparent when we go there? In other words, where is the transparency (which I use instead of thinness), in that which is perceived, or in our acts of perceiving?

Tim, I've thought and written about this question before. In our act of perceiving, we are set apart from other things that normally hold our attention. The radio, media, the man-made buildings and concrete, etc, everything that demonstrates to us that we are in control and shaping our own destiny for good or ill is taken away from us. The positive side, our activities from dawn to sleep are all God focused and we are surrounded by the beauty and grandeur of God's creation. All these things make us more aware on an individual level of God's activity.

Collectively, we are a people who are aware of and interacting with God's presence as well. That is a bridge to the other side, to the change in that which is perceived. We not only are more focused on God's activity, but we are more available to God's activity and therefore we are making the kingdom more visible to each other. If you remember my song Something From Inside, I wrote,

Why is it so hard for me to follow you when I'm not up there in that place?
Why do I forget how I prayed for my brother, and saw your love in his face?

Every tree and every friend I see on the mountain brings me that much closer to you
Crazy games and songs of days filled my day there, they all brought me closer too.

Beyond this Tim, I am also open to a completely God side of this, that Calvin Crest is a place where the Kingdom is more apparent because God has chosen it to be so, because he has chosen to reveal himself and his work there in a unique way.

Building to my second idea of pilgrimage, if there were a place where you could see God's kingdom, God's rule and activity more clearly in a regular and somewhat dependable way, would that place not merit being a destination for pilgrimage? Would we as a church not want to go to this place as part of our coming to know God, as part of our spiritual formation, as part of our growth and development as disciples of Jesus Christ?

Tyler, I think we are coming together now. I don't want to leave behind the now and not yet theology either. There is no doubt that what is coming in the eschaton is a full realization of the kingdom of God. Your analogy of Sacramento and America is right on my path and much closer than anything I've come up with.

I am heartened to see that you and Tim appreciate this thin place perspective.

I think there's another way to look at the question of whether the "thinness" is in the place or in us. Beyond our perceptions are our intentions and actions, the way we arrange our surroundings and the things we do in them.

Not having been there, what you're describing about Calvin Crest makes me think of what I experience in certain churches. When we build a church building, when we decide what the physical space we will conduct our worship in will look like, we try to make a place that will be as "thin" as possible. And the practices we participate in there are intended to make it even more "thin."

I can see that places of majestic natural beauty might be "accidentally thin," (or perhaps "made thin by God" is a better way to put it), but I'm wondering what we can do to make the places we inhabit more "intentionally thin."