Sunday morning at camp doesn’t come with stained glass or polished pews. The sanctuary is our dining hall, with the tables pushed to the corners and the benches turned to face the front. The screen windows let in the breeze, and if you look past the speaker, you’ll see the calm surface of OK Slip Pond just beyond the trees.

You’ll hear birds. You’ll hear water lapping. And then you’ll hear it. A group of boys and men, voices rising together. Singing.

It’s not perfect. It’s not meant to be. But it’s real.

Some voices are loud. Some are shy. Some barely make it out past the lump in their throat. But something happens in that room. The kind of thing that can’t be scripted. These boys didn’t come to camp for a church service. They came to climb mountains and jump in lakes and stay up too late whispering in cabins. But when the music starts and the words hit something deep, you can see it on their faces. They feel it. And they sing.

Not because they were told to. Because they want to.

Worship at Northern Frontier isn’t a performance. It’s a moment. One where a boy learns that his voice matters to God. That he can be honest with it. That joy doesn’t have to be polished to be powerful.

We’ve heard songs shouted around campfires and whispered at lakeside devotions. We’ve heard choruses that echo off canoes and linger long after the last note. And we’ve learned that when boys sing together, something shifts. Their faith grows legs. Their courage finds a home.

“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.” That verse isn’t about getting it right. It’s about giving it fully.

And here in the woods, surrounded by pine and sky and the laughter of boys becoming men, we hear that joyful noise again every summer.