Twinlow: Bringing Camp to You!

Bringing Camp to You | By MegAnn Moore

Twinlow’s Day Camp brings together community to learn more about God.

The week of July 9-13, 2012 Sprouts, Dice and Maverick from Twinlow Camp came down to Clarkston UMC and led a wonderful, fun and spirit-filled week of Community Day Camp for children from our church and community. All who were involved had a good time finding God in the Everyday.

But what is Community Day Camp you ask? Community Day Camp is a week of summer camp that comes to you. Twinlow sends three to five staff members to your local church and leads children, youth and families in a weeklong camp experience. They provide all of the curriculum and materials. For leaders, the church provides a place to stay, along with meals and volunteers to help throughout the day.

The next question that probably comes to mind is – what does a typical Day Camp day look like? Well, each day begins with worship at 9:00 a.m. – which includes singing, dancing, and learning the memory verse for the day. After worship, each group rotates through one of four classes – Bible Study, Crafts, Nature Awareness and Games. The whole group comes back together for a morning snack and then rotates through the next two classes. During the noon hour all campers and leaders join together for lunch – brought from home or provided by the church. After lunch, the Twinlow staff lead the campers into a little bit of quiet down time, before sending them off to the last rotation for the day. The day concludes with all-camp games and worship; parents then pick up their kids at 3:00 p.m.

Some of the camper’s favorite crafts and activities, this past summer, a Thanksgiving mural, showing what each camper was thankful for in his or her life; the 4-inch ant hike in Nature Awareness, examining all that an ant experiences in such a small piece of God’s Creation; the game Starfish – where you have to see who can stay the most still and quiet; and songs like Be Bold and The Sticky Moose!

Another question you may have is: How is Day Camp different from VBS? One of the big advantages to Day Camp is that you do not have to find a curriculum, leaders, or materials – all of these are provided for you by Twinlow. Twinlow also helps you promote the event by providing promotional materials and checking in with you throughout the year. Though your local church provides volunteers to help throughout the day, they are there as helpers and do not have to lead any programs.

Every day, during Clarkston’s Day Camp, parents would share with staff members how much their child was enjoying Day Camp. One parent said, “This is the best VBS my kids have ever been to, they can’t wait until next year!” Day Camp is a chance for children to experience God in a safe and nurturing way. More children participated in this ministry, than we have had in any of our children’s ministry activities in recent years. Campers not only learned Bible stories, but how they related to their life and community. The campers were not alone in being impacted by this ministry – leaders and church members both enjoyed the week in ministry. When asked to share a highlight of their week, one leader said, “The highlight of the week for me was the compliment clips, all the kids thought they were cool, and one of the kids in my group really got into it! He was jumping around and spreading them around. It was just cool seeing all kids getting involved and understanding what it was about.” Though the campers came from different schools and didn’t know each other before camp, they became friends because of their interactions throughout the week. Day Camp brought children from all over our community together for a week of Christian fun and learning.

Day Camp is a marvelous ministry, Twinlow brings into your community, not to replace your own church’s ministry, but to help and enhance the ministries you already have. Day Camp brings the community together to learn about God in a camp-like setting. This is only a small sampling of how Day Camp impacts a church and community. The experiences campers had are something they will never forget and the parents will always remember the positive effects Day Camp left on their children and community. I can just imagine how this ministry will expand next year as Twinlow brings Day Camp to more communities.
And finally, you are asking: How do we join the fun? How do we get Twinlow Day Camp to come to our church? Twinlow has eight weeks available for Community Day Camp, starting June 23, 2013 and the last week beings August 11, 2013. Each week has the potential of hosting two Day Camps throughout the Pacific Northwest Conference.

More information, along with a Congregation Coordinator’s Guide and Reservation Forms, can be found on Twinlow’s website: bit.ly/twinlow-daycamp.  For more information about our sacred sites, visit www.pnwcamps.org!

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