Resources for Churches
HOW TO STRENGTHEN YOUR CHURCH’S CAMPING MINISTRY
1. Make sure your church has a dedicated Camp Coordinator.
2. Start publizing our camping program in December or
January and continue through April or May. Families make vacation plans early in the year.
3. Invite camp staff to your church to provide a program to encourage enrollment at a summer camp. Contact your District Camp Coordinator.
4. Check us out at www.westmichiganconference.org (quick link: Camping). Share this website with people in your congregation.
5. Construct a highly visible camp display that shows pictures of camp, includes “quotable quotes” from former campers and lists the names of campers who have registered for camp this year. Have camp brochures and registration forms available.
6. Organize a Camp Sunday with a special worship service and or evening camping program with camp staff invited to provide a recruitment program.
7. Provide a children’s message about camping. Use camping equipment as visuals to help get their interest.
8. Offer scholarships to all campers from your church. Consider using an auction, a dinner, or other fund-raiser with proceeds dedicated to campers. Ask former campers to share their experiences during this event, in order to create enthusiasm for contributing to this ministry. The West Michigan Conference also has camper scholarships available for qualifying campers.
9. Recognize the names of registered campers in your newsletter and bulletin.
10. Recruit people from your church to be camp counselors. This is an incredibly enriching ministry!
11. When planning missions projects, remember that our West Michigan camps can always use help with fall and spring clean-up, as well as repairs and renovations.
12. Invite past campers to share about their experience at camp. These personal testimonies can be extremely powerful.
13. Make personal contacts with prospective campers. This one- on-one approach is the most effective way to get the message through. Do more than put camp brochures in your lobby’s brochure rack – put them right into the hands of prospective campers.
14. Encourage campers to invite one or more friends to attend camp with them. Campers do not have to have United Methodist backgrounds to attend our camps.
15. Hold a commissioning service for your campers before they go off to camp. Promise to pray for them by name while they are away.
16. Write to your campers while they are at camp.
17. Follow up with your campers after they return from camp. Ask them to share their photos; get their feedback and keep quotes for next year’s promotion.
Helping Your Campers Get Registered
1. If your church is paying all or part of your campers’ fees, you may write one check for all campers. But please note on the stub each camper’s name, camp number, and amount to be credited to each camper’s account. For example, a check for $175 may carry the notation, “Joey Jones, #8654, $100.
Susie Smith, #8971-03, $75.”
2. Applications for Conference scholarships must be accompanied by a completed registration form along with a minimum $75 deposit. Scholarships cannot be granted until a corresponding registration form is received.
3. Please write separate checks when mailing more than one type of payment to the Conference Treasurer. For example, we would appreciate one check for campers, another for ministry shares, another for insurance, etc.
Thank you for helping us streamline the accounting process!