4 Benefits to Early Summer Camp

on July 16th, 2010

We’ve done high school summer camp at the end of summer for a long time – it has served us very well there and honestly, I wasn’t sure my reaction to moving it was going to be positive. This year we made the move (partially for reasons beyond our control, and partially in strategy) to early July. Here are some good reasons for summer camp near the beginning of summer:

Summer Camp launches the summer calendar
This year, camp marked the beginning of summer for us. Our summer calendar really is getting into full swing right now. Camp is now the kickoff of summer, instead of the endcap.

Summer Camp gives us momentum at a typically low time
This past weekend’s (right after camp) services were up almost 40% from last year at the same time. Typically this is a slow time as we ease into summer and get hit right away by the dip of summer freedom. Instead, we get great participation!

Summer Camp introduces speakers
This won’t work in every context, but one of our summer camp speakers, Matt McGill, is teaching an 8-week discipleship study for the rest of the summer. Camp gave us a chance for him to connect with our students and set up that event to win.

Summer Camp builds relationships
We were fortunate enough to bring along a ton of great leaders to camp – having camp early gives us a chance to begin relationships then and carry them through the summer.

Also be sure to check out these archived poll results - “when do you do summer camp?” from April 2010.

JG


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Comments (2)

Dave at 9:01am July 16

Great thoughts! We run our camp mid june and it sets us up great for July and Aug. It also allow us to give our leaders some rest in July before a season of equipping in Aug for our big Fall push.

Successful Youth Ministry Summer Calendar | More Than DodgeBall - Youth Ministry Blog by Josh Griffin - Saddleback Church's High School Youth Ministry (HSM) at 10:35pm September 8

[...] event” that catapulted us into Fall Kickoff and the new school year. I blogged about the Benefits of Early Summer Camp, not in an effort to justify the move but to make sure we took advantage of the strategy behind the [...]