What a year! As we round out 2025 and look toward 2026, it’s a great time to look back at our hopes for this past year. Each year on the Sacred Playgrounds Podcast, we kick off a new year with a set of data-driven New Year’s resolutions for outdoor ministry. Before we embark on a fresh calendar, we thought it would be fun to see how we did on our resolutions from the past 52 weeks. If you missed it or you’d like to listen back to that episode, just click play! Otherwise, we’ll give you a rundown below with some reflections on where we’ve come.
resolution #1
Have a system for studying scripture.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. – John 1.1
In the 2025 New Year’s resolutions episode, the first thing we encouraged was one of foundational personal faith practices. For Christian camps, we root our ministry in the Word. That works when we are steeped in the Scriptures ourselves. And, the truth is, as busy camp leaders, we often let this go for ourselves. It’s an interesting thing to spend time encouraging and creating space for others to do this, yet finding ourselves filling most of our fringe hours with a task.
So, how did we do? This is really a question for each of us. What helped us soak in scripture? What got in the way? If you found a particular perspective, personal system, devotional resource, or reading plan helpful, would you post it in the comments here on this post or wherever you’re reading this?
One suggestion we heard was helpful again this year for camp staff and leaders was Holy Ground. We’ll have a new edition coming out soon for 2026. Pre-orders open soon!
Resolution #2
Equip your enthusiasts.
Remember that in the Camp & Church Leadership Project and the Episcopal Church Leadership Project, we identified a bit of a stratification in engaged clergy members. There are camp “skeptics” who tend to stay intentionally disconnected and sometimes even speak negatively about camp. There are “accommodators” who tend to say yes when asked and have a generally positive point of view toward camp, but often don’t go much further. Then, there are your “enthusiasts” who love camp, have a highly positive view, participate regularly, partner, give, and promote camp to others. The findings from these projects around this concept were focused on clergy, but anecdotally through your stories and in other projects focused on guests, donors, and partners, this basic stratification seems to hold true for many camp-connected audiences. This resolution was an encouragement to identify and then equip those enthusiasts to make telling your camp story easy and compelling.
We’ve spoken with dozens of camp leaders over the past year, and the consensus seems to be that we’re getting there, and there’s room to grow. We’ve seen camp leaders use social, email, and web platforms with more of a focus on marketing and communications that are more story-inspired and data-driven, as opposed to simply trying to say the right thing in a different way to convince them. Getting stories, pictures, and quotes from experienced camp enthusiasts brings a level of social proof that is often needed in decision making these days.
So, how did we do? We did it, we’re still doing it, and there’s room to grow, especially in getting resources and ideas into the hands of those enthusiasts so they share in their spaces organically, not just collecting them to share from ours. That’s our growing edge with this idea.
Resolution #3
Create cabin conversations about God and faith.
This resolution hinges on one truth that we’ve shared over and over, the finding that the #1 factor for faith retention is conversations about God and faith with family. All of the practices we encourage and think about as central to active and vibrant faith (prayer, devotions, attending church, etc.) are important, but the influence lies at home most significantly through conversations about God and faith. We also know through Effective Camp research that the impacts of camp last beyond the week and affect home and church life.
One of the questions we ask parents on summer surveys is their agreement with the statement, “My child has engaged me in conversations about God/faith more frequently.” Around 35% of parents said “yes” to this statement in 2025. This is both encouraging and points us to an area we can still focus on.
The way we get there at camp is a couple of things. First, as the resolution called out, is to create these conversations in the temporary mini-families we have at camp, our cabin groups. When we model and normalize these kinds of conversations in small group settings, we seed the opportunity for this way of being to go home with campers. The second is to inform parents of this goal, and to equip them for these conversations. Tell them clearly in resources and follow up communications that one of your goals is to have families in conversation about faith, and then give them a tool or path to do that. The need for that was why we created the Post-Camp Parent Resource template, in case that’s a helpful tool for you to use as a starter.
Resolution #4
Have a noticeably improved product.
This was something we talked through with our friend Travis Alison from GoCampPro on the podcast last season. When you make an improvement in your experience, something significant and consequential enough for people to notice, it changes things. The idea is to do this intentionally and publicly. Tell stories about it. Highlight it. Showcase it. When people see growth, investment, and intentionality, they usually respond with engagement.
Hoping to practice well what we preached, we worked to improve a few things this year at Sacred Playgrounds. Camps who worked with us on evaluations and assessments through Effective Camp projects this year noticed a completely refreshed report design this year, with more data visualizations, clearer insights, and an updated design. Another goal was to broaden access and usability of the 5 fundamentals of effective camp, so we built two new resources with that in mind: a binder-ready resource for summer staff training, and a self-assessment tool around these camp foundations.
So, how did the industry do? Again, this is mostly a question for each of you. What did you do to improve your experience this last year? Did you adjust check-in to make it more efficient, did you switch the order of programming to help campers transition better, or did you upgrade your dining hall menu? Share it in the comments if you’ve got something!
Resolution #5
Contribute to society.
Like a tired parent of an emerging adult, we just hope they can find a way to contribute to society as they grow up. That was the call for us in our organizations as well. We talk often about how camp experiences are valuable because they are unplugged from home, set apart from the normal and permanent spaces. All this is good, however, this idea is really about the participant experience, not a call to operate cloistered. It’s critical, especially now, for camp and its leaders to engage with and be a contributive part of our communities. This call is rooted in relationship building, because camp thrives in partnership, and shrinks in a silo.
An example of encouraging these kinds of contributions have been in seen in how camp associations highlight and reward innovative and inclusive programs. Our friends in the Lutheran Outdoor Ministries (LOM) Network award annual grants to a camp with programs. Other associations invite camps to highlight these programs through workshops at annual conferences. We’ve also noticed a slight uptick in camps starting highly-partnered programs like school field trips.
So, once more, how did you do? Were there new partnerships formed? Were you able to rekindle a church leader connection? Was there a creative event or program that brought new communities or audiences?
Resolute in 2026
Here’s hoping these and your own resolutions for 2025 were met with intentionality and resilience! Next week, we’ll release our 2026 episode of Camp New Year’s Resolutions based on the latest insights and compelling stories from camps and leaders like you. We’re finalizing our list, so if you have a resolution for the camping industry you think we need to include, send us a message!
Great recap! I loved seeing how the 2025 resolutions played out — especially the focus on scripture, staff support, and meaningful faith conversations. Do you have any tips for camps that struggled with a particular resolution this year? Also curious what tools helped you track progress most effectively.