Blog
STORIES FROM SACRED PLAYGROUNDS
Ministry for the Community: Day Camp at Trinity Lutheran
Three campers sit with nervous excitement in the middle of the parachute with their hands held above their heads. They sit back-to-back as the counselors and campers around the edges start to walk in a circle, slowly creating a twist in the parachute. The Living Water...
It Takes a Community: Day Camp at Faith Church
The sidewalks of the junior high are decorated with sidewalk chalk welcoming campers to day camp in Beecher, Illinois, a small town an hour south of Chicago. One hundred and twenty campers, with their parents and guardians, are greeted at the door by counselors in...
Building Leadership: Day Camp at Trinity Lutheran Church
A camper races to the front of the sanctuary, accepts the poster with the song lyrics from a counselor, and holds the poster above his head while the rest of the campers sing along with the piano. He belts out “Radical God” with pride while facing the sanctuary of...
Crossing the Street: Day Camp at Park Hills Church
The SpringHill/Park Hills Church collaboration is longstanding, in no small part due to the fact that the senior pastor at Park Hills is the son of the founder of SpringHill. Park Hills Church comes out of the Evangelical Free religious tradition. It’s a partnership...
VBS+DayCamp Hybrid at Holy Trinity Lutheran
The vacation Bible school and day camp hybrid program at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church is best described as a labor of love. The entire congregation, under the passionate leadership of Pastor Katie, makes this an incredible week for the entire congregation. Holy...
Sharing the Ministry: Day Camp at Kingsway
“Merry Christmas, everyone!” A cheer went up from the gathering of 180 elementary-aged campers and 24 SpringHill camp staff members as the snow floated down from the sky. It was late June, and the heat index was near 100 degrees in the Indianapolis suburbs, but that...
A Step of Faith: Day Camp at Granger Community Church
“Here, let me help you.” My tour guide was an 8-year-old girl that I had gotten to talk with during lunch. She was a camp pro, in her fourth summer at SpringHill Day Camp, and she was guiding me through the essential camp ritual of tie-dying. Everyone colors a...
Going Beyond Physical Safety
The Effective Camp Project has helped us expand our understanding of safety at camp. The findings have revealed that it is not enough for camps to focus on the physical safety of participants. When it comes to positive experience and camper outcomes, emotional and...
Introducing the Camp2Congregation Project
We are excited to announce that Sacred Playgrounds is directing a new research project on a ministry program called Traveling Day Camp. In these intentional partnerships between a camp and congregational ministry, trained summer camp staff travel offsite to bring the...
Effective Camp Findings: Key Factors that Lead to Camper Growth
More than 5,000 summer campers have participated in the Effective Camp Project or Power of Camp Study over the past three years. On the last day of camp, 91% of these campers agreed that they were strengthened in their faith. Three months after camp, 83% of responding...
Effective Camp Findings: Outdoor Adventure Programs
We now have a data set from more than 5,000 summer campers at 30 different camps over 3 summers. We have been very intentional about casting a broad vision for what summer camp is, based on what the Effective Camp Project has identified as 5 fundamental...
Emerging from the Data
Sorry for the long delay in communication! We have been immersed in data from all the camps who participated in various studies with us in 2018, including 10 new camps in the Effective Camp Project and 9 in its related study, the Power of Camp Study. It has been a...