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Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week I’m excited to be talking with Stephen Moore, the Director of WinShape Camps for Communities. WinShape, an organization started in 1985 by Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, started as a college program and has since grown into five different ministries, with focuses on professional development, marriages, foster care, college discipleship, and summer camps. WinShape Camps for Communities is a traveling day camp program that partners with churches to bring camps to communities all over the US while spreading the gospel of Jesus.

Are you looking for a fun and engaging way to reach more families in your community with the gospel? Want to create opportunities for college-age kids to gain ministry experience while developing their leadership? Listen in as Stephen talks about the importance of children’s ministry in shaping the future of the church as well as the transformative power of camps for campers, their families, and the summer staff.

• Children are the future. // Children’s ministry is more than just a place to keep kids occupied during services. The future of the church is children; the gospel is for them too. WinShape Camps for Communities wants to help build local, engaged church members from a young age in the places they visit. They don’t water down the gospel at the camps so the kids who attend can come to a knowing relationship with Christ.
• Engaging kids. // The mission statement of WinShape Camps for Communities is to glorify God by creating experiences that transform campers and families with the message of Christ. Don’t just entertain kids by showing videos in your kids ministry, but invest in discipleship and be intentional to engage them as they learn about Jesus.
• Form a bond. // WinShape Camps for Communities is about embracing all-out-fun and all-out-faith. By spending time with the kids at camp and investing with them in the activities they enjoy, the staffers build trust and form a bond them. Then when the time comes for the WinShape staff to share the gospel, the kids are ready to open up and listen. Camp is a setting where the gospel can come alive in a way that it doesn’t in day-to-day life at home.
• Bringing camp to you. // Not everyone can afford or feels comfortable sending their children to overnight camps. WinShape Camps for Communities partners with churches and local businesses to bring camp to a community. The traveling camps provide a safe and fun environment for children during the summer, while also incorporating the gospel and faith into the activities which range from sports and crafts to science experiments.
• Work with others in your community. // WinShape Camp for Communities is for local churches in a community, not just one church by itself. WinShape hosts a big event every January and invites host churches for a rally in Atlanta. There is a three-day event with guest speakers to teach and empower church leaders. They are also invited to bring up to eight people from different churches with them. When they go back home, these churches are given information on how to engage with other businesses and churches to invite them to partner with the traveling camp.
• WinShape brings everything. // The churches partnering with WinShape don’t have to provide anything other than volunteers to help connect with the kids. WinShape Camps for Communities bring everything with them, including all the necessary equipment and resources for the activities. Everything they do ties back to the gospel, including flag football, where they take breaks for short devotionals. By providing volunteers from the local churches to work with the kids, the kids will see familiar faces if their family decides to attend services at the church.
• An opportunity for young adults. // Working as summer staff at camps is an invaluable experience for college-age kids as well. Regardless of a young person’s area of study in college, working at a camp contributes to their personal and spiritual growth as well as helping develop their leadership skills. Plus, the impact of working with kids and families to make a difference in their lives is priceless.

You can find out more about WinShape Camps for Communities at www.winshapecamp.org.

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Well hey, everybody; welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today. You know it’s summertime and you know when you think of summer you think of camps, and so today ah we’ve brought you a bit of a different look on leadership on something that all of us I really do think should be reflecting with. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you and today will be absolutely no exception to that. Super excited to have Stephen Moore with us. He serves as the Director of WinShapes Camps for Communities, a traveling day camp program that brings camps ah to churches all over the country. Ah where he’s ah he’s served with WinShape camps for over sixteen years. Stephen has recruited literally thousands of summer staff to bring the gospel of Jesus and even more more ah to even more campers and families. Super excited for ah Stephen to be on the show. He’s he’s also excited for the local church. And we’re looking forward to learning more from him today. Thanks for being here today, Stephen.

Stephen Moore — Happy to be here, Rich. Thank you for having me and excited to engage with you about camp and about what we’re talking about this morning.

Rich Birch — Yeah, why don’t you kind of ah tell what did I miss about WinShape, tell us about WinShape folks that don’t know about about you guys or your mission, kind of talk us through that a little bit.

Stephen Moore — Yeah I’d love to. Um, WinShape was started in 1985. It was ah founded and started by the founder of Chick-Fil-A, Truett Cathy um, and it originally started with the college program at Barry College in Rome, Georgia, and then soon after a overnight camps for boys was added. Then the next summer an overnight camp for girls was added. And so about forty years ago WinShape got its start and today it has grown into five different unique ministries. So we focus on professional development. We focus on marriages, focus on homes, we focus on college discipleship. And specifically where I work we focus on summer camps.

Stephen Moore — So we have five overnight summer camps in North Georgia. We we have teams in Costa Rica and Brazil right now doing summer camps in those countries. And then we do traveling day camps all over the entire United States as you mentioned a little bit ago, and that’s what I have the opportunity to specifically work with – our traveling day camps.

Rich Birch — Love it. This is so good. And we were just before we got recorded, today we’re recording this literally on like the opening day. And so the fact that Stephen is sitting down with us for a half an hour is pretty amazing. So we really appreciate uh your time with us. I know you’re passionate about this.

Rich Birch — And, you know, I was about a month ago just maybe over a month ago I saw an interesting article entitled “Pastors, Children’s Ministry is More Than a Place to Keep Kids Occupied.” And I sat up and I was like, Ooo, that is so true and resonates with so much we talk about here at unSeminary. And so I wanted to get Stephen on to talk about that. That’s a bold title ah, because you know you’re saying maybe there are churches that are just keeping kids occupied. Ah what’s the opportunity that maybe some churches are missing by just kind of having a lower view of kids ministry? Talk us through that.

Stephen Moore — Yeah. I mean I think we see it even in scripture in Mark when Jesus says hey let the little children come to me. You know, the disciples and others are trying to stop that and he he sees and he knows that, hey no, the gospel is also for for children. It’s for everybody. And so we see it in scripture and we believe that at WinShape. Um, we often say at WinShape, we are not the local church but we are for and support the local church. So if you’re a pastor listening to this, we thank you for the ministry you’re doing, and we want to come alongside and support you in that.

Stephen Moore — Um, I think the sad reality is there are people leaving the church. Um, and we’re seeing that and so we want to focus on them and we want to engage them. But we um also know the future of the church is children. You know, seven year olds today are going to be twenty-seven year olds in 20 years. And we want them to be plugged in and invested in their local church. So what we want to create and help build are local engaged church members. And we think doing that at a young age is important. So we do not water down the gospel at Winshape Camps. No, we boldly preach and teach the gospel. And we want kids to come to a ah knowing relationship with Christ um, while at camp and then while in their local church. So, a way that we do that is is through our mission statement. We glorify God by creating experiences that transform campers and families with the message of Jesus Christ. And so we would hope that churches do that with their children’s ministries. Hey, don’t just engage them. Don’t just entertain them. Don’t just throw on Youtube videos and have fun. No, engage them with the message of Jesus Christ and let church be a place where they are able to hear and learn about Him, and ultimately hopefully grow in a relationship with him.

Rich Birch — I love that. And you know one of the things we’ve seen about growing churches that are making an impact is they are next generation obsessed. They’re thinking about kids. This is a key piece of the puzzle that you can’t just kind of phone this in. You’ve got to, you know, think about it strategically, you have to invest in it. You’ve got to ah, give great resources towards that. Why do you think you know maybe some churches struggle with this. Maybe it’s the you know more the investment, the finding people. What is the what’s the sticking point there that maybe holds ah you know, churches back, or the churches that you’ve maybe engaged with or seen out there that have, you know, maybe struggle with this?

Stephen Moore — Yeah. I think um I think some of them is the resources and the volunteers. You know, in order to have a ah thriving children’s ministry you need to have folks volunteer and engage with that. And so I know that that’s that’s something even at WinShape we’ve struggled the last few years and engaging and hiring our summer staffers. Um, there’s so many options for people. Um, and we think working at camp, I mean any camp not just WinShape, is one of the best ways you can spend your college summers. I did it for four summers and I grew so much in that. So I think that’s one reason.

Stephen Moore — And I think too ah, it is work. You know, I think there is an element of oh well, we could just make children’s ministry or our children’s program really simple and entertaining and it won’t take as much like discipleship and investment. But what we do at camp is work. It’s tough work but it’s so rewarding. And it’s so life changing that it’s worth that additional investment in going that, what we would say WinShape, that second mile. I’m going that second mile second to be able to engage with people and invest um within them in a deeper, not just entertaining, but in a life-changing way.

Rich Birch — I love that. Well WinShape, ah you know, your reputation as an organization is just so positive. You know, high quality. Um, you know, people that engage with WinShape are just like, Man, they do just do such great stuff. And one of the things that um I’ve heard people say and then when I was doing a little bit of research I see you actually talked about it, or I read on your website, you talk about all-out-fun and all-out-faith, which I just love that. I love this idea of, hey, our our ministry is both of those things. Can you talk us through that? What does that look like, because man, I think that’s something our churches could learn. How how can we have all-out-fun and all-out-faith at the same time?

Stephen Moore — Yeah, that’s that’s a great ah great question. I think what we do and what we try to do is we try to build trust with children. We try to allow them to, you know, play soccer or flag football, or go to gymnastics or painting or crafts or fast food or wacky science. Those are just some of our our skill offerings. We go out out of the rec field and play games, and we listen to what the children are interested in because we know if they are able to engage with that counselor, if they’re able to engage with the volunteer, there’s going to be a trust built. In over 3 or 4 days um then when that staffer wants to sit down and and tell them about the gospel, that kid’s going to be more engaged to listen because they know that that staffer or that volunteer cares about them.

Stephen Moore — Um, and so I remember sitting down with a dad last year he came and he told me he said, thank you for the ministry you do. It’s so meaningful because we teach our kids these things in the home each and every day. But when they hear it from a 22 year old college student that cares about them, that invest in them, that wants to engage with them in whatever that activity is they hear it in a different way. It’s a reinforcement of what it’s taught at home and so that child is more open and receptive to the gospel in that setting because they’re a place they’re they’re doing activities they’re not normally doing. And they’re engaging in fun in a way they normally don’t. And so their faith can grow while at camp. Thats at any sort of camp – at our overnight camps, center day camps. There’s a lot of great Christian camps across America. We we think WinShapes one, but there are other ones too that I think it’s a camp is a setting where the gospel can come alive in a way that maybe doesn’t in ah in a day-to-day activity at home.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I’ve I’ve joked and now you didn’t say this; I’ve said this. So don’t this is don’t don’t take this in a negative way. But I’ve joked in other settings because I’m a huge camp booster. I think it’s really important for for families to engage with. I think it’s really important for, like you say, young leaders – it’s an incredible place to work, whether it’s WinShape or other places. But I’ve joked in other contexts I said, you know, like in a lot of churches ah Jesus has like a bit of a moldy basement and and maybe like ah some you know flannel board or something like that. But when you go to camp, Jesus there, man, he’s like super engaging. He’s got all kinds of fun activities. He’s going to, you know, it’s bright and sunny out and you’re running around outdoors, doing something amazing. What an incredible context for the message of Jesus to ah, you know, to resonate. Just incredible. I just think that’s it’s one of the things that makes camp ministry just so important, I think for kids particularly.

Rich Birch — What what does it look like? So I have to be honest until I engaged with you on this, I did not know that WinShape did day camps. So this is like a learning experience for me. What does that look like when you, you know, you end up partnering with a place, and what kind of activities – how does that all work? Give us a sense of what that kind of looks like.

Stephen Moore — Yeah, of course. And and you mentioned a few minutes ago camp started this morning so yesterday…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Stephen Moore — …our five overnight camps kicked off. So parents were dropping off yesterday afternoon, and they’re on day two.Day camp started this morning at 8am in ten different communities across the US.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Stephen Moore — So um, we have 10 different teams and those teams we just finished two weeks of training together.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Stephen Moore — So we brought all our WinShape summer staffers together. We professionally and intentionally trained them in their activities, in safety, in gospel presentation, and we send them on the road. Um.

Stephen Moore — And so we what we understand is not everyone can afford an overnight camp experience, nor are parents comfortable. You know some parents might say, hey, I’m not ready to send my first grader away for a week or two, but I do want them to experience camp. So what we said is, well, let’s take camp on the road.

Stephen Moore — Parents are also looking for things to do with their children while not in school during the summer. And a safe and a fun environment is important to them. We agree, but let’s put the gospel and faith in it as well.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Stephen Moore — Um, and so that’s what we do. Um so we partner with local businesses. We partner with local churches. And I think if even Florence, South Carolina we’re doing camp there in a few weeks. 25 different churches come together and send kids to camp there.

Rich Birch — Wow, wow!

Stephen Moore — It’s not just one church. It’s WinShape Camps for Communities. We want to be for that whole community.

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. That’s good.

Stephen Moore — Um, and so we’re doing camp… yeah… in Texas and Florida and Illinois, all the way out to California and New Mexico and Oklahoma and everywhere in between. So um, we come in, we we set up on Sunday we go to church, we attend church at that local church. We set up all day Sunday and then Monday morning through Thursday camps from 8 to 5 and then Fridays our big Friday family fun day. So we we bring in all the parents, all the cousins, and the grandparents, and we feed them lunch. And then our day wraps up, our team packs up, and they go to the next location.

Rich Birch — Oh my goodness. Love it.

Stephen Moore — But I want to focus real quick on… Um, yeah, it’s it’s a fun…

Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s clearly university, college students doing that. That’s a grinder. What an incredible summer though. That’s so fun being on the road. Sorry didn’t mean to cut you off there.

Stephen Moore — Yeah, no, you’re good. You’re good. We um, we want our staffers to build really intentional relationships with the campers and invest in them. But more importantly, we want local church volunteers there as well. Because we know on Friday we’re packing up and we’re headed to the next town. We we intentionally ask the church to provide a volunteer for every 10 campers.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Stephen Moore — So if there’s going to be 380 campers one week, we want 38 volunteers. Because on Sunday morning when that kid maybe comes back to church for the first time, which happens so often because the parents are like, Man, my child had such a fun week. We don’t go to church. Maybe we should try this place out on Sunday morning. They come on Sunday morning. They’re going to see familiar faces because there’s 38 volunteers that were with us all week are going to be there on Sunday so that child is going to immediately feel that safety and that comfort. And they’re going to even want to be more involved there. So that’s something we also do. That that volunteer component is really important to us.

Rich Birch — Can you give me a sense of the like the scale, the scope of a kind of typical WinShape Day Camp? Like is this, like you mentioned you know, almost 400, 380 kids – is that kind of typical, is that what that is typically looking like, or are they larger smaller?

Stephen Moore — Yeah, well…

Rich Birch — What, you know…

Stephen Moore — Yeah, we’re…

Rich Birch — I know they’re all different, I get that.

Stephen Moore — No, that’s a good question. We um, our average camp size is usually around 250 to 280 campers…

Rich Birch — Yep, okay.

Stephen Moore — …um per per our day camps. Our community camps um we will have some that are going to be closer to 550 campers…

Rich Birch — Wow.

Stephen Moore — …and then we’ll have some that are closer to 175. So um we bring in either a team of 20 to 25 people, or if it’s a really large camp. We’ll actually send two teams to one location.

Rich Birch — Okay, that makes sense.

Stephen Moore — So this week we have ten unique locations. Next week we might have a really large location so we’ll send two teams there. So we’ll have nine unique communities. So this summer we’re doing 84 weeks of camp over the next nine weeks.

Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing. And um, that’s incredible. It’s so cool. What when at the kind of community level. So is that I talk me through how churches are working together on this. I love that idea of like, hey, maybe there’s a group of churches that are trying to leverage this kind of opportunity. What what does that look like maybe maybe if you could have your like perfect hey this would be amazing if we did this everywhere that would be incredible. What does that kind of look like?

Stephen Moore — Yeah, you know it kind of goes back to our name WinShape Camps for Communities. We are for communities and for the local churches in that community, not just one church. So what we we do a big event every January where we bring in a lot of our host churches. We call it Host Rally. We fly them in um, to Atlanta we do a very like 3-day training. We bring in speakers, guests. We want to enrich and empower them. We know church leaders and pastors can sometimes, it’s a struggle. And so we want it to be ah a very faith-fi like encouraging weekend but we also want to equip them to do camp.

Stephen Moore — So we invite them to bring up to up to 8 people, if they want, from different churche and a leadership team. And so it’s not just First Baptist Church or whatever church. It might be 3 or 4 churches coming to that event. And when we when we send them back home, we encourage them, we help them, we resource them: Hey, this is how you can go engage with other businesses and other churches and invite them to come to camp. Um that that church I mentioned a few days ago or a few minutes ago, 25 different churches from that community. That community had over 80 families attend camp that don’t regularly attend church.

Rich Birch — Wow, interesting.

Stephen Moore — So there might have been 120 families that do. There’s 80 families right there that don’t attend or engage with the church that sent their child to a church for five days during a week. So they’re gonna be so much more likely to say, hey, I want to get plugged in because my child had an awesome experience at camp. They came back changed. We hear that so many times from parents – the child I dropped off on Monday isn’t the same child that I picked up on Friday afternoon; something changed this week. And what we think is, it’s the gospel. We think it’s Jesus. They were introduced to him and engaged it with him in a way they’ve never had before. And so then that parent’s like, you know what? I want to try that out. So we think camp is such a great tool to help local churches connect with people in their community that they normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to do with.

Rich Birch — Love it. How, at the kind of participant or at the camper level, how do WinShape Camps for Communities differentiate against other… like what kind of activities are you doing and what is that like? So again, I can picture your overnight camp experience and I’m trying to picture how do you get that into the back of a bus and move it.

Stephen Moore — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Um, you know what does that look like?

Stephen Moore — Yeah, sometimes people are like…

Rich Birch — You can’t bring those nice hills in Georgia; you can’t move those nice hills in Georgia you can’t, you know, to everywhere across the country, you know.

Stephen Moore — That’s right, we’ll figure out a way to do that. Um, so I think some people are like, is it just VBS on steroids? And we’re like no, it’s it’s more than that. So you know, we just sent our teams out. They travel in two 15-passenger vans, two 26-foot moving trucks, and an additional pickup truck. So that’s what’s great for these churches. You don’t have to provide anything; just provide us some volunteers and some space to do it.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Stephen Moore — We bring everything with us. We bring our sound and our tech equipment. We bring LED walls. We bring an incredible, impressive set with us. Um we bring in 18 different skill offerings from flag football to soccer, to wacky science to archery. You know, we bring in targets and bows and arrows, because we think these campers maybe don’t get an experience this every day. So Let’s do something new for them. We haven’t quite figured out how to bring the horses on the road with us. So horseback riding’s just at our overnight camps. But rocketry – that’s something we bring in…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so fun.

Stephen Moore — …little kids get to shoot off rockets into the air at camp in that skill. So um and again camp is from 8 to 5, and we often hear parents tell us—and the reason this is fresh on my mind is because I just let a session at this at staff training a few days ago—that it’s their child’s favorite and best week of the summer every single year…

Rich Birch — Sure.

Stephen Moore — …and they can’t wait for us to come back to the next year. And we know that’s not just unique to WinShape camps. We know that that that’s just camp in general. It’s such a special unique thing, but we want to be really intentional about what we do at camp and have it tie back to the Gospel. So if we’re taking flag football, we’re in that skill for 50 minutes, we’re taking a water break at 15 minutes in, we’re going to sit down and do a short devo. And we’re going to just, hey, for the next three minutes let’s have a water break and let’s look at a piece of scripture and how that ties into the rest of the day.So we’re intentionally trying to do that through each and everything we do at camp.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that That’s so good. Again this is fantastic. Love what you guys are up to. If there’s churches out there like that are thinking maybe this is the kind of thing I want to pursue, um are there kind of some characteristics or something you’re looking for in churches that would you’d love to partner with? I’m assuming you’re interested in partnering with new churches because you’re talking on this thing. Ah, but you know you might be looking, and obviously not for this summer but for following summers. But yeah, what what would you, you know, who are the kind of churches you’re looking for, what are some of the traits, what does that look like?

Stephen Moore — Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, so you might disagree with this and that’s okay.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Stephen Moore — We’re not looking for a camp to just come do camp for the kids in your children’s ministry.

Rich Birch — Yes, great. Love it.

Stephen Moore — We think those kids are very, very important. We think those kids need to hear the gospel and we want those kids at camp. Absolutely we want them there. But we want you to be interested in hosting camp to reach kids outside of your doors…

Rich Birch — Love it.

Stephen Moore — …to reach your community. That is really important to us and that’s one of the main characteristics we’re looking for in our churches. Are you someone that wants to get outside your walls, meet people in the community. And sometimes that’s difficult and challenging. Sometimes you know people might step into your door on Sunday morning that don’t look or, you know, act like the rest of your church, but those people need the gospel. The kids in your children’s ministry need the gospel, the kids at the church, you know, three blocks down the street need it. So we want it to be a community church that’s trying to engage with other areas and people in the community that aren’t typically in your doors on a Sunday morning. That’s really important to us.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. I love that. And I love the you know the check they’re around that sounds like the kind of thing like most churches are going to agree with that. But you got to ask the second question, do you really? Ah because, you know, we want to see that happen in our ministries, but then when it happens and the complexity that can come there…

Stephen Moore — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …um, you know we have to be ready for that for sure. So I love that. Do you, um you know, in in the actual programming, do break up into small groups at any point and kind of help kids wrestle with, is there… you talked about like video walls and all that, is there like worship experiences? Give give us a sense of those kinds of that that kind of part of the program.

Stephen Moore — Yeah, that’s yeah I can give you just a quick flyover of our day. So we get there…

Rich Birch — That’s perfect.

Stephen Moore — …kids come, they’re jumping on inflatables. As kids arrive, we call it, you know, kind of arrival village training. So um, and then there’s put in different villages. So we have ocean, safari and alpine. And these are funny terms, I know, bu you know we break it down to kindergarten and first grade is 1one age. Second and third grade is another age. And fourth, fifth and some communities sixth grade is our next age. And they’re going to small groups with kids their specific age.

Stephen Moore — Um, we design our camper curriculum, that’s age specific. So ah, first grader is going to have a camper book and a camper guide that looks different than fifth graders. Um, because we want it to we want to engage in with them with the gospel in an age appropriate way. Um, they’re going to three different auditorium elements a day. and in these auditorium elements we have a worship leader that’s leading different songs and different activities. We have a theme director that’s delivering what we would call Christ-centerered truths. In our theme of the day this summer we’re going on a road trip through the life of David.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Stephen Moore — So we’re looking at a different story and a different example of the life of David every day. And we’re just tying it back on Wednesday with our gospel message on what it looks like to to be adopted as a son and daughter of Christ. And so we’re teaching that um each and every day at camp. But then we’re also kids get to sign up for four different skills. So we have, you know, so anywhere between 15 and 20 different skill offerings. And kids get to go to four of those throughout the week of camp, and those they get to choose. Um, we do rec every day, and then we do team time twice a day. And in that team time setting, that’s more of the small group bible study setting where they’re diving deeper with maybe you know 12 to 14 other kids on what the message is that day. So, it’s a fun-filled day, and they go home tired.

Rich Birch — I love it.

Stephen Moore — Um, but it’s incredible.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it.

Stephen Moore — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. And I think the transferable, listen you might be listening in and saying, listen, we’re not going to run this at our our church, which is okay. But the thing I do want you to think about is man how can you inject some fun, some intentionality, some um, you know, some thoughtful process – you can hear even in just how Steven’s unpacking that. Man, there’s there’s a lot of thinking around how all of that fits together, so that it speaks the language, that it appeals to kids, obviously parents love it. They’re like this is a great. this is a great thing and want to partner with that. It’s intentionally, outward focus intentionally, saying hey we want to reach people in our community. Just love that. I hope that inspires you as you’re listening in today. Kind of as we come to wrap up, anything you’d love to, you know, so you know, say as we kind of wrap up today’s conversation?

Stephen Moore —Yeah, Rich, you just used some some words that we use often at camp. We call it the WinShapeCamps recipe. So right now we’re doing 17 different camps as we speak. Those 17 camps are 10 community camps in the US, a community camp in Brazil, and a community there are a community camp in Costa Rica, and 5 overnight camps. What we want is we want to be cooking the WinShape Camps recipe wherever we’re doing camp.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Stephen Moore — And that keeps us in line. And I’ll just quickly do a flyover those recipe ingredients…

Rich Birch — Yes, let’s do it.

Stephen Moore — …and you know, I would invite any church to do those. Um so resource stewardship – we want to use our resources and take care of the things God’s entrusted to us – um, equipment stewardship. I mean um, sorry we’ve we’ve changed some of these names.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Stephen Moore — So Christ-centered truths is another one. So we want we want everything we do to have, you know, Christ as a part of it. Intentional culture. We want to be intentional about the little things we do. So a camper, they’re no longer just stepping foot into you know a local school or local church. They’re stepping foot into the Safari village where they’re a lion and they get to be with their other lions. So we’re gonna be doing cheers and we’re be doing games throughout the day.

Stephen Moore — Want to be people-first. We care about our people. We care about our summer staffers. We care about our volunteers. We care about our our campers. And engaging fun is our last one. We think everything we do, if fun’s involved, kids are going to be more receptive and understanding to hear, hear about Jesus. So um, that’s kind of our WinShape Camps recipe. And so any…

Rich Birch — Love it.

Stephen Moore — …church could do that. just like it doesn’t have to be that. But as you do children’s ministry. How can those elements be a part of what you do?

Rich Birch — Yeah that’s so good. I love that. I love how those hang together to really create a compelling ministry for, you know, for kids. And I know there’s people are listening in today that have found that, you know, just super helpful. So ah, really appreciate that. Well as we wrap up, if if people want to track with you or track with WinShape, where do we want to send them online? How do we want to, you know, get them connected with you?

Stephen Moore — Yeah, that’s that’s a great question – winshapecamps.org – you’ll be able to choose our overnight camps or our day camps is one it’s going to be your first dropdown option. So that’s one way to get connected. I think my email’s on there. But if it’s not, it’s [email protected] – um, so S-M-O-O-R-E um and so you could do that. Another thing I didn’t hit on yet, Rich…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Stephen Moore — …but I just want to real quick before we leave…

Rich Birch — Absolutely.

Stephen Moore — …um is we want to engage with campers and we think it’s really important, but also I think working as summer as a summer staffer is an unbelievable value experience a valuable experience. I have 3 kids of my my own. They’re 2, 2, and 5, and I genuinely think the practical summer examples I had while working camp were very helpful for me, and they translate to any and every job out there. You could be studying chemistry and working camps still going to be a good beneficial thing for you to do during the summer. So if you know anyone of that college age, you know, 18 to 25 that you think could work camp or would be a good fit for WinShape, send them to us as well because we would love to be able to have them spend a summer with us to grow and be able to share their faith.

Rich Birch — Totally. I heartily endorse that. Ah you know, I do think like I said earlier I think the camp experience is fantastic for kids. It’s a great kind of thing to be a part of, but I really think to be honest, the sweet spot where the the place where God seems to have his ah, uses these experiences I think particularly as on that staff age transition as as young leaders. You know, man, it’s just something amazing happens ah when a young leader dedicates their summer, or like you say, all four you know summers of theirs, you know, college summers kind of thing. Man I just love that. That’s so good.

Rich Birch — Well I appreciate you coming on the show today, Stephen. I hope the rest of the summer, I know it will be fantastic, but we’re cheering for you. Thanks for giving us some time today.

Stephen Moore — Yes, Rich. I appreciate it, and thanks for the time.