Summer Camps & Youth Workers: Quarantine Survival Guide

Posted on by Abby McQuarrie

A Guide for Summer Camps & Youth to Partner Together to Create an Effective Summer Ministry

Thousands of children hear the gospel every July and August in Canada. I believe the church in has been called and commissioned to do ministry well, and COVID-19 will not stop the gospel this summer

This is such a unique opportunity that camp and youth workers have to get creative. I have formulated a guide to help you stay involved in the ministry God has called you to. COVID-19 has taken away so much from us, but the hope we have in Christ is bigger than a virus. Let us safely move into our summer while ministering effectively to youth all over the country. Who knows? Maybe through this, kids will be reached who wouldn’t have been otherwise.

Camp is always offline.. not this time

Welcome to summer 2020….

Youtube is about to be your main platform!

How are camps and youth workers going to partner in response to COVID-19? I believe they have full access and advantage of social networking and should capitalize on every platform. After all, the large majority of Canadian youth spend most of their attention on those apps. I believe they should focus on Youtube.

Youtube would be the host for each day, where they show a highlights video from the previous day’s challenges, make announcements, and advertise challenges, and conduct interviews from youth pastors / leaders from around the area & camp staff! This could also include tons of fun, creative episodes of reality TV-type shows, skits – or an ongoing skit that has a plot throughout the week – or even a late-night talk show. This would also be the perfect space for chapel sessions to hear from the camp speaker, which could also including worship / camp songs!

Sub-platforms

Instagram

Live Streaming

My thought for Instagram would be that it would host the camp’s ‘challenges platform‘. This is where each day, Camp would instagram-live the announcement for the daily challenge and post the challenges to their own stories with the camp’s tag. Campers would record themselves completing these challenges, and the next day, watch for their video in the highlights.This gets kids outside doing the things they love doing and they could be all about a prize they receive in the mail for being the daily challenge winner. 

Snapchat Stories

I do not use snapchat but I think there could be some really creative story ideas, like for example, ‘behind the scenes’. This keeps kids as engaged with camp as possible.  

Not-so-media

Snail Mail!

Snail Mail! This idea is brought to you by my my favourite days of my childhood when I would receive mail from my camp. Imagine this: An unexpected package shows up on the doorstep of each and every camper right before their week of being a camper was supposed to begin. This box could include several things that cater to their week at camp. Among some camp merch, this could include all their craft supplies, materials for their chapel notes, small group questions, memory verses, and maybe even some fun surprises!

Another idea I had was the challenges posted on Instagram that are highlighted on the daily youtube channel could be competitions for prizes that would be mailed to them! There could even be a grand prize at the end of the week. Utilize the mail system.. this will make a camper’s entire summer!

Cabin Groups

Cabin groups are the space for campers to engage with other campers in a small setting. Over the summer, they will want to share their experiences with others and small groups are the perfect way to curate meaningful and intentional conversation from the safety of individual member’s homes

Cabin group sessions are used for 2 things.
1. Connection. They will meet 2-3 times daily with their ‘cabin’. Once after morning chapel, once in the afternoon, and once after evening chapel.

This will run very close to the same way a small group would run. Each small group will discuss questions from chapel, talk about life, and get to know each other. The counsellors would be youth leaders from the area and former cabin leaders. The strategy here for camp is to match campers with staff who are in their area and/or who the camper would have a previous camp connection with.


2. Crafts and Activities. Each staff member will be given the tutorial for the crafts before hand. They then will hop on the Zoom call with their campers during the afternoon and do a craft together. This craft is more about the conversations that will be taking place, and less about the craft. These online tools are meant to create spaces for kids to learn about Jesus and grow deeper in relationship with him, connect with each other, with their leaders and have a ton fun in the process. Sounds an awful lot like camp to me.

Zoom is the best and easiest way to make this happen. With free 40-minute sessions, each Zoom call gives high-quality video conversations. The best part about this app is that almost every school aged child is familiar with Zoom already because of their education in the spring.

Registration

Based on these ideas, you may want to have campers register for camp. Setting up an online registration is simple with most website platforms, too!
This will help with a few details:
– Information will be able to get distributed to parents about how the week will work, what devices their child will need to have access to, who will be contacting them (camp counsellors), and why it is important for their child to be able to participate in each activity.
– Using the registration information, you also will be able to mail the necessary items to each kid.

I hope these ideas have helped set you up for a really fun-filled summer. There is so much room for creativity within this frame, but this will help you have the best summer ever under these circumstances of dealing with such uncharted territory. Thank you for being faithful to the ministry God has called you to, together we will not stop reaching thousands of children across Canada for the sake of the gospel.

Break our hearts for what breaks Yours.

Posted on by Abby McQuarrie

*This is a prayer I wrote in the midst of my tears and my hurt. I was reminded by a friend that Paul prayed similar things. Paul was this cool Bible guy who wrote love letters to encourage people while he was in prison. He prayed for the church almost unlike anyone else. He weeped and mourned over them. I want to encourage you in that regardless of what your going through, or how good things may be right now, God can use you. God’s heart is breaking because people whom He loves are hurting due to sin, but He is also calling us to be used to bring His heart and His miracles and His glory and His honour into the cracks of brokenness. 

**The cover picture was taken by one of my best friends while she was living in Peru last year. I think that these Peruvian kids, along with the majority of the population of the earth all need to know that there is a God who loves them. That’s what this post is all about.


Father, beak our hearts for what breaks yours. Tonight my heart is breaking. In the quietness of the evening, alone with my thoughts and what I pray to be your words, my heart is breaking because I forgot. I forgot that people in this world are being treated as less than humans. I don’t want to forget that just because I have four walls and a roof over my head to keep me warm in the dead of winter, that there aren’t people in my neighbourhood, and in my province, and in my neighbouring provinces and territories, there are too many people who are suffering and struggling and hurting. God, let me not forget, ever again, that there are people who are hurting. 
Father, let me not forget that you love them. And let me not forget even though I cannot do anything in my own strength, I need to do everything you will enable my hands to do. 

Holy Spirit, break our hearts for what breaks yours. Give me a piece of your heart, that I may love fiercely, and fearlessly, and with reckless abandon, whatever that is gonna look like. Because it is there when you will break our hearts for what’s already breaking yours. Speak to me and let me be your voice. Allow me to see, and to be your eyes. Give me wisdom to know how to act and serve. Give me your hands and teach me how to use them. Give me your feet and spotlight a road never yet travelled. Give me the bravery and the fearlessness to reflect Christ’s attitude towards the church on this journey. Give me bread, enough for the hungry people I meet along the way, as well as enough to give me the energy to make it to the end. Give me a heart for the broken and the hurting. Give me a mind that is sharp enough to get through the weariness.  
Please, God, tell me that not every single life is precious and that every single human is longing to be loved by you. Let my heart, my soul, my mind, my strength, my hands, my feet, my relationships, my suffering, my brokenness, my joy and my thankfulness all be used and honoured and glorified in you, God. Let me not forget that you are the God of miracles. And that you can turn this world and shake it and use it all for you. Please God, let me not forget that other people are hurting, and are hurting often. And let me not forget even though I cannot do anything in my own strength, I need to do everything you will enable my hands to do. 

King Jesus, break our hearts for what breaks yours. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for making a way out of this brokenness. Thank you for giving your life for us, even though we are the least of these. Thank you for your grace that is wider and deeper and stronger than the ocean. Thank you for your words, and for your heart, and for your desire to love. Thank you for showing us what it means to sacrifice and give and serve and go and stay and work and rest. Thank you for the truth you spoke. Thank you for your infinite perfection. And thank you for loving the orphans and the hurting and those who have nothing, Jesus. Thank you for forgiving me when I forget them. And God, please keep them safe. Give them every single need they have to have. Thank you, Jesus, thank you. And let me not forget even though I cannot do anything in my own strength, I need to do everything you will enable my hands to do.

Emmanuel God, break our hearts for what breaks yours. I ask that with everything you are, and in all your infinite power and wisdom and might and fight and power and glory and beauty that you bring those who need me to me. And bring me to them. Send me. Let us bless each other with the gifts and resources that we have, and let it all be because you are God almighty who loves everyone. Break our hearts for what breaks yours, God. Let my heart be longing for the salvation of the hurting because that is what your heart is. Thank you for loving us, God. In all our mistakes and in all our failures and in all our weaknesses, Lord. Thank you for your mercy. And let me not forget even though I cannot do anything in my own strength, I need to do everything you will enable my hands to do.