"The Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us."

Epworth UMC’s student ministry spent lots of summers going to other communities to do home repairs, meet people and grow stronger in our faith. We looked forward to that experience every summer. At the end of every camp week we’d hear that yearly challenge – “Take it home!”  But we didn’t.  We waited until the next summer to go into someone else’s community to serve and find God around the campfire. Finally one of our students asked “When are we going to do the ‘take it home’ part?”  So we decided to get serious about the "take it home" part.

We started by meeting one Saturday a month. Turns out, all the things we learned to do during our week in the summer made perfect sense when we served at home. We took on lots of projects (both physical and relational) and began cultivating confident, servant leaders among our youth.  Then we went all in. Instead of going into other communities for a week in the summer, in 2016 we decided to stay home and serve in our own back yards. 

We used experiences from our years of summer mission trips and developed our own camp from top to bottom; aptly named Backyard Mission Camp. We didn’t have traditional camp facilities so we pitched tents and hammocks in the field behind our church. We recruited our congregation to feed us and join us for meals. We dedicated a day to mentor younger kids - our students led projects like building birdhouses and shared the camp experience with our “Backyard Buddies.” We hosted events for older adults so our students could work one-on-one with them and teach them how to use their phones and technology. We worshipped every evening and began to see a growing number of lawn chairs and people.  

Here we are 8 years later and that simple idea of learning about where we live and meeting our neighbors has become a linch pin into how we do ministry and make disciples.  This year Backyard was the recipient of a very generous grant from the Reynolds Ministry Fund by way of the United Methodist Foundation of Western North Carolina.

We engage students in service; teaching them about local resources and giving them the tools they need to serve on their own. If we start doing these things at a young age and doing them consistently, we will create a generation of confident, compassionate servants who will take care of the people around them.  

Come do good stuff with us this summer!