The Secret for Helping Camp Meetings Survive, even Thrive
I come from a “Camp meeting denomination.” By that I mean The Wesleyan Church has been a camp meeting denomination from the beginning, or at least early on. At camp we heard our best preaching, learned our new songs, participated in the finest choirs, got our “standards” for lifestyle, and at camp is where many of us made our most significant decisions in our Christian walk.
Recently camp meetings have fallen on hard times. Its not that people have totally lost interest because there has been recently a boomlet of fresh interest in camps. The problem is, many are tired of the large subsidies many districts put into their camps. In the last decade one after another district has gotten resolutions at district conference attempting to close the camps. Many have passed. Its not that these folk hate camp…they hate subsidies. (or, rather in most cases they want to subsidize something else ;-).
I like camp meetings.
Of course I like the other kind of camping too (the kind where you don’t
wear a suit and tie). But I see good reasons for camp meetings to continue,
even thrive. Camp meetings are like Sunday school, Sunday evening service and
prayer meetings—the newer sexier programs invented to replace them seldom reach
up to the original and often evaporate in a few years leaving the church with
nothing at all. I’ve been to some thriving camps and they contribute more to
spiritual formation than most any other program in the church. Face it
Wesleyans, the popular Gathering in
I believe the secret to camp meeting survival is to spin them off.
It is counter intuitive. You’d think that advocating continued or greater subsidies for camps would be their secret to survival. But the opposite is actually true. Enthusiasts for camp meeting who try to protect or increase district welfare payments actually become the greatest enemies of long term survival of the camp meeting. The real secret to getting flourishing camp meetings is to end the subsidy and spin them off as independent camp ministries. Here is how it works:
1. The district establishes an independent board to own and operate the Camp meeting. This is no big problem. One of the greatest Wesleyan inventions of the last few decades has been World Hope which is exactly that: an independent board spun off from The Wesleyan Church. World Hope flourishes without any denominational subsidy partly because there is no subsidy. A camp board can be set up with some automatic members from the denomination or it can be totally independent, interdenominational and self-perpetuating. In either case, the first step is to establish a new entity to own and operate the camp then spin the property and program off to that entity.
2. The district provides a declining subsidy over, say three years. Most camps owned by districts are heavily subsidized. Incredibly, in some districts more than half of all spendable district funds go toward this subsidy! This continuing welfare will kill a camp quicker then the Devil can. When we plant churches we use a declining subsidy because we don’t want to create eternal welfare queens sucking eternal subsidies from the district. We want new churches to get on their feet and become self-supporting with the people benefiting paying their own bills. This is why we start them off with a subsidy but reduce it each year so they will put their church on a solid self-supporting basis. Over three years any good camp with good leaders can become self-supporting. In some districts, camps have even gotten profitable in two years and didn’t even take the third year’s subsidy. It works!
3. The independent board raises its own funds. It is hard to raise funds when people know that “the government” [of the church] will bail things out if the money doesn’t come in. A self-supporting camp can ask boldly and people who love camp will respond. Isn’t this is how Wesleyans support missionaries? We don’t tax every church forcing them to support missionaries. Instead we let churches support missionaries on a free will basis. An independent board can raise funds (and get bequests) like they never could as a subsidized arm of the district.
4. The property reverts to the district if camp meeting ever dies. One reason some worry about spinning off camp is their fear that an independent board might run the camp a few years then sell the property and give the proceeds to some other charity. This is easily remedied by placing a revert-back clause in the legal documents.
When camp meetings are spun off we can expect some good results.
Once camps go off welfare and become self-supporting here are some of the results we can expect:
1. People quit griping about the subsidy. Denominational values are capricious. One decade we are keen on camp meetings then the next decade we get all hot about leadership then just as quickly turn to church planting or equipping pastors or building a new “district center.” As soon as the Brand New Thing comes on the horizon people see all formerly subsidies as albatrosses around the neck of the district. The bad press camping gets today is almost always because of the subsidies they consume. When camps become self-supporting this grumbling disappears. Leaders of other causes might be envious of the money independent camps can raise, but at least they quit griping about the “welfare subsidies and bailouts.” This alone is enough reason to spin them off, but there are other benefits too.
2. Camp meeting boards will recruit younger people and more laity to serve. When camps are an extension of district government they sometimes hand out positions like plums to faithful folk who enjoy presiding and allocating the subsidy. When camps become self-supporting they recruit clever business people and inspiring ministers as their leaders because they know this is the only way to thrive. When operated as a function of the district, most any old fella’ can assume these leadership positions and run a subsidized program (I purposely used fella). When camps are independent they automatically realize they must recruit women, younger generations, and inventive business persons for their board. The result is a more vibrant aggressive, creative and inventive board and a resurgence of camp meeting vitality.
3. Better programming. When camp is an arm of the district it has the luxury of offering the same-ol’-same-ol’ stogy programming, speakers and musicians. Once a camp becomes independent they know that survival is only possible by offering programming that squarely meets the needs of the people. By this I do not mean they always turn camp meetings into youth conventions, or young adult retreats. Sometimes they purposely target older people who love camp meetings just like the new church plants sometimes focus on younger populations. Either way, an independent camp knows where its bread is buttered and they tend offer more carefully targeted programming for the people, not just offering the same old district tradition or featuring the next-in-line evangelists.
4. Donors are more inclined to give. When camp meeting is a program of the district the people often figure “the cost of this is covered” or, at least they know if camp goes into the red the district will pick up the tab. When camps become independent the attendees know they must either give or lose the camp. There are scores of people with buckets of money who now give only modestly to their own camp since they know church government will pick up any shortfall. When the camp is self-supporting these donors can be tapped like they never could be tapped before. Invariably when a camp goes independent the income goes up.
5. The camp survives for years to come—even thrives. I believe the quickest way to close a camp is to fight to keep subsiding it. Sooner or later there will be enough votes to close that camp, sell off the assets and redirect the subsidy whatever new things is cooler. It eventually will happen. And the surest way to make camps survive is to spin them off as self-supporting thriving entities. At least that’s what I think.
So what do you think?
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By Keith Drury
September 8, 2009