Camping Trips as ministry
A Proven Model for Building Community, Reaching the Unchurched, and Creating Lasting Impact
Friday evening. A campfire circle in a beautiful campground, people gathered under the stars.
A former military volunteer leads a solemn flag retirement ceremony—a dignified ritual for worn and tattered American flags. As the flames consume the fabric, the group spontaneously breaks into patriotic songs. Grown men have tears on their faces. Children sit quietly, witnessing something they sense matters. Grommets are collected and distributed to those who want to keep them as reminders of the moment.
This is one night of a five-day camping trip. But it’s representative of something larger: an ancient form of ministry that churches have largely abandoned, and that’s time to reclaim.
Camping trips aren’t retro. They’re revolutionary. And if you’re not using them as a core strategy for ministry, you’re missing one of the most effective tools at your disposal.
Why Camping Is One of the Most Underrated Ministry Tools
I’ve spent 25 years building an adventure sports ministry. I’ve led climbs up mountains, organized whitewater rafting trips, coordinated cycling events across multiple terrain types, and watched thousands of people encounter Jesus through outdoor experiences. But here’s what I’ve learned: Nothing creates community faster than a camping trip.
Why?
Because camping strips away the artificial. There’s no performance. No pretense. You’re eating meals you didn’t prepare, sleeping in a tent, using communal bathrooms, sitting around a fire with nothing to do but talk to each other. The research is clear: It takes 200+ hours of recreational time together to build best-friend-level relationships. A five-day camping trip compresses 30-40 hours of genuine, undistracted time into five consecutive days. You can stack more meaningful hours in one week than you could in months of weekly church activities. Add to that: beautiful natural settings, activities that build confidence and shared accomplishment, multi-generational family experiences, and spiritual conversations that happen naturally—not forced in a church building—and you have a ministry formula that works.
The Lake Siskiyou trip I attended in June 2026 proved this again. Seventy-three people. Sixteen children. Five days. And by the end, you could visibly see the shift: casual acquaintances had become friends. Families had reconnected. Unchurched people had experienced something authentic. And everyone was talking about coming back. This is the second annual trip to Lake Siskiyou. For the previous 25 years these trips were hosted in Yosemite Valley. It doesn’t matter where you camp, it matters that you do it.
What a Well-Run Camping Trip Actually Looks Like
You can’t just show up with tents and hope for the best. The difference between a camping trip that changes lives and one that creates frustration is preparation, intentionality, and professional execution.
Here’s what I observed during the Lake Siskiyou experience:
Phase 1: Welcome & Orientation (Arrival Day)
As campers drove into the resort, professionally printed directional signs guided them to registration. A decorated tent staffed by two welcoming volunteers greeted each family, checked them in, provided a printed schedule, oriented them to campsites, and invited them to dinner at 6pm.
This matters. A disorganized arrival creates anxiety. An organized one communicates competence and care.
At dinner, Dave Shafer (the current BAS director) welcomed the group, explained how meal would work, and distributed something brilliant: a carrying kit for each campe containing a plate, bowl, silverware, cup, and microfiber towel. Campers would wash their own dishes at two cleaning stations (wash, sterilize, rinse), dry with the towel, and pack everything back into the kit for the next meal.
Why this detail matters: It’s part of BAS’s motto: ‘God created the Earth—ride it, climb it, catch it, explore it, PROTECT IT.’ The reusable kit system eliminated disposable plates and trash. Every participant was a steward of creation. Theology became practice.
The meals themselves set the tone. Breakfast was full: eggs, meat, pancakes, oatmeal, toast, milk, coffee, juice. Dinners varied—meatballs one night, teriyaki chicken the next, tri-tip, burritos, all with fresh salads, breads, vegetables, and desserts. Volunteers had clearly invested thought into this. The message was clear: You matter. We invested in feeding you well.
Phase 2: Daily Activities (The Content Days)
Every day offered multiple activity options, all run by trained volunteers:
Hiking (various difficulty levels)
Mountain biking (beginner and intermediate)
Kayaking and stand-up paddleboarding
Waterfall tours (Mossbrae Falls, Upper and Lower McCloud Falls, Burney Falls)
Fishing in Lake Siskiyou, Upper Sacramento River, and McCloud River
Kids’ art projects (painting rocks, weaving survival bracelets, large collaborative canvases)
Golf outing (at Mount Shasta Resort for those interested)
Open beach time for swimming and relaxation
Here’s what impressed me most about how these were run:
Clarity & Choice: Each activity was announced and had a written overview so people could decide in advance what they wanted to do. No confusion. No FOMO. Everyone knew their options.
Professional Leadership: Every outing started with attendance, a clear overview, prayer, and timely departure. The volunteer leaders projected competence, care, and a genuine desire to serve. I attended two hikes and two mountain bike rides, and the trail selections were thoughtful—challenging enough to be interesting, accessible enough that participants at all levels succeeded.
Family Integration: Families with young children had arts and crafts options led by other volunteers. A 15-foot canvas for coloring, painted rocks, survival bracelets, scavenger hunts. Kids weren’t sequestered; they were included in camp life while having age-appropriate programming.
Voluntary Participation: Nobody was forced into activities. Some people spent mornings reading by the lake. Others organized pickup volleyball games. The point wasn’t to fill every minute—it was to create space for authentic connection, whether that looked like organized activities or simple downtime.
Phase 3: Evening Community (The Glue That Holds It Together)
Every evening, the entire camp gathered around a large campfire. This wasn’t optional. This was the heartbeat of the trip.
What happened around that fire:
Games that got people laughing
S’mores that brought back childhood memories
Announcements about the next day’s activities
Intentional questions designed to help people get to know each other
Songs (both silly and meaningful)
Bible-based devotionals that felt natural, not forced
This nightly rhythm created anticipation and belonging. People started coming to the fire earlier each evening. Conversations continued afterward. Friendships deepened. By night three, strangers had become community.
On Thursday night, the special flag retirement ceremony happened. This ancient military tradition—properly retiring worn American flags with dignity and respect—became a moment of genuine emotion and reverence. The entire camp circled up. Songs were sung spontaneously. It was spiritual without being churchy. Patriotic without being political. Human without being sentimental.
This is the power of campfire community. You can’t manufacture this in a church building. It emerges naturally when people sit together under the stars, watching flames, knowing they’re part of something larger than themselves.
The Numbers That Matter
The Lake Siskiyou trip hosted 73 people over five days. Here’s what I noticed:
Multi-generational participation: Seventy-three people included 16 children under 16. Families weren’t dropping kids off; they were camping together. Grandparents were there. Young couples. Singles. The demographic spread meant that conversations crossed age, life stage, and background.
Accessibility: Pricing was intentional: $320/person (13+), $182/child (5-12), under 5 free. With a 15% member discount bringing it to $272 and $155 respectively. This isn’t budget travel, but it’s not luxury either. It’s stewardship pricing—covering costs without profit margins. Families could attend without financial strain.
Repetition effect: This was BAS’s second year at Lake Siskiyou. Previously, they ran 25+ years at Yosemite. The organization practices what they call ‘continual improvement’—each year they refine, invest in better equipment (professional stoves, coolers, canopies, chairs), learn from experience, and execute better. This isn’t a one-off event; it’s a proven, refined program.
Infrastructure investment: BAS maintains a storage unit (23+ years) of professional-grade camping equipment and uses a UHaul truck to transport gear. Volunteers set everything up. This level of investment—both in equipment and volunteer coordination—is what separates a nice church outing from a transformative ministry experience.
Two Ways to Use Camping Trips in Your Church
A camping trip can work as either a standalone ministry or as the flagship event of a larger adventure sports program. Here’s how:
Model 1: Camping Trip as Standalone Ministry
You can have profound impact with just an annual or semi-annual camping trip. No need for a full adventure ministry infrastructure. Just camping.
Here’s why this works:
Concentrated impact: Five days produces more relational growth than 52 Sunday services. You’re not competing with busy schedules or split attention. Everyone’s there. For five consecutive days.
Unchurched access point: ‘Let’s go camping’ is a lower barrier to entry than ‘Come tochurch.’ Outdoor-loving people who would never set foot in a sanctuary will show up for a lake trip. And once they’re there, in community, with your people, something shifts.
Spiritual conversations emerge naturally: You don’t need a theology degree to talk about God around a campfire looking at stars. The creation speaks. The vulnerability of sitting together in tents, sharing fears and hopes, opens doors. A short devotional or a moment of silence fits naturally. Forced evangelism feels wrong. Natural spiritual questions feel right.
Realistic commitment: You need 2-3 staff/volunteers to coordinate and run a camping trip. That’s manageable. You don’t need to hire someone full-time or launch a whole ministry infrastructure. A pastor or lay leader with adventurous bent can make this happen.
Fundraiser potential: Camps can be offered at modest cost-recovery pricing, but you can also run them as church fundraisers where a percentage of fees support youth ministry, mission work, or facility improvements.
If you launched one great camping trip per year, you’d see transformation. People would reconnect with God’s creation, with their faith community, and with themselves. That’s real ministry.
Model 2: Camping Trip as a Flagship Event of an Adventure Ministry
Alternatively, a camping trip can be the crown jewel of a larger adventure sports ministry offering regular hiking, biking, kayaking, shooting, and/or fishing events.
In this model:
The camping trip serves as reunion. People who’ve been hiking together monthly gather for the big event. It becomes the payoff—the most ambitious, most elaborate, most transformative experience.
Weekly/monthly events feed the camping trip. You build momentum through regular activities. Relationships deepen. New people get introduced. By the time the annual camping trip comes, there’s anticipation and existing community.
It becomes a proving ground. Volunteers who’ve been co-leading monthly hikes step up to lead outings or manage logistics at the camping trip. Emerging leaders get stretched and developed.
New participants have lower stakes entry. Instead of jumping into a three to five day camping trip with strangers, they start with a weekend hike. They meet people. They see how things work. By the time the camping trip comes around, they’re ready and eager.
BAS used this model brilliantly. Their regular climbing, hiking, biking, and water sportsevents throughout the year fed their annual camping trip. When the five-day experience came around, 73 people showed up with many of them being an already-connected community, excited to go deeper together.
How to Actually Start: A Practical Roadmap
If you’re thinking, “This sounds great, but where do I even begin?” here’s the step-by-step:
Step 1: Get Leadership Buy-In (1-2 weeks)
Pitch the idea to your senior pastor and church board. Show them the Lake Siskiyou model. Explain that this isn’t about adventure for adventure’s sake—it’s about community building, unchurched outreach, and spiritual formation in God’s creation. What you’re asking for: (a) Permission to organize a camping trip, (b) Use of the church database to promote it, (c) Either small budget for supplies/food, or the ability to charge a modest per-person fee to cover costs and end in the black.
Step 2: Pick Your Location & Date (3-12 months before trip)
Don’t overcomplicate this. You need:
A campground within 2-3 hours of your church (so driving is reasonable)
Space for group camping (not isolated sites)
Bathrooms and running water
Natural amenities (lake, river, hiking trails, scenic views)
A date when school’s out and people can actually attend
Call the campground. Ask about group camping and make a reservation. Because this is core to the ministry, BAS books their trips a year ahead—that’s the level of planning that’s necessary for the size of their trips. Your first trip can be planned three or more months in advance.
Step 3: Recruit a Core Team (4-6 months before trip)
You need:
1 trip leader (coordinator/director role). This may be you!
1 meal coordinator (for planning menus, buying food, organizing camp cooking) who will recruit as many other kitchen staff as needed. This team can really have fun together! Note: Having different teams for breakfast and dinner, if possible allows the volunteers to really enjoy the trip.
2-3 activity leaders (leading hikes, water activities, kids’ crafts, mountain biking). The number of activity leaders obviously is tied to the number of activities being offered.
2-5 general setup/logistics/takedown volunteers, depending on the size of the trip.
Total: 6-10 core volunteers. This is absolutely doable with churches of almost any size.
Step 4: Plan the Details (6-8 weeks before)
Menu planning: Don’t cheap out on meals. Plan hearty breakfasts and dinners. People remember how they were fed.
Activity lineup: Plan 3-4 activity options per day (hiking, water activities, crafts, downtime). Provide printed schedules so people can choose.
Evening programming: Design a simple daily structure: Games/icebreakers → S’mores → Devotional/discussion. Keep it simple. Need some camping devotionals? Check out the available ones on the Substack page for Gregory Weisman
Budget planning: Calculate total costs (food, campground fees, supplies, etc.). Divide by expected attendance. Charge per-person fees to break even or generate modest surplus. Procurement: Start buying/borrowing equipment: stove, coolers, camp tables, canopies, propane tanks, lanterns, folding chairs. Build your inventory over time.
Step 5: Promote Like Your Life Depends On It (8-12 weeks before)
Use every channel:
Church bulletin/website
Social media (Facebook, Instagram)
Weekend announcements
Email newsletter
Personal invitations
Make it visually appealing. Show photos from nature. Share testimonies from previous trips. Position it as THE event of the summer.
Step 6: Execute & Iterate (Trip week)
Run the trip. Welcome people warmly. Serve good food. Create moments of community. Be present.
After the trip, gather your volunteer team and discuss: What worked? What would you change? What did participants say? Document the feedback. This becomes your improvement roadmap for next year.
BAS’s 25+ years at Yosemite and counting at Lake Siskiyou came from repeating this cycle: Run trip → Gather feedback → Invest in improvement → Run better trip. That’s how you build something that lasts.
The Spiritual Dimension: Why Camping Reaches People Sunday Services Don’t
Here’s something I noticed during the Lake Siskiyou trip that I want to name directly: The spiritual conversations happened most naturally, not when we were explicitly “doing church,” but when we were doing something else.
A man on a hiking trail asked a volunteer about why he’s served in ministry for so long. That conversation lasted hours. A youth staring at stars above the campfire asked his grandpa what he believed about God. A woman watching the flag retirement ceremony was moved to tears and then to a conversation about father and his influence. A guy who said he never prays found himself saying a prayer in his tent one evening and shared this with a trip volunteer.
This is the power of what Christians call “common grace”—the experience of God’s presence through creation, community, beauty, and authenticity. Not separated from the gospel, but an entry point to it.
The apostle Paul wrote: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”
A camping trip is the setting. Mt. Shasta or Half Dome on the horizon shows off God’s fingerprints. The waterfall you hike to, the fish you catch, the stars above the campfire—these are all apologetics. Arguments for God without needing to argue.
This is why unchurched people show up. Not to hear sermons (they’d avoid that). But to experience something real. And in that realness, God shows up too.
From Camping to Bigger Ministry: The Gateway Effect
The Lake Siskiyou camping trip works standalone. But at BAS, it also serves as an annual gathering for people who’ve been involved in weekly or monthly adventure activities throughout the year.
This matters because it shows how a camping trip can evolve:
Year 1: You do one amazing camping trip. People experience authentic community. They want more. Year 2-3: You add monthly or seasonal activities (beginner hikes, fishing outings, cycling groups). The camping trip becomes the capstone experience. Year 4+: You have a robust adventure ministry with 20-30 annual events and a community of hundreds. The camping trip is still the flagship experience, but it’s one part of something larger.
You don’t need to start there. Start with camping. See what God does. Let the ministry grow organically from there.
The Bottom Line: Camping Trips Change People
Seventy-three people spent five days at Lake Siskiyou. Here’s what I saw:
Grandparents reconnecting with grandchildren
Unchurched outdoor enthusiasts experiencing authentic Christian community
Teenagers witnessing their parents’ faith lived authentically
Volunteers discovering the joy of serving others
Everyone experiencing God’s creation and rediscovering wonder
This is revival. Not emotional, but real. Not manufactured, but organic. People getting back in touch with something true.
If you want to build community, reach the unchurched, invite people back to faith, and create memories that last decades—do a camping trip.
Start next year. Pick a location. Recruit a team. Plan meals that matter. Create an evening rhythm around a campfire. Invite your people. And watch what God does when you get out of the building and into His creation.
Camping isn’t retro. It’s one of the most powerful ministry tools your church has available. And it’s time to use it.
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About the Author:
Greg Weisman founded and led Bayside Adventure Sports starting in 1998 and ran it until retirement in 2023, during which the ministry was running 300-400 events per year across 16 different sports, including annual camping trips that have transformed thousands of lives. He served as both a pastor and the founder of this innovative approach to ministry. He now helps churches across the country launch their own adventure sports ministries, starting with camping trips. Learn more at Gregory Weisman