There’s a saying we have around camp on a Sunday or Monday morning when staff will ecstatically exclaim, “The campers are coming! The campers are coming!”
Last week, our year-round team had the privilege of proclaiming, “The staff are coming! The staff are coming!” for one of my team’s favorite events of the year—Leadership Weekend! Think of this event as the Spring Game for a college football team or Meet the Teacher Day before the start of a school year. The summer leadership staff we have prayerfully selected join us for the first time as we begin to develop and equip them for the roles they will hold this summer. Along with all the best things that happen at camp, we have the mentality of work hard, play hard! This year we hosted Leadership Weekend in Orlando, Fl at Rosen Shingle Creek.
Close to 18% of our 685 summer staff are in a leadership position and attended this training weekend. For the majority of the event, our year-round team trained our staff in the position they’ll be fulfilling while developing their abilities to lead their peers this summer. During Camp Specific Time, staff honed in their specific skill set through small group teaching. From Tribal Leaders and Camp Pastors to Office Team Leads and Production Directors, the wide variety of position training that happens at Leadership Weekend is the foundation for how these staff will ultimately lead campers and staff this summer. Operations teams were studying Camp Store software. Camp Pastors and Worship Speakers were learning through Preaching Labs. Program teams were experiencing how to lead fun, engaging activities. Almost everything that is seen at camp this summer can be tied back to a moment at Leadership Weekend when our year-round team teaches our summer leadership staff on how to execute aspects of camp!
In addition to the Position Specific and Camp Specific training our staff receive, we also hold a number of camp-wide trainings. In one of these sessions, we dived into a book our summer leadership staff actually received several months before they even arrived to Orlando. That’s right—we send them homework months in advance and ask them to be prepared to discuss with their leadership team. This year, our staff read In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen. On Saturday morning, several of our year-round staff led us through a debrief of this book and small group discussions. We encouraged our staff to be leaders who follow after Christ’s example as a leader. He was a praying leader, vulnerable leader, and trusting leader! Through small groups, our staff were able to discuss temptations they think they may encounter this summer and how they can combat these temptations with Christ’s life!
It’s never a WinShape Camps event without a memory-making moment! So on Saturday night, we loaded onto a few buses for a trip to Universal Orlando! Our summer leadership staff closed down the parks with their teams and ultimately made memories that will carry on throughout the summer. From flying high through Hogwarts to journeying through the Mummy, our staff were able to get to know their teammates and take a break from the firehose of information they had been receiving all weekend long.
On Sunday, we closed out the event with our final worship service. We had already begun diving into the summer’s theme earlier in the weekend. Yet, Sunday’s message was a true challenge for the staff we’ve entrusted to lead WinShape Camps this summer. Are you a leader worth following? We are all at an intersection—a crossroads—but will we choose to follow Jesus? Our summer leadership staff had a moment to reflect on what they need to stop doing and start doing in their lives to become leaders worth following by choosing to follow the perfect example—Jesus Christ! Leadership Weekend 2016 has come and gone, but for us, it’s the start of an amazing summer that’s just around the corner. We hope to you soon at WinShape Camps!
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