So, in the next few days or so (mostly today) I’m going to be asking for a little creative help. I’m finalizing my summer camp messages. In three weeks I’m taking a group of 3rd-5th graders to camp. I’ve been hired by the camp to speak the week our kids are at camp as well as the week following. Fortunately, I wrote all the messages 3 months ago. However, at this time I’m finalizing the details and finishing all my illustrations and such. I’m still wrestling with a few illustration points, so I thought I’d throw out my thoughts and get some ideas from all of you.

So, if you have  few minutes, please share some creative juices with me.

Up to this point I’ve talked about deadlines, registration discounts, and other philosophical points about camp. But what about getting kids to just sign up? Trust me, I know the feeling of checking the website or email every day to see what the grand total is currently up to. I’ve lost sleep worrying if we’d get enough kids to sign up. I remember one camp that required us to pay for 200 to secure the facility. We felt that it was a good long-term option for us even if it meant that we’d take a hit by bringing less the first year. The previous year we had taken a few more than 100 kids, so it was going to be a stretch. I remember clearly… it was 6 weeks before camp and I realized that we only had 35-40 kids signed up. We made it though… ended up taking 170-180 which is what I expected we could muster up.

So, do you want to know the secret to getting kids to come to camp? This secret NEVER fails, I promise. If you want to take 15%-30% more kids to camp next year, do what I say and you’ll see it happen. Are you ready?

Call the parents and invite them to camp.

I’m serious. I know you sent out 30 emails in 15 days. You showed a video in church and killed 17 trees in all the postcards and letters you sent home with kids. When it comes to getting a kid to camp, nothing trumps a phone call to the parents. Nothing.

When we’re trying to hit a deadline (I set goals for how many kids I want signed up by certain dates so that we stay on track… yes, I’m a nerd), we’ll get on the phone and start making phone calls. We call kids who came last year and haven’t signed up yet. We call kids who came to that other event and they’re old enough to come to camp. We call kids who attend regularly and anyone else we can think of. Believe it or not, sometimes parents just need a reminder… while they’re sitting next to the computer and can register. Sometimes a parent just needs a little financial help. If we have scholarship funds available, we let them know that we can help them and then they come.

The secret is to set aside a little time to get on the phone and call the parents!

First of all, I’m not saying that a camp can only be a “catalytic experience” if you plan it yourself. There are a handful of camps out there that serve up a life-changing experience with relevant and challenging content. However, I’ve seen churches plan their own camps that were anything but catalytic.

What do I mean by “catalytic?”

Essentially a catalyst is a spark or reaction that begins a bigger event or change. I feel that camp is often a catalytic experience for kids… that leads to greater life-change.

Over the years of both leading camps and experiencing camps as a kid, I’ve found a few things to be possible at camp.

• Camp can be a relationally rich experience where kids go from casual acquaintances to life-long friends in only 4 days. Remember, the kids who attend camp may spend as many hours at camp that they will spend at church all the following year.
• Camp can be a spiritually rich experience for kids. Too often kids don’t “get” the message from Sunday to Sunday because of distractions, things going on at home or other reasons. With kids being at church one Sunday and not the next, we often don’t get the opportunity to build teaching upon teaching to really get somewhere. Because kids are a captive audience at camp, we can really go somewhere with these kids and as a result, kids make life-long decisions.

I’ve been to camps where this is the case and camp where this hasn’t been the case. My encouragement to you is to consider this when looking for or planning a summer camp.

• Is there ample time for the kids to develop strong and wholesome relationships?
• Are there strong leaders in place to help the kids behave and treat each other respectfully so that kids can open up and get to know one another on a deeper level?
• Are leaders who will be in the lives of these kids all year encouraged to come to camp to kick off these relationships?
• Are the messages relevant and age-appropriate?
• Are the communicators skilled at speaking to kids (I’ve seen youth or adult speakers totally miss this connection with the kids)?
• Are the talks “kum-ba-ya” messages that don’t challenge life-change and call kids to action?
• Is there a good forum for small-group discussions after sessions for adults to help kids process decisions and make connections from what they heard to putting it into action?

These are all really important things to be on your radar. Camp is expensive and time-consuming, but if you don’t expect HUGE results from camp, then I’d suggest that you’re wasting your time and money. Go in prepared and come home with kids who will never be the same! I’m the testimony of a life-changed at camp. It was actually at camp as a 5th grader that I first became aware that God was calling me to kidmin. How amazing is that? It can be and should be just as amazing for your kids too!

I have some personal opinions about getting parents to register their kids to camp. I know that others do it differently, but this has worked for me for years. Here’s what I’m taking about.

Limited Capacity: If at all possible, I’m always going to put a limit on Camp. Usually this is because I have to pay a deposit in advance and I’d rather maximize that deposit instead of being idealistic and losing a lot of deposit money. I also prefer the limit because there’s something positive about something that is full or sold out. It communicate that it’s probably worth something. I love putting “limited space available” in my promotional materials or even telling parents, “you better register now before all the spaces are gone!” Now, it’s never fun to turn kids away but there are always a few who don’t make it to camp. When this happens, parents learn that we’re not a “last minute program” and they learn to register early which always makes things easier on the staff and volunteers who have to organize taking 50-100 kids to camp. On that last note, I love having registration closed and wrapped up a good month before camp. It gives my staff plenty of time to get everything together. When you have unlimited capacity and open registration up until the end, we’re always scrambling to take care of the 20-40 kids who signed up to go just days before camp. There’s nothing wrong with setting a capacity.

Deadlines: Everyone needs a deadline. Deadlines keep people accountable and keep things moving forward. It honors your staff as they’re the ones that are put out when deadlines are not in place or when they’re not respected and honored. It’s great to set deadlines way out in advance so that if someone does come in a day or two late, you can still show grace because you still have time on your side. Deadlines are great for promotion. I know that anytime I send a mass email out saying that the early bird deadline is on Friday or that registration officially closes at the end of the month, I’ll get a whole bunch of registrations. Deadlines elicit action. Use them!

Discounts: Like deadlines, discounts are great motivators. I usually try to determine the base price so that even if many parents take advantage of early registration discounts, I’m still able to cover my costs. Often times, I’ll offer a great early registration discount because I know that there will always be enough late registrations that the prices will average out to my base price. However, I almost always use discounts to keep registrations on pace. It’s my preference to sell out by a certain time, so I’ll use discounts hit goals that keep us on track of filling up by a specific time. I’ll typically offer an alumni discount that I’ll market to kids who cam the year before. It’s usually the previous year’s price, but the catch is that they have to register early… like in January, February or March. It’s interesting how many people don’t take advantage of the discount, but it does get the ball rolling early for us. I’ll then offer an early bird discount followed by standard or late registration. I try to make the price difference $25-$30 so it’s a great savings. I tend to see a substantial number of registrations within 3-5 days of a deadline to an expiring discount, so they’re great motivators.

Last year was really the first year we have taken kids to camp. When you’ve never taken kids to camp before, there are a lot of unknowns. Really, it’s a numbers game. How many kids should you commit to take? What’s a reasonable number? I think that there are a lot of things to consider.

1. How far in advance are you promoting camp? The longer you have to promote, the more kids you’ll be able to bring.
2. Is there a lot of other competition? Are you offering mission trips or several other big summer activities? Parents are going to pick and choose and if you’re doing a lot of other stuff, it will impact the number of kids who will attend.
3. How much does camp cost? Price and value is always subjective. However, the less expensive a camp is, the more kids are likely to sign up.

So, in our first year of taking kids to camp, we were able to charge a competitive price of $250 for a 5 day/4 night camp. We began promoting in March and took the kids in June. We probably averaged 100-150 3rd-5th graders each Sunday (the target age for camp), so we picked a conservative number of 60 spots for camp. I really didn’t want us to end up in the position where we were working the phones, recruiting kids to come to camp. In the end, the last week or so of camp registration required some phone calls trying to get the last 5-10 spots filled.

We had a very successful first year of camp and we figured that kids would want to come back and that word would spread. So in year two (this year) we decided to up the number to 100 spots for camp. We still felt like it was a pretty conservative number, but with having an extra month to promote and the positive momentum from last year, we shouldn’t have any trouble filling up… and we were right. Last week we officially filled up, a full two weeks before the registration deadline.

I imagine that next year we’ll raise it again to 140-150 spots, slowly growing our capacity. When trying to be responsible with your budget, I’m always going to recommend being conservative and growing slowly. It’s always better to sell out or run out of space as opposed to overbooking and losing deposit money.

Lastly, here’s my secret to how I determine how many kids I’ll bring to camp. I often base this on the number of seats I have available on the bus. Coach busses are expensive and I always want to try to maximize the seats. The busses I’m taking this year have 55 seats, so I know that I can seat 110 on my busses. I made space for 50 kids per bus with 5 adults on each bus. Extra leaders will travel to camp by car or van, but I don’t want to pay for empty seats on the bus. Next year I’ll increase the number of kids I’ll take to camp based on how many seats I have available on that third bus.

After this week I don’t plan to publish any more camp posts. My production director was on a post-camp vacation last week, so I just got the final day of camp video. It’s a great video that shows a snapshot of all the best parts of camp. It’s about 10 minutes long, so feel free to skim.

• Discipleship Camp: Some camps are designed for kids who already go to church and it’s simply an opportunity for kids to continue getting what they experience on a typical weekend. Maybe the kids are taken “deeper,” but in all honesty, it doesn’t look much different than what you’d see on Sunday.
• Evangelistic Camp: Other camps are designed to see kids come to life decisions, either to commit to Christ or to recommit to following him. Kids are encouraged to invite their friends to camp.
• Blended Camp: This is a little bit of both. Opportunities are made for kids to make life decisions, but there’s also some good stuff there to help kids continue to grow in their faith.

Actually, some camps take the models above to different extremes. I think Craig Jutila, previously from Saddleback, actually made camp available only to his core leadership kids. So it was discipleship for a very specific niche of kids.

So, what is the purpose of your camp? What do you hope for the kids to get out of it? These are important questions to ask when either planning or picking a camp. When picking a camp, going to one yet expecting another can lead to a great deal of disappointment.

Here’s my take. “They” say that I only get 40 hours a year with most of my kids. But for one week of the year, I get 40 hours all at once. You know I’m going to take advantage of that opportunity. I’m big into fun… it’s got to be the coolest fun they’ve ever had at camp. I hate it when I’m at a camp that only gives kids 1 to 1.5 hours to swim. Most kids look forward to swimming the most. I typically try to book about 3 hours a day at the pool/lake. But then I go after it big time in the God stuff. My intention has always been to create an environment where kids would respond to a life-changing decision., whether it was salvation, re-commitment or something totally different. In addition, I hope to load the kids up with good “take home” application stuff… so they can go out and life the life they’ve been called to.