By Ashley Perham
B&R writer
Competing in a water balloon tossing contest was among the many activities during “The Kidz Camp” hosted by Crievewood Baptist Church, Nashville. Several college students volunteered their time to help oversee the camp.
NASHVILLE — The Kidz Camp at Crievewood Baptist Church earlier this month was an answer to many prayers.
Last year, the church hosted Lifeway’s Centri-Kid day camp, but just a few months before this year’s camp was scheduled, Lifeway had to pull out.
Martha Minardi, minister to preschool and children, had an idea, though.
One Wednesday night, she ran up to the third floor of the church where the youth intern, Casey Cox from Belmont University, was getting ready for Wednesday night.
“So hear me out, what if we do something crazy and plan our own camp experience?” Minardi asked Cox.
Children participate in an outdoor activity at “The Kidz Camp” hosted by Crievewood Baptist Church, Nashville.
Minardi asked if Cox could pull together a team of college-aged friends to help the church host their own camp. Cox, who will be a senior at Belmont with a major in Christian leadership, was able to get a team of five.
“Can we do this with only five college kids?” Susan Nally, co-director of the camp, said she and Minardi were asking.
“God kept saying ‘You’re supposed to do this.’ Martha and I kept believing,” Nally said. “We both believed that’s what we were supposed to do.”
A big hurdle was finding the right curriculum. Thanks to Vicki Hulsey, a childhood specialist at the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, Crievewood was able to find out about the Zip Kids curriculum from Lifeway.
The day started with a worship rally hosted by two members of Crievewood’s own worship team. Then, there was Bible study in different age groups.
For the rest of the morning, the pre-k and kindergarten kids had music and recreation while the first through sixth graders had indoor and outdoor recreation.
Crievewood offered two tracks for the preschoolers: Create It and Kitchen Concoctions.
The older kids had Construction Zone and their own Create It track.
Making and painting boats was one of the projects at “The Kidz Camp” at Crievewood Baptist Church, Nashville.
The men of Crievewood were tasked with coming up with a construction project for the kids in Construction Zone. They decided to make construction kits for each kid so they could make their own wooden sailboat that floated.
The Bible stories that week centered on Peter, and the boats reminded the kids of the stories Minardi said.
“When I went and was asking the kids ‘Why are y’all making boats?’ they said ‘Because of Peter,’ ” Minardi said. “It wasn’t just a craft to be making a craft. It was thematic.”
In Create It, kids created art pieces that dealt with a theme of the week “God is…”
On the last day, the kids played messy games with shaving cream, water, chalk and bubbles.
Minardi said that out of 60 kids that attended, only 15 were ones that attended the church regularly.
Some of these regularly attending kids are refugees from Myanmar. Crievewood began a relationship with their community around 10 years ago, and many of them go to the church.
Both Nally and Minardi talked about how intentional the church has been about reaching the young families in the community, even with an older congregation.
A 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. day camp was effective in their neighborhood, Minardi said.
“Bible school, as wonderful as it is, and as much as I believe in Bible school, you’re competing with every other church around you,” Nally said.
One of the displays from the week of camp.
One thing that impressed Nally and Minardi was how God blessed at every turn, even when the church questioned how they could pull this off with an older congregation and lean leadership.
“People just stepped up,” Minardi said.
Nally said that volunteers at this kind of camp don’t have to stay all day, although many at Crievewood did.
Minardi said she would tell other churches thinking of hosting a similar camp that it can be done “because God will do it.”
As for Cox, who wants to be a youth pastor, he said that it was important for a church to consider the size of a project like a kids camp and to look at what the community needs.
“I would say it’s important to consider that side of things and really devote a lot of time to prayer because this was a God-sized task for the church for sure,” he said.
A month out from the camp, Minardi felt it was crazy that the church was attempting this.
“But we know that God is in it, and because of that, it was a real step of faith,” she said. B&R
