Disciples of Every Age

Every week in Base Camp, kids and volunteers gather to connect with God and one another. It’s everything you’d expect to find in a high-energy children’s ministry environment. But what you see on a Sunday morning is just a snapshot of something much deeper and richer taking shape over time. Within Base Camp, a fabric of Christ-centered relationships is being woven each week across generational divides. Communities of volunteers, growing deeper in their own faith, walk alongside families through the ups and downs of life, serving kids who will move on to Surge and Edge and return to lead small groups of their own, guiding the ones who come after them.

We recently sat down with two of our longest-standing Base Camp volunteers, Nancy and Sheila, serving for seventeen and nineteen years, respectively. Not only have they witnessed the movement of intergenerational discipleship that’s taking place, but they’ve also helped to establish it. Both Nancy and Sheila have led small groups of kids as well as teams of Base Camp volunteers, casting vision and nurturing leaders. But what’s intriguing about Nancy and Sheila’s experiences is their vision for family ministry as a whole.

Fueled by a passion to be part of the church planting process, Sheila made the transition to the Lake Mary campus six years ago and began serving in the nursery. She shares, “I know the babies won’t remember me… But it’s important to me to be there, to help them feel loved, and to place one small building block in their lives as a foundation that others will build on top of.” When Sheila heard there was also a need for volunteers to serve with high school girls, she signed up. This year, Sheila is leading two girls who are juniors in high school, and they all get to serve alongside one another in Base Camp on Sunday mornings, where she continues to work with the babies and toddlers.

Similarly, when Nancy’s youngest son started middle school, she noticed a lack of volunteers, and so–with her son’s permission—she stepped in to help, leading a middle school girls’ small group. Nancy says, “It felt like a natural continuation to keep teaching these kids who had grown up in Base Camp, but they also started volunteering with me in the church. And I think this is how it was meant to be. Base Camp and Surge and Edge are not isolated, it’s one long commitment to see our young people grow, to lead them, and to watch them grow as leaders. We’re all living life together and serving alongside each other.”

Nancy recalls one Sunday in particular, serving in a 5th grade Base Camp classroom with a high schooler and middle schooler serving alongside her—her 15-year-old son, Will, and a girl from her 6th-grade small group. She overheard Will saying to a group of kids in the class, “Jesus loves you. He died for you.” She heard the middle school girl say, “Jesus wants to be in a relationship with you because he loves you. He sought you out because you’re important to him, you don’t have to earn God’s love.” She remembers one of the boys asking Will, “How do you know it’s true?” And Will said, “The Bible says this is who God is, but it’s also what I’ve experienced in my own life.”

“To hear a 15-year-old telling an 11-year-old boy that—it’s powerful,” Nancy says, “Afterward I asked them, ‘How did you even know to say that?’ And they said, ‘You’ve been saying it all along in Base Camp.’ It reminded me of Paul’s instructions to Timothy: ‘these things have been entrusted to you, give them to faithful people.’ I believe we still have that sacred responsibility in the church to raise up the next generation of leaders.”

It’s evident when talking with Nancy and Sheila that they recognize just how high the stakes are when it comes to the next generation—it’s what has propelled them to continue serving for so long. Nancy says, “The goal in Base Camp has never been, “Let’s just keep the kids safe,” or, “let’s just get through today.” As the Church, we can sometimes settle for a life that isn’t as adventurous as it should be. There is a spiritual battle happening in every Base Camp room, and what our volunteers offer on Sunday matters in the scope of eternity. We will all in our different stories reach a crossroads where we have to answer the question: What will I believe about God’s character? When kids come into Basecamp, I look in their faces and I wonder: what will you choose?”

Sheila shares, “One thing I hear a lot from Chad, our Student Ministry leader, is that if a young person has five adults investing in their life, they’re more likely to walk with God in adulthood. I love the idea of being one of those people. Kids today deal with such hard things. It’s so important that they find their identity in God. It’s something I’m still working on... But if you know God’s love personally, in a real way, and he’s where your worth is found, then you can handle life’s curveballs and the challenges you haven’t faced yet.”

Nancy and Sheila speak from personal experience. The decision to trust God’s faithfulness and to find their identity in him—their prayer for the kids they serve—is one they’ve both lived out. And in seasons of their lives when no one would have faulted them for stepping away, they chose instead to lean in, and the impact has been extraordinary.

Nancy shares, “In 2009, I found out I had an aggressive form of cancer. After that, I really began focusing on the things that were essential to me, and Base Camp was one of those things. The truth is that everybody who walks into Base Camp has their own story. People come to serve whose marriages are broken, who are facing health challenges, whose kids are walking away from their faith. I want them to find Base Camp as a safe space, where they come by faith, not because they’re the best person for the job, but because they’re broken people who love Jesus.”

Sheila reflects on her experience before her daughter was born when she had miscarriages: “There’s a whole community you never knew existed until you go through something like that. And when I got divorced and felt unlovable and unworthy, the volunteers in Base Camp, people who’d been through similar situations, encouraged me. They were so supportive and loving. I felt God’s love in the most personal way I'd ever felt it. I wouldn't have wanted to go through that scenario, but I wouldn't give up the result for anything.”

Nancy agrees, “I’m grateful. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of it all.”

It’s a sentiment that resonates with so many of us in Base Camp. We’re grateful—grateful for Nancy and Sheila and all the volunteers who have said yes to being the Church for kids and families, grateful for the community that has come about as a result, and grateful for God’s faithfulness in raising up disciples of every age.

Be a part of someone’s story.