Summer staff training season is here. Across the country, camp and retreat leaders are preparing worship spaces, finalizing schedules, organizing supplies, praying over cabins, and welcoming young leaders who will soon help shape the spiritual lives of campers. There is excitement in this season, but also weight. Camp communities are formed quickly, and the culture that staff create in the first days of training often becomes the culture campers experience all summer long.

Most camp leaders care deeply about creating spaces where people feel welcomed, valued, and safe. Yet hospitality is deeper than friendliness alone. Christian community asks more of us than simply “being nice.” It invites us to notice who feels seen, who feels left out, whose voices are centered, and how our everyday actions shape belonging.

Recently, UMC’s General Commission on Religion and Race (GCORR) released a helpful resource exploring the difference between overt and covert racism. The resource offers language for recognizing both visible and subtle ways exclusion can take shape within Christian community.

For camp and retreat ministries, this conversation matters because camp is such a deeply relational environment. Campers and staff live, worship, eat, laugh, and grow together in close community. The small moments matter. The offhand comments matter. The assumptions matter. The patterns of who is included and who is overlooked matter. Sometimes harm appears in obvious ways. More often, it emerges quietly through habits, assumptions, humor, silence, or unexamined norms that unintentionally communicate who belongs and who does not. For summer staff teams, this conversation does not need to begin with fear or defensiveness. It can begin with curiosity, humility, and a shared commitment to Christian hospitality. 

Camp communities are full of opportunities for belonging — and also opportunities to unintentionally exclude. It may look like:

• assuming a camper is unfamiliar with church or worship practices because of how they look or speak

• joking about names, hair, food, or cultural differences during staff bonding

• consistently choosing the same types of leaders for visible roles like worship, games, or announcements

• labeling some campers as “difficult,” “aggressive,” or “not a good fit” without reflecting on underlying assumptions

• expecting everyone to communicate, worship, or lead in the same way

• allowing “camp traditions” to continue without asking who might feel uncomfortable or unseen within them

Many staff members do not intend harm when these moments happen. That reality is important. But intention alone does not determine impact. Part of leadership development is learning how to recognize the ways our actions affect others and growing in our ability to respond with grace, accountability, and compassion. Camp ministry is uniquely positioned to help young leaders practice these skills because camp communities are immersive, relational, and rooted in shared life together.

Opportunities During Staff Training

Sharing the GCORR resource with your staff may be helpful in framing deeper questions for reflection & discussion. As your summer staff prepare for campers, consider creating space for conversation around questions like these:

• When have you personally experienced genuine belonging in Christian community?

• What are small actions that help people feel welcomed and valued?

• What are behaviors or assumptions that can unintentionally communicate exclusion?

• How do we respond when someone causes harm without intending to?

• What does Christian hospitality require beyond friendliness?

• How can counselors avoid making assumptions about campers’ backgrounds, families, or experiences?

• How do we help create a staff culture where people can speak honestly, learn, and grow together?

These conversations do not need to be perfect to be meaningful. In many cases, the most important step is simply creating intentional space to listen, reflect, and grow together as a community.

At its best, camp ministry helps people encounter the love of God through community. Intentional conversations about belonging and inclusion can help build awareness around the culture and values that are important at your camp.

Christian hospitality is more than welcoming people into our space. It is the ongoing practice of helping people know they are valued within the body of Christ. It asks leaders to pay attention not only to programs and schedules, but also to relationships, culture, and the dignity of every person created in the image of God.

Summer staff will not get everything right this season. None of us do. But camp and retreat ministries have long been places where people learn how to live differently together — with humility, courage, grace, and love. We hope this summer is another opportunity to practice exactly that.