Sacred Playgrounds Podcast

Join Rev. Anna Sorenson, our Director of Operations and Associate Pastor at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in La Crescent, WI for a Christmas week reflection on John 1. Merry Christmas!

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Connect with our team. Support the podcast. Ask about advertising opportunities. Find us on Facebook & Instagram.

Parents spend so much energy giving to and for their kids, let's give them a few gifts from the camp community. We've packaged up our ideas in 3 "L's" that are the impactful, keep-on-giving kind.

Plus, we'll hear a chat Pastor Anna Sorenson, Sacred Playgrounds Director of Operations had with Margie Fiedler, Executive Director at Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp about how setting up a multi-year, intentional system of listening to camper parents made a big, yet easy-to-implement difference in their programs.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Connect with our team. Support the podcast. Ask about advertising opportunities. Find us on Facebook & Instagram.

Happy Thanksgiving! There are many studies that connect happiness and even productivity with an attitude of gratitude. We have a lot to be thankful for in our own lives and in our ministries. Can I get an, "Amen?"

Starting within ourselves and moving concentrically outward there are circles of impact and influence that should hear words and feel actions of gratitude. We'll call out the ones in these circles and stumble on a few ways and even a bit of a framework for living and acting with gratitude.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Connect with our team. Support the podcast. Ask about advertising opportunities. Find us on Facebook & Instagram.

Say it louder for the people in the back - parents are your primary constituents. Camp is one of the spaces where the final decision makers are not necessarily the ones having the experience, yet their perspective on how things go at camp is so, so vital.

We're deep in summer 2022 parent data right now and have compiled and analyzed data from 37+ camps and over 2500 parent responses to important questions about your ministry. Here's some of what those parents had to say.

Curious about what these reports look like? Download a sample by clicking the button below. Interested in doing a survey like this next summer? Click the button to learn more and get in touch with us.

DOWNLOAD A SAMPLE
LEARN MORE ABOUT PARENT RESEARCH

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Connect with our team. Support the podcast. Ask about advertising opportunities. Find us on Facebook & Instagram.

We hear it and see it from parents, youth, and society - plugged in to some kind of technology is our near-constant state of being. There are precious few places and it takes more intentionality than ever to get ourselves outside - yet it matters as much as ever for our mental, physical, and societal health.

Enter outdoor ministry, people and places with opportunity to move the world from a little less plugged in to a little more plugged out. We're meant to be connected - to God and each other - and from Biblical times through this very day, we meet God in these sacred places, these sacred playgrounds, set outdoors on purpose for good purpose.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Connect with our team. Support the podcast. Ask about advertising opportunities. Find us on Facebook & Instagram.

The relationship between your Executive Director and your Board of Directors is a vitally important - maybe the most important - relationship in the infrastructure of your ministry.  There are ways to keep it healthy and thriving, giving foundation from underneath, support from all sides, vision from above, and spirit from within.

On this episode, we'll talk about a few keys to executive and board connections, borrowing from and processing through ideas from Joan Garry, a nationally renowned nonprofit leadership consultant and speaker, and Keith Johnson, The Board Coach, who shares 4 keys to healthy executive and board relationships. Find out more at their sites below.

Joan Garry, joangarry.com
Keith Johnson, theboardcoach.org

We'll also offer up a set of tools we built to help with one of these keys: an annual mutual review and evaluation process. Find out more about our Director Evaluation support. We'd love to help.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Connect with our team. Support the podcast. Ask about advertising opportunities. Find us on Facebook & Instagram.

Pick your analogy, a seamless pass of the baton in the zone while speeding around the track, a quarterback placing the ball squarely in the gut of a tailback headed for the endzone, an instrumental duet with a melody passed perfectly from one first chair to another - when handoffs are done well, it's beautiful and successful and everyone is the better for it.

That's the season we're in, right now. Summer camp has ended and both our campers and our staff members are beginning something fresh, yet the experiences and memories of camp, the data tells us, continues to impact who they are.

So this means there is opportunity for intentional handoff to ministry partners in places like homes, congregations, and campuses. The spirit of camp keeps moving when bridges are built.

You'll hear Jared and Jake share a few ways to handoff intentionally, but we're most interested in your creative ideas and positive experiences, so join us in one of the spaces below and offer up what you've seen work well in this season of holy handoff.

The Effective Camp Community on Facebook
The Sacred Playgrounds Instagram Page
The Sacred Playgrounds Facebook Page

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Connect with our team. Support the podcast. Ask about advertising opportunities. Find us on Facebook & Instagram.

Season 2 begins now! How was your summer? Did you encounter challenges? Did you experience things worth celebrating? Either way, you're not alone.

As we kick off this new season of the podcast, Jake and Jared  take an episode to review the summer and name 3 things worth celebrating in the outdoor ministry community and 3 challenges many of us faced during the summer of 2022.

We'll also share a bit of what to expect this season, including opportunities for your voice to be heard on the SP Pod!

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Connect with our team. Support the podcast. Ask about advertising opportunities. Find us on Facebook & Instagram.

It's the season one finale of the Sacred Playgrounds podcast! It's going to be E.P.I.C. This episode is framed with an epic alliteration of four key things to remember and apply as camp begins for the summer. Think of them as broad-brush questions to ask, focal lenses to look through, key ideas to overlay. Are we being fully participatory? Do we create space to value input?

As staff enter into training and campers wind down on school-year things and gear up for summer things, be encouraged, this isn't just another summer - it's the summer that God has prepared for such a time as this. It's going to be epic.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Connect with our team. Support the podcast. Ask about advertising opportunities. Find us on Facebook & Instagram.

Meet Amber Hill Anderson, a professional mediator and conflict resolution specialist, not to mention former camp staffer and current ongoing enthusiast.

Here's the reality, camp won't be all sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes people see and experience things differently. Sometimes there are disconnects. At camp, we have a unique space to approach conflict in a healthy way, given a little direction. We're not just hoping to give campers a good week, but experiences and skills for a good life.

Amber and Jake will talk strategies and methods for intentionally managing conflict this summer, whether that's two staff members disconnecting, or a squabble between campers. You'll leave this episode with a few actionable tools that you or your summer staff can put to use when conflict arises.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Connect with our team. Support the podcast. Ask about advertising opportunities. Find us on Facebook & Instagram.