No Sanity Required
SWO24 Kickoff | The Mission of Snowbird
Today marks day one of staff training for SWO24! Our staff will be arriving throughout the day and we will worship together tonight. To kick off this summer, Brody walks through our mission statement and gives a preview of what staff training will consist of.
This episode is all about why we do what we do — and the story behind it.
Please pray for our staff and pray for the students that will be coming this summer. Pray that the Lord will encourage and equip our Summer Staff for the weeks ahead. And pray that the Lord will prepare the hearts and minds of the students.
Resources:
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Today marks day one of staff training for SWO24! Our staff will be arriving throughout the day and we will worship together tonight. To kick off this summer, Brody walks through our mission statement and gives a preview of what staff training will consist of.
This episode is all about why we do what we do — and the story behind it.
Please pray for our staff and pray for the students that will be coming this summer. Pray that the Lord will encourage and equip our Summer Staff for the weeks ahead. And pray that the Lord will prepare the hearts and minds of the students.
Resources:
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Oh yeah, swo 24,. It's time for the kickoff. Here we go. It's going to be crazy, talking about the authority of Jesus.
Speaker 1:This episode of NSR is the SWO 24 kickoff, as our staff arrives today. So stick around. I'm excited about this episode. Thanks for joining us. I love that.
Speaker 1:Well, some of you know most of our listeners know that I am a Virginia Tech Hokies fan, and so if you know anything about college football, if you're a college football fan, you know that the Virginia Tech Hokies are known for their. I mean, it's the best entrance in college football and people might debate that. But even people that are not virginia tech fans will admit yeah, it's. It's pretty crazy. So inner sandman, made famous in the early 90s by metallica that's their song but but launched into superstardom and legendary status in the world of virginia tech football, in the world of college football.
Speaker 1:So so, anyway, it's kickoff time. That's the theme here. Kicking it off today is day one of the SWO24 staff training which will take place over the next two weeks. Today I just want to kind of talk about what that looks like and why we do what we do, the way we do it, methodology, how we got here, the staff it's going to be awesome, just kind of a launch episode for SWO24. So thank you so much for listening. I'm going to give you some things you can be praying about for those of you that are supporters at the end of the episode. So let's get into it.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. A podcast about the Bible, culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:Well, we have come to the time where I mean, the whole year for us revolves around the summer program, and so we've you know, if you're, if you're new to this podcast and you've just tuned in um, I know a few people that that just started listening last week and last week's episode was about, just, you know, fighting discouragement and staying positive and and letting the Lord guide you through difficult seasons. Completely different tone today, completely different direction for this episode, but it is so fitting that we talk about our summer staff coming in and what the next two weeks of training are going to look like. So I want to talk about how we got to where we're at. And first, real quick, if you're not familiar with what we do, nsr is a production of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. This podcast is a production of snowbird wilderness outfitters. This, this podcast, is a production of snowbird wilderness outfitters, which is located in Andrews, north Carolina, just outside of the great Smokies national park, and we are, uh, we're a ministry that we're a conference and retreat center. Um, we do conferences, camps, we do things for, um, adults, uh, marriage conferences, men's conferences, women's conferences, college conferences, um, we do, uh, events that are geared towards people that work with youth or in student ministry. But the main, the main, lion's share of the traffic that comes through snowbird outfitters is student ministry. But the main, the main lion's share of the traffic that comes through Snowbird Outfitters is student ministry. So we work with teenagers primarily and we we jump into the the cultural current and we help students navigate their Christian faith in a constantly increasing current and pressure. Um, how do you stay Christian in high school? How do you stay Christian in college? How do you prepare yourself while you're home to leave and go away? So we sort of at the center of that is our summer camp program.
Speaker 1:In the summer the people that come to Snowbird are church youth groups. During the year we've got school groups, public schools, private schools. We do all kinds of things. We do things that are not as faith-based, a lot of times working with public schools, just more activity-driven and positive influence-driven. But in the summer it is a summer camp for church youth groups. We partner with churches. One of the lines in our mission statement is quote to equip the church, end quote. And that's what we're here for. We're here to partner with and equip the church. We've been at this for 27 years at this location, prior to that, a few years in student ministry, little and I, my wife and I and prior to that her father, who was instrumental in starting Snowbird was in student ministry going back to the mid to late, I think late 80s. So we're talking gosh.
Speaker 1:Close to 40 years of student ministry is driving what we do here, and we have existed in our current form for 27 years and it's what we've done with our lives. It's what God called us to at a young age. God gave the vision when I was 23 and Little was 22 and went and shared it with her folks. Her dad said man, I've been praying about something like this. The start to this was we were working at a camp in in uh, alta Vista, virginia, called the Master's Inn and it was a smaller camp and it was going. That camp was going through undergoing some change in leadership and they were looking for someone to come in and take it kind of take it over and move it in a new direction.
Speaker 1:I was working there and so I reached out to my wife's dad. I reached out to. A lot of our listeners would know he was called the big kahuna and uh and went to be with the Lord in 2022, but um was was instrumental in the startup of snowbird and wouldn't happen without him. Um and was very active at snowbird until about 2011 or 12, 12, I think. So for our first 15 years.
Speaker 1:He was very, very hands-on and instrumental in his leadership early on and visionary capabilities and giftings were so used by the Lord to get Snowbird off the ground and into the stratosphere of student ministry, to get snowboard off the ground and and into the stratosphere of student ministry and and the the background to how we got here is is so important because, um, and I've shared the story before, but I'll share, uh, just touch on the highlights of it again today, and that is uh, there's a lesson to be learned here and I've uh again, I've covered in a couple of episodes early in our existence. I covered this, but I want to just tell you how we got here in terms of why we do things the way we do things. So, when I was about 17, I went to a youth camp. It was a church youth camp. Now I have two camp experiences as a kid.
Speaker 1:And one was when I was in the seventh grade. I went to an RA camp which is like a Christian Boy Scout camp and it was at a place called Barawala, camp Barawala, right outside of Hendersonville, north Carolina. And I can remember that my fondest memory of that week and I have shared this before was my dad gave me $10 to spend at camp that week, which in the early 80s was a lot of money, probably be about like getting $30 today. You know, and I think it was. He figured $5, you know, today's equivalent would be $5 a day and I had never my dad never gave me money to do stuff like that. I had to kind of earn it. From about sixth or seventh grade on. If I wanted to do something extracurricular I had to pay my way and earn the money. And I remember I was just like in shock, I couldn't believe it and it was uh anyway. So I left. I'll go to camp.
Speaker 1:Well, I had seen there was a store called Kmart. Some of y'all remember Kmart. Some of our younger listeners probably don't. But Kmart was like um, it was like Walmart. But uh, like makes Walmart look like target. Uh, like makes Walmart look like target. Like makes Walmart look like uppity, upscale, fancy, you know, kind of for suburb people. Kmart was like you go into Kmart and it looked like the store had been robbed. Those shelves were bare, everything was disheveled, kind of a just a funny store. It was like an oversized dollar general, I guess. And at Kmart they had this pocket knife that I wanted, and I wanted it because on the blade of the pocket knife there was the picture of the engraving of a buck, a big buck, a big 10-point buck. I was like, ooh, I want to get that and it was $10. And so I was like, if I don't spend any of my money and I get home on Friday I was going to get home Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, I don't remember and on Saturdays we would go to quote unquote go to town. We would go to town, we would go to Kmart, we would go. It was a drive into town maybe 20 minutes. We would go. By the way excuse the background noise, we are in full swing getting camp ready, so I can hear drums going in the background, I can hear hammers and drills and there's a lot going on which is exciting. But you might you might hear some background noise, but we would go. We would go in to town. So I was thinking I'd get back from camp, I can go in and I can get this knife and it's going to be awesome. So I didn't spend any money. I remember we go to camp all week. We're just having a big time.
Speaker 1:I have two memories from camp that I have shared before. One was this kid named Phillip attacked me and I don't remember what it was over, but I got in a fight with Phillip. I didn't really fight back, I it was. He was a real small kid and he was just going crazy, punching me and clawing me, anding me and and, uh, I think it was like we were horse playing in the cabin you know pillow fighting, horse playing, you know messing around and then this kid snapped and went crazy and I remember the the cabin counselor came and you know, got him, pulled him, pulled him back and we're all like what?
Speaker 1:the heck, you know, this kid just lost it.
Speaker 1:So I remember that. And then I and he had me. I remember I had scratch marks all over me. And then on the last, oh, and then I remember one night we're sitting around the fire and they're doing guitar, playing kumbaya sitting around the fire and this song that I knew from my childhood at church and it would say, yeah, it was the song.
Speaker 1:It Only Takes a Spark to get a fire going and soon all those around will warm up and it's glowing. I think is how it went. But it gets to the course and it goes. I'll shout it from the mountaintop, I want the world to know. And then it's talking about Jesus. And there was this point where it goes. I'll shout it from the mountaintop and you're supposed to stand up and yell praise God, and then he goes. I want the world to know. Well, that had been added in later.
Speaker 1:In my church, where I went, we would sing that song and you would yell that Well, we got there and we're singing at this campfire and there's maybe 50 boys, and it gets to that point. I was real bashful, I was very shy. And and there's maybe 50 boys, and it gets to that point I was real bashful, I was very shy and I yell praise God, I was the only one that did it and everybody starts laughing. I remember I was mortified, I was so embarrassed. So I remember that from camp.
Speaker 1:And then the other thing is I got home from camp still had my $10, didn't buy a snack. All week they had a shaving cream war in the field and you cream war in the field and you could buy shaving cream for a dollar and guys were, you know, buying three or four cans big shaving cream war and afterwards everybody jumped in the lake. I'm sure that was good for the fish and the ecosystem, but 50 boys, 100 boys, I don't remember how many some you know probably not more than 100, but um and just shaving cream war.
Speaker 1:I didn't buy shaving cream. I stood and watched. And I get home and I get off the bus and my dad asked me for the change Do I have any change? And he takes my $10. So I get no money. I don't go buy the pocket knife, needless to say. And so it's funny because the next time I went on a youth group trip or a church trip or something like that is, we went to, uh, this place called Tweetsie railroad, went to Tweetsie railroad and it was a day trip and uh, I think I had. I think I had $5 or $10 or whatever. I spent it all in the first hour I was there, went straight to the store, bought some food, got me a souvenir, a hat, you know, whatever it's like I ain't taking no money home because if I don't spend it I'm going to lose it, and so that's a funny story. But anyway, I went.
Speaker 1:My camp experience as a teenager is I went as a 17, probably 16, 17-year-old high school junior. I went to camp, to a church camp, with a group from my church and my church the youth pastor at my church was not full time, he just worked in the summer. He was the local high school football coach, um, and he would take the youth in the summer. He would take over and be the youth pastor and then, um, so we would have kind of like a youth activities based youth ministry program in the summer and we would do some things with other churches. We would have pool parties, we would go to camp, we would go to like carowinds or six flags I remember we went to six flags on a Braves game one weekend and then another time we went. We went to this camp and there was only a handful of us that went to this camp and I go to this camp and it really impacted my life and it impacted my life. There was very little activity. It was a really small little association camp for this one little county, but we weren't from that county and all the other churches that went.
Speaker 1:This was called Camp Marietta. Some of you will be familiar with it. It's in the upstate South Carolina, on the North Carolina South Carolina border, and it was an associational camp, meaning it was a camp that was affiliated with the Association of Baptist Churches in the county there. Maybe it was two or three counties, you know, and it was their camp and we had come down from North Carolina. We drove maybe an hour to get down there. We were the only church from North Carolina, from our area, so we didn't know anybody there, didn't know any of the leadership and the guy that.
Speaker 1:There were two guys. One was named Dan and he was the director and he was, you know, to me seemed like an older guy. He was probably just in his early to mid, probably mid-30s at the time. And then the other guy was named Beaker, michael Beaks. I've talked about these guys before and both of those guys really invested in me, invested in everybody, and took real, genuine personal ownership in the investment that they made in the students there. There was a lady named Angie. I remember she was the same with the girls. Angie and Beaker were both schoolteachers during the school year. Beaker, I think, ended up going into ministry, became a pastor and then Dan was.
Speaker 1:And this one was camps that only run for eight weeks in the summer and that's it. They don't do anything the rest of the year. At that time they didn't. This was late eighties, but the relational impact really affected me. It really impacted me. Then I went to work. During college I spent some time working with Liberty Expeditions, which was a high adventure camp, and that camp was run by a man named Robin Carroll. He's the first person to ever solo the New River and the Upper Galley River, rather, in West Virginia, on an oardeck, which is boat that, where one man sits on top of the boat and has an or a long paddle in each hand. It's called an or deck and he ran that. His first guy to solo it, his daughter Shannon Carroll you can look her up she's. She's world-class, legendary um paddler Um, and in the nineties and early 2000, she was like top of the paddling game, her, her main kayak, um sort of genre or or discipline or whatever you call it was waterfall drops.
Speaker 1:At one point she held the world record for the highest drop off of a waterfall. It was like 70 something feet which had been broke several times now. But, uh, whitewater royalty and I loved working for them. And there was. It was a Christian camp but there was all. All the happen was like a little devotional around the fire at the end of the day, crazy, crazy experiences with recreation, so fun in the new river gorge in West Virginia.
Speaker 1:So it was my first two camp experiences. The first one as a teenager, relational impact. The second one, uh, as a college kid, deep, uh deep roots in the outdoor recreation side of things. I mean like so incredible life changing recreational experiences. And then the third was right after I got married, I went to work at this camp in Virginia called the master's end and what they did really well they had, they had pretty good recreation. We, uh, we good rec. But it was not like really high level, high adventure rec. But it's just, it was fun, it's good. It was a good blend of, you know, a camp experience but then some recreation.
Speaker 1:But what I loved about that place is the way they taught the bible. They're very faithful in their teaching and handling of the scripture. And a guy named Mark Brown, who's a pastor in California now, was the guy that did the bulk of the speaking and he I just I just noticed I didn't know it was called exposition or anything like that, I just noticed he, he handled the scripture really well. And so I had these three experiences high school experience, very relationship heavy and driven and impactful. College experience was recreation and experiential. And then early formative years in ministry, um, learning how to teach the Bible. And so Snowbird's vision and dream was to put all three of those components together to have an incredible experience recreationally, to have a high, high view of scripture and to teach the Bible expositionally, which is to very faithfully handle the scripture. That's important because well, because it's God's word.
Speaker 1:But in student ministry it's done poorly. It historically has been done poorly a lot in extra parachurch ministries. So, like camps, conferences, there's guys that in the 90s and early 2000s made a huge living just going around and speaking at student events, but typically there was not a lot of depth. You'd have very dynamic speakers who were really engaging and they'd tell great stories and they'd pull kids in, get their attention. A lot of times there was no real exposition of a biblical text, and so so at Snowbird it was like let's take all these events. I mean all these experiences, rather take all these events. I mean all these experiences, rather.
Speaker 1:This thing where, as a teenager, I was impacted relationally, this thing where, as a college kid, I saw people's lives changed through incredible whitewater experiences If you ever run the new river in West Virginia or the Galley river, especially in West Virginia, it's, I mean it, those are, those are experiences you don't forget. I mean it's, it's incredible. And then, and then my early camp experience, uh, after I got married, which was seeing the word of God handled faithfully, and uh, so snowbird does those three things. We we want to invest in people relationally. We want to have an incredible high adventure experience while while you're here, and then we want to really teach the word of God, and we want to teach it faithfully, and so that's what we aim to do. And so our mission statement is Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters exists to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ through the exposition of Scripture and personal relationships in order to equip the church in this generation. So we want to teach the Word of God. We want to invest relationally in this generation. So we want to.
Speaker 1:We want to teach the word of God, we want to invest relationally and we want to, we want to um give, give students an incredible experience in recreation. So the relationships and the recreation really, they really compliment one another, because you know kids going down the river and their guide is someone that that might be teaching a breakout session or leading a share group with them.
Speaker 1:And so it's all just kind of interwoven, and so that's that's kind of the philosophy behind how we do what we do and that's the story behind it. God used everything in my life to sort of prepare me for this, and then, uh, and then there's a cool episode, if you go back um what we'll.
Speaker 1:I'll try'll try to tag this one. Have Maddie put it in the show description down at the bottom. It's an early episode where I talk about Kahuna's experiences in construction and in wastewater management and how the Lord, literally in the 80s and 90s, was using him to learn how to do the things he would need to do to then you know, the construction and operations, or the construction and infrastructure side of building a camp. It's just cool. The Lord prepared so much for us to be here to do this, and I can remember the first staff that we ever had. You know, how are we going to get these people? Where are we going to get them from? And so I had some friends from the master's end come down and work. We had one week of camp that year. And so the folks at the master's end um, jim Sanders is a guy that that owned and ran and directed all of that and he let us borrow some staff to run our first week of camp.
Speaker 1:I'd been down here at that point for only for a year. This is crazy. I'm working at a camp in the summer of 97. As soon as it's over, we leave the master's inn, move down here little and I move to the property. Her parents were living down in Atlanta and kind of commuting back and forth for different things. And then, gosh, it's crazy, the next summer we had a week of camp and um, and it was very effective and impactful, and that was with uh a church called center Grove and the, the, the student pastors named David Thompson.
Speaker 1:He's now on staff with summit church and in the Raleigh Durham area, and so just a lot of cool history there. And um, man it's. It's amazing to me that the Lord would, um, would start us as small as we started, would bring us up to speed as quick as he brought us up to speed. And what you know, what was obvious after that first year was we're going to have to hire our own staff and how are we going to choose them and how are we going to train them. And so the only connections we had were the Masters Inn and then Little and I had gone to Liberty. So we went up to Liberty University and they got a couple folks to let us come into classes and recruit staff and from that we hired Zach Mabry, who to this day works here and he was a college kid. Zach Mabry, who to this day works here and he was a college kid and he runs our institute, has spearheaded it, has pioneered the institute Snowbird. People know that Little and I started Snowbird. Little and I and her parents the four of us started Snowbird. But, gosh, there's a lot of firsts and startups at Snowbird. So we have a team here right now that you say who started, when did the camp start, how did the camp start? But gosh, there's a lot of firsts and startups at Snowbird. So we have a team here right now that you say who started. You know, when did the camp start, how did the camp start? Well, as it is today, the startup team is all here, zach being the guy that started the institute, spencer Davis being the guy that started the old, old school program that merged into, eventually, the institute. So we've got this incredible team that that, that all that started in 2000.
Speaker 1:And when they came in, we ended up hiring the majority of our staff that summer from Liberty. It was crazy because that trip was and we only needed about 20 folks, um, and I think we had maybe 15 of them were from that trip to Liberty and just the Lord gave us some favor. And so a lot of times people ask man, what's up with all the Liberty people, liberty connections, liberty roots? Well, that's what it goes back to. It's because little and I had gone to school there and we hadn't been far removed from that, so that was our only connection for recruiting. So we went up there to recruit and we got. We got some staff, had an incredible summer that year and that that summer, 2000, was. So the first year was 98 when we borrowed some staff.
Speaker 1:99, the staff was still so small we were able to put together a team from First Baptist Church, woodstock, georgia, where we had some connections and that's where Little's dad had been the youth pastor, and we were able to pull it all together. But in 2000, and in 99, we had a couple Liberty guys, I think two Liberty guys, four folks from Woodstock, four or five. A guy named Zach Williams who has had an awesome music career, has a touring gig deal act, whatever you call it out of Nashville. Not the Zach Williams. There's two Zach Williamsesiams's um. There's one that's tall guy with a beard. This zach williams, uh, that worked at snowbird, went on to to be a founding member of the band called the lone, the lone bellow um, incredibly gifted, and he was here that summer.
Speaker 1:Um, anyway, um that, that next summer 2000 was the third summer.
Speaker 1:We were going to run a full. The first year we ran one week and we borrowed staff from the master's. In second summer we ran about six or seven, I think seven weeks. The third summer we ran nine weeks and we needed a full, a full size staff. And, uh, that second summer we had run six or seven weeks at like 60 kids a week, um, and had had a few weeks of a hundred students. The third year, 2000, we ran. We ran like 120 people a week for eight weeks, I think, um, something like that it ended up being. If I remember it ended up being like 680 people for the summer. So we had some bigger weeks and we had some smaller weeks, but it came out to like over 100 people a week, which was just on average, which is crazy, and so maybe it was 880. Maybe it was 880. And so we were so blessed from the Lord to have that small start but for it to come up to speed so quickly.
Speaker 1:And we realized through those early years the importance of investing in our staff. And what I've seen happen in ministries like this is you, you bring in, through your staff selection, really qualified, awesome people, but then the work demands are so heavy. The ministry stress is so heavy. You know it's 16 hour work days with everything from scrubbing toilets to um, to run in recreation, to lead in a share group where you're dealing with heavy theological issues with students. It's a taxing day. A normal day working at Snowbird is a taxing day. We don't have downtime, free time, nap time. It's get up and hit the ground running in the morning. If you're going to get some quiet time you've got to get up early before the day gets going time. You got to get up early before the day gets going. And so we've got a structure for our staff where they're part of small group that's part of a little bit bigger group, of multiple small groups that's part of a larger group that's a family group. So our staff is structured so that a person that's serving on staff is going to, is going to be invested in, so somebody that comes here to serve for a summer, we're going to really invest in their spiritual growth and development. It's very important that they grow while they're here and rather than that they just get drained and at the end they got nothing left to give, we want them to be exhausted but fulfilled and to grow through it, and, and so that's why we do once we get our staff in play and it's just, it's a typical application process we recruit.
Speaker 1:We've got a team that goes out and recruits. They go to conferences and different colleges and college ministry events and recruit our staff. We have partnerships with Southeastern, the college at Southeastern which is part of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. We have a partnership with Lovell College at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, liberty University, columbia International University, north Greenville A lot of colleges that are Christian schools that we're connected with. We've had students from Union University and Covenant College and Cedarville in Ohio, so a lot of Christian schools, and then Baptist College of Florida is one, and then we get a lot of our staff.
Speaker 1:Recruitment comes through former campers, students that grow up coming to camp here with their youth group, and then they come back and serve when we have three facets of serving here and one of those is the element program. It's actually an acrostic LMNT. It stands for Leadership, mentorship, next Generation Training. So that's a team that we're training and developing as leaders. We're mentoring them, we're training them to be the next generation of leaders at Snowbird and they are high school students, juniors and seniors. In high school we have our normal, traditional summer staff position, which is the folks that come in are going to work with students that come to camp. And then we have our leadership institute, which is the year round program that comes out of the Element program and the Summer Staff program. So in the summer we've got Institute students that have been here for the last year, that are leading small groups of Summer Staff students and Element team members, and so we've got 150 people on deck, on the deck working to pull together the ministry operation. We've got a dozen food service employees, we've got bus drivers, we've got directors and managers over programs. We've got an operations team. We've got, you know, our maintenance and construction team is we got, we got highly gifted, highly talented and qualified people that do maintenance, construction, physical development of the ministry facility and everybody comes together for two weeks and we have staff training.
Speaker 1:Now, a little over a month ago, we had our staff orientation where everyone came in for the weekend, but what's starting today is staff training where for the next two weeks, every day, all day, they're going to learn ministry philosophy, they're going to learn ministry methodology. Uh, next Monday, our next episode we'll give you an update and then we're going to go. I'm going to walk you through our core values, as today we're looking at our mission statement overview of our mission statement. Next week we're going to jump back into the mission statement and look at the core values, and there's two weeks of just getting them ready doctrinal and theological training, make sure that they're grounded, that their foundation is in place. Each day our staff will meet with their fire team that they're a part of, which is three or four people.
Speaker 1:Uh, two to two to three fire teams make up what's called a community group that meets weekly, and then two community groups, a girl community group and a guy. Fire teams and community groups are gender specific girls and guys, um, biological, assigned at birth male and female. When I say gender, I mean exactly what God means by gender. There's dudes, there's girls, and we don't cross those lines. Um, we don't there. There's no room for that. That's just insanity.
Speaker 1:We would never be so dishonest with somebody as to affirm something that God did not affirm for them. So anyway, there, there there's that. Um, I don't know why I felt compelled to say that, but nowadays when you use a word like gender, it's like what do you mean by that? Gender means male or female, whatever God made you. So we've got girl groups, guy groups. So a fire team is three, three to four folks with a leader, through two to three fire teams, equal a community group. So you take one girl community group, one guy community group. Now you've got about six fire teams.
Speaker 1:This is going to make up about 24 to 30 people and those two community groups come together to form a family group and then that family group will be assigned a full-time staff family who's sort of like their host family. So the Parkers, the Joneses, the Schwartings, these families that host community groups and so on the weekends they might have a cookout once a month or get together. So there's a strong relational connection within the staff, because that relationship component of ministry, if we're going to relationally connect with students, we've got to be relationally connected as a team, and so that's important. If we're going to be faithful in how we handle the scripture with students. We got to be faithfully. You know, theological training and discipleship has to be happening as a team.
Speaker 1:And then the other piece to that two weeks of training is recreational training. If somebody is going to lead canoe trips all summer, we're going to teach them how to load the trailer, drive the trailer back the trailer, unload the canoes into the lake, how to do a rescue if somebody flips a canoe, how to get a canoe that's flipped and full of water, how do you get that emptied when you're out in the middle of the lake with 150 feet of water and depth underneath, you know. So training um, you're going to run the aerial park or the climbing tower. We're going to learn all the knots and ropes and systems, the harnesses, the, the points of the harness, the helmets. Somebody's going to run the gun range. Somebody's going to run white water rafting, whatever you're going to work in, you're going to work in, you're going to learn that. So staff training is those three pieces that we're trying to hit Relationships, shared experiences through recreation and exposition of scripture. We're trying to equip our staff during the two weeks of staff training to be able to hit all of those points with students. So the staff training process is super involved and then during that we're making sure they understand the mission statement, the core values, and that they're ready to execute at a high level.
Speaker 1:That's how it runs and if you've been here, you've seen it and that all that all makes sense. If you've never been here, I'd encourage you to go to SW outfitterscom and check us out, and there's a ton of information on that website. John Reagan runs our website and does a phenomenal job with it. I drive him crazy, cause every time I see a typo or a little glitch or some little piece that is is not up to date. I bug him, but he really does do a phenomenal job with it. There's so much to manage and so many moving parts and so many things that change constantly. Very appreciative of John Reagan, the work he puts into the website, but it's really good. We just got a facelift on that about a month ago, back in April, and it's very intuitive.
Speaker 1:Tons of media content. You go listen to sermons from past summers. You can listen to some staff training talks we've done. I'll, in fact, include in the NSR episode list coming up in the next few weeks for some of these NSR episodes. We'll include some of the talks that we do with the staff. That'll be awesome.
Speaker 1:Our core values are important and we'll be covering those in the next episode. Our core values are important because they sort of they're how we measure the effectiveness of staff. Are you doing your job well? Are you hitting all these marks and these markers? But the mission statement is that we exist to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters exists. That's a miracle that we exist. That's a sovereign hand of God that has guided us to the point that we are a reality.
Speaker 1:Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters exists to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. We exist to proclaim Christ. We exist to proclaim Christ, to preach Jesus and his gospel him crucified, buried and risen, exalted and enthroned on high governing nations ruling over a fallen earth that he will one day bring to complete judgment and or redemption. And so we preach Christ. So snowbird, one of his outfitters, exists to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ through the exposition of scripture. So the way we handle the word of God is so critical, um, and through the exposition of scripture. And then we and and personal relationships. We build relationships with people because it's much more effective to minister when you've got relational equity. I'm not saying that before you ever share the gospel with somebody, you need to build a relationship with them. Not saying that. But I am saying that the people that you're invested in you're going to have their ear more. They're going to be more in tune to what you might have to say when it comes to the gospel.
Speaker 1:And so our mission statement really drives what we do. And our mission statement is held up by a couple of verses in Colossians Colossians 1, 28 and 29. Those verses say him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone. You see that first line in our mission statement that we proclaim the gospel. This number of winners, outfitters, exists to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Colossians 128,. Him we proclaim. And then it says warning everyone and teaching everyone. Warning everyone and teaching everyone. So we say um. Him we proclaim, um holds up that line in the mission statement snubbered outfitters exist to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ through the exposition of scripture. That is held up by that verse, that line in Colossians one, 28, 29,. That says warning everyone and teaching everyone. Um, there's a warning that comes with scripture, there's instruction that comes with scripture. And so we want to warn and teach. We want people to understand the word of God. Think about, I'm looking at my Bible here. I'm looking at it in the NLT. You guys know I love this.
Speaker 1:So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. Warn and teach with the wisdom God gives us. The Great Commission says that we're to go preach the gospel to all people, baptizing them in the name of the Father, son, holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. So gospel ministry has to be driven by the proclamation of Jesus and then the instruction of his word to warn, to teach, to instruct, to shape, to mold. And so that's what we seek to do in a week at Snowbird or a weekend at Snowbird Warning everyone, teaching everyone with all the wisdom that God has given us, so that we might present them perfect. In other words, so that we might present them in their own struggle with the gospel and in their own struggle with the Christian life. We want to disciple them while they're here. That's all about sanctification, discipleship and sanctification. So, warning everyone and teaching everyone the word of God. We're teaching them the scripture because when they leave here, we want them to be closer to Jesus but have a a stronger understanding of who Christ is, what he expects from them.
Speaker 1:It's not just a good time with a lot of hype and energy. It's grounded, and so, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ, that's important. The goal of someone who's doing ministry is to grow the people they're ministering to to a place of maturity. We see kids grow from Monday to Friday or Monday to Saturday in a week. It's never we see them really make strides in their growth. But then, year in and year out, coming back to different events, following us on social media, listening to our podcast, our teaching podcast, listening to this podcast, the NSR podcast lots of resources for them to grow mature in their faith. Um, because that's our ultimate goal. And then verse 29 says this for this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. We labor, we toll, we work so that we might equip the church. It's a it's a labor of love, but it is hard work to do the ministry God's called us to and that's what we're here for.
Speaker 1:And it all kicks off today. Staff Some of them started coming in over the weekend. A lot of them are pouring in today. Tonight we will unpack the mission statement with them and, and then next week, in this episode I mean in this episode, I mean in this, in this podcast, the next episode I'm going to walk you through um real quick overview of that mission statement that we just covered and then get into how, how that syncs up with our core values and uh, and give you an update on how the first week went and how the second week is shaping up. So, so excited for where we're at. Please pray for us, Please come see us.
Speaker 1:Many of our listeners are going to be coming to see us over the next few weeks and I will tell you the teaching focus for this summer is going to be the authority of Jesus. We're going to be looking at that through the lens of Luke's gospel. We're going to see Jesus, uh, in his authority over Satan and demons and the natural order and creation and hell and your life and my life, and over physical illness, and his the authority over the grave and and and it's going to be, uh, you know, the last couple of years we were in the old Testament two summers ago, swo, uh, swo, 22. We looked at um, the life of David, swo 23. We looked at the gospel in Genesis through the life of Joseph.
Speaker 1:This year we're jumping into the new Testament. We're going to consider the life of Christ and the authority of Jesus which is coming out of um. Uh, you know, we we've done the uh this past winter, at winter SWO, we did the miracles of Jesus, miracles of Jesus and then we've got uh, a follow-up teaching season where we'll be doing the parables of Jesus. So really taking SWO 24, all of 2024, and really just looking at the life of Christ, teaching miracles, ministry and life of Jesus. So we'll be putting out a lot of the content in the weeks and months ahead and hope that it'll be super helpful and beneficial for you in the in the weeks and months ahead and hope that it'll be super helpful and beneficial for you.
Speaker 1:Uh, I'll try to uh also, as in the next few weeks, give you an update on where things are with construction and the new water line that that we finally or it looks like we're getting ready to be able to put in state and the County and the town and everybody's kind of synced up and it's finally going to happen, and almost two years of raising the money and getting it in place and thought we had it and then had to go back to the drawing.
Speaker 1:But anyway, give you an update on all that it's happening. Growth is coming. We're excited. God's hand is on this ministry. Couldn't be more excited and praising Jesus for what he's doing in the lives he's carrying to change. So please pray for us, pray with us. And uh, not only do we have coming up episode on our core values and drilling a little deeper into our mission statement, we also are going to be looking at the Element Program. We're going to have a sit-down conversation with some folks that have come through the Element Program, the Institute Program, and give you a little bit better understanding of how those programs work, so excited for the lineup we've got coming. Pray for us, come see us and we'll talk to you soon. It's kickoff time, so we'll see you next Monday.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to. No sanity required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at sw outfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on. No sanity required.