Faith Formation :: Camp and Conference Task Force

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Vision Statement: To develop a long-term vision and plan for meeting the program and facilities needs for camping and conferencing for the Diocese of Colorado.
Desired Results: Based on a substantial understanding of the needs, hopes, and desires of the congregations, clergy, and leadership of the Diocese of Colorado

Please click here to read the full Vision and Desired Results (pdf).Please click here to read the full Bishop’s Charge to The Camp and Conference Center Task Force

Task Force Members:
The Rev. Michael Carney, Chair, St. Timothy's, Centennial
The Rev. Scott Anderson, St. James, Wheat Ridge
The Rev. Rex Chambers, Grace Church, Buena Vista
Mr. Jonathan Coldren, St. Andrew's, Denver
Mr. Joe DiBiasi, St. Gregory, Littleton
The Rev. Catie Greene, St. Francis, Dillon
Mrs. Kim Hollowell, St. Mary Magdalene, Boulder
Dr. Dana Max, St. Timothy's, Centennial
Mrs. Kim McPherson, St. John's Cathedral, Denver
Mr. Benjer McVeigh, Holy Spirit, Cherry Hills Village
The Rev. Canon Poulson Reed, St. John's Cathedral, Denver
Mr. Neil Riley, Holy Spirit, Cherry Hills Village
Mr. Drew Royster, Transfiguration, Vail

Task Force Survey
Coming Soon

Contact the Task Force
Send an email to
Michael Carney
Neil Riley

Bishop’s Charge to The Camp and Conference Center Task Force

Purpose Statement: To develop a long-term vision and business plan to establish high quality camping and conferencing facilities that will serve and strengthen the mission of the Church in The Diocese of Colorado.

I. The Context: Mission

A. Defining “mission”

1. Strictly speaking, mission is “God’s work”—the mission dei—God’s activity, God’s initiative, God’s reaching out in love to redeem a broken and sinful world through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

2. The mission of the Church, simply put, is our participation in God’s redemptive activity in this world through our own life of prayer, worship, study, fellowship, spiritual formation, and service to others, particularly the poor and marginalized.

3. The mission of the Church is therefore:

• Local: the work of the people of God in every congregation in the Diocese of Colorado.
• Contextual: taking on different form in every community depending on the specific gifts and resources found in every congregation.
• Dynamic: animated by the Holy Spirit, always evolving and changing, a process of being drawn evermore deeply into a living and transformational relationship with God in Jesus.

4. The activity and movement of the mission of the Church in Colorado is summarized the tag line used in the diocese—proclamation, discipleship, servanthood.

B. Growing the church’s mission in Colorado

1. Growing, expanding, deepening our mission as people of God is both an individual and a collective responsibility

2. Does not happen accidentally but requires our own intention and attention

C. First rate, high quality camping and conferencing facilities are an essential resource that we need to strengthen and to grow the mission of the Church in Colorado. Among many considerations:

1. More education and formation takes place in a week of camp than in an entire year of Sunday School

2. Camp programs create unique mentoring relationships

3. Camp experiences are motivational and inspirational—young people go home energized and committed

4. Camps create leaders: campers become counselors, counselors become youth leaders, youth leaders become adult leaders

5. Camps strengthen ministry with children and youth across the diocese, and can particularly develop college and young adult ministry

6. Camping and conferencing builds relationships across the lines that divide us—not just theological lines, but geographic, economic, cultural, and racial divides, to name a few.

7. Camps and conferences offer the possibility of experiencing true Christian community—the experience of the reality that we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves in our deep interconnectedness in Christ.

II. The Charge: To undertake a Conceptual Design and Feasibility Study for establishing quality camping and conferencing facilities for The Diocese of Colorado (an iterative process).

A. Conceptual Design (key components):

1. Identity, purpose, and core values

• Identity:

o Christian (experiencing, enjoying, being formed and transformed in a living relationship with Jesus and, in turn, living increasingly out of that relationship (ie., being being disciples whose lives manifest the fruit of the Spirit)
o Anglican (a particular expression of catholic Christianity born of the English reformation and uniquely characterized by its middle way, or via media, which embraces a wide spectrum of theological views while at the same time being anchored in a core of orthodox Christian faith)
o Episcopalian (members of one Church among the thirty-eight Church’s that comprise the worldwide Anglican communion who worship according to a Book of Common Prayer in which both Word and Sacrament are held at the center of our common life and ministry)

• Purpose

o Christian Formation: To form children, youth, young adults, and adults in the Christian faith and life.
o Christian Unity: To discover and to build the deepest kind of community to which the gospel calls us—the koinonia that is the gift of the Holy Spirit and transcends the various divisions of our lives and is grounded in the living spirit of the living God.
o Christian Leadership: To equip leaders to serve and to bear witness to the gospel in both the church and in the wider communities in which they live.

• Core Values

o Hospitality: To be a community of prayer in which the hospitality and love of Jesus is experienced
o Excellence: To provide quality programs and services
o Accessibility: To offer programs and services that are maximally accessible to all who desire to participate (financially or otherwise)

2. Conceptual program design (kinds of activities)

3. Size and scope

4. Staffing

5. Costs and how its operation could be funded

6. Space requirements: objective and subjective

B. Feasibility

1. Feasibility in this case is not a matter of determining whether to undertake this project or not.

2. Instead, studying the feasibility of this project means clarifying the vision, giving the vision some shape and substance and delineation, and identifying what it will take realistically to make the vision a reality in Colorado.

3. Feasibility means prayerfully and thoughtfully discerning, identifying and articulating what will work in Colorado—what best and most effectively will serve the mission of the Church in Colorado—among other things, looking at:

• Our resources: land, finances, people
• The market and needs of our diocese
• The geography and culture of Colorado
• The various constituencies we are called to serve