Loving kids. Developing leaders. Sending a generation.
GCI Generations Ministries (GenMin) provides youth ministry support services
to GCI-USA congregations through camps, mission trips and leader development programs.
In GenMin we focus on loving kids, developing leaders, and sending a generation into the world to share the love of Jesus. Our programs are staffed by 700+ adult and older teen volunteers who are coordinated, resourced and coached by our leadership team. For details about GenMin, watch the video below. For articles about ministry to teens, click here. For articles about ministry to children, click here. To help fund GenMin, click here.
Beliefs
GenMin’s teaching is guided by these core beliefs (for details, click here):
- There is one God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- God the Father made all things through the Son, sent the Son for our salvation, and gives us the Holy Spirit.
- The Son of God, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, was born of the virgin Mary, fully God and fully human, and is the perfect revelation of the Father and the perfect representative of humanity. He suffered and died on the cross for all human sin, was raised bodily on the third day, and ascended to heaven. Standing in for all humanity before the Father, Jesus Christ provides the perfect human response to God. Since he died for all, all died in him, and all will be made alive in him.
- The Holy Spirit brings sinners to repentance and faith, assures believers of their forgiveness and acceptance as God’s dearly loved children, and works in them to conform them to the image of Jesus Christ.
- The Bible is the inspired and infallible Word of God that testifies to Jesus Christ. The Bible is fully authoritative for all matters of faith and salvation.
- Salvation comes only by God’s grace and not by works, and it is experienced through faith in Jesus Christ. Christians respond to the joy of salvation when they gather in regular fellowship and live godly lives in Jesus Christ.
- We look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come.
Theological foundations
GenMin’s core beliefs are grounded in and shaped by an incarnational Trinitarian theology, which embraces these key precepts (for details, click here):
- The Father, Son, and Spirit are one God, united in love for one another.
- Jesus Christ, as the Word made flesh, is fully God and fully human.
- Jesus accurately reveals the goodness and love of God, and reveals humanity as God intended us to be.
- As our Creator, Jesus represented all humanity, and all people benefit from his vicarious humanity: his life, death, resurrection and ascension.
- Jesus Christ atoned for all sin and suffered its full consequence.
- God has in Christ reconciled all humanity to himself through his son, Jesus (Colossians 1:20). (This universal understanding of the atonement should not be equated with universalism.)
- The judgment of God against evil has been executed in Jesus Christ so that all might repent and receive forgiveness and, through the Holy Spirit, share in Christ’s resurrected, eternal life.
- People are exhorted to respond to this reconciliation and participate in the life for which we were all created.
- Jesus, as the nexus of divinity and humanity, has enabled humanity to participate in the life and love of the Trinity, which was God’s intent from before the beginning of time.
Camps
GenMin sponsors residential and day camps in the U.S., and is affiliated with camps
in other nations. In these Christ-centered, safe and fun places, young people are
loved and discipled and young ministry-minded leaders are discovered and developed.
Below a list of GCI-USA camps, followed by videos and pictures. To check out what we teach, click on the “camp curricula” tab above. To learn about GenMin-sponsored short-term mission trips, click on the “mission trips” tab above. Questions?—email Jeffrey Broadnax.
GenMin U.S. residential camps:
- Higher Ground – Tennessee
- New Heights – Connecticut
- Northern Light – Minnesota
- SEP Florida
- SEP SoCal – Southern California
- SEP Montana
- The Rock – North Carolina
- Yes Camp – Louisiana
U.S. day camps:
- CrossWalk – Oklahoma
- SEP Montana
Camps outside the U.S.:
- Camp Connections – Eastern Canada
- SEP Silver Meadows – Western Canada
- SEP UK – Scotland
- SEP Luzon – Philippines
- SEP Australia – Victoria
Here are videos and pictures from recent GenMin camps:
Click on the pictures to enlarge:
Mission Trips
GenMin’s missions organization sponsors short-term mission trips in the U.S. and abroad,
and provide missions-related services to help churches foster mission-focused community that
continues back home. Here is an interview with GenMin mission trips coordinator Lee Berger:
Crossing Borders
Mission trips out of Texas into Mexico. Click here for information, and here for Crossing Borders on Facebook.
Leader Development Programs
GenMin, in partnership with other GCI ministries and affiliated educational institutions, helps
older teens and young adults develop as leaders who serve GCI congregations and ministries.
As shown in the diagram above, GCI has multiple development tracks on its Leadership Pathway, as well as our affiliated academic institutions, programs for young emerging leaders at GenMin camps and mission trips, and GenMin leader development events like this:
GC Ignite is an annual GenMin gathering of young adults (age 18-30) designed to help them pursue God’s call on their lives within GCI while connecting with like-minded peers. Through discussions, teaching sessions, worship, prayer, food and fun, GC Ignite equips young adults for active service within their local contexts. For a report on GC Ignite 2018, click here and see the pictures below (click on the pictures to enlarge):
Staff Resources
Here are resources that inform the ministry of GenMin camp and mission trip staff.
- GenMin Handbook (policy manual)
- Accident/Incident Report Form (PDF – fillable)
- Parental permission form (included in camper applications)
- Camp and mission organization director application (PDF – fillable)
- Camp director ministry description
- Camp chaplain ministry description
- Camp counselor standards
- Camp staff standards
- ACA standards (industry norms)
- Jon Whitney Foundation (scholarships)
- GCMO charter application (to become a GenMin camp or missions ministry) – see Appendix 11 of the GenMin Handbook
- Fundraising resources: click here for a PowerPoint presentation on grants and fundraising letters—for tips and policies related to grants, see section 9.0 in Appendix 8 of the GenMin Handbook
- Age-graded resources: a catalog with links to books, articles, websites and curricula to use in discipling children, teens, young adults, older adults and families (including parenting and marriage)
- Kingdom Life studies (GenMin Life) (interactive Bible studies with video discussion starters)
Camp Curricula
Most GenMin camps use GCI-produced teaching curricula. Here are links to curricula from past years:
-
2018: All In (multiple resources on Google Drive)
- 2017: The Journey
- 2016: Celebrate the Grip (teens) (preteens)
- 2015: Epic Story (teens) (preteens) (preteens leaders’ guide)
- 2014: Superhero
- 2013: It’s Time
- 2012: Rooted
- 2011: Living Loved
- 2010: Elation, with theme song
- 2009: unReality
- 2008: Timothy Chronicles (teens) (preteens)
- 2007: Collide
- 2006: Generations
- 2005: Extreme Makeover