1,200 Hours Serving: Recapping Soul in the City

Many in our Diocese are familiar with Camp Araminta, and you should definitely check out the daily recaps on their Instagram account. Here’s a retrospective on our other Diocesan summer camp: Soul in the City, which has been operating out of Grace Anglican Church for over 15 years.

By Jordan Franco, Soul in the City Coordinator.

Our missional diocesan camp, Soul in the City, was held at Grace Anglican Church (Fleming Island, Florida) from June 23^rd–28^th, 2024. Sixty-three students participated from 14 different churches across Clay, St. Johns, and Duval counties. It was truly a celebration of the Kingdom of God, for we had five Anglican churches represented and the remaining nine from various denominations. Among the campers, thirty-eight were first-time attendees who heard about the camp from friends and family. 

Throughout the week, we broke into six groups to serve with the following organizations in our community: The Table Church, BASCA (Building Abilities of Special Children and Adults), One More Child, Henderson Haven, Middletowne Apartments, and Kim’s Open Door. Students and leaders combined for approximately 1,200 hours of of service in our community, in the name of Jesus! 

While a large portion of our time is devoted to serving we also focus on learning to live in Christian community, which includes sharing our living space with one another, having fun with games and activities, as well as praising the Lord and hearing from His Word. Lenny Konschewitz, our camp speaker, taught on what it means to be an “influencer” for God’s Kingdom. The world tells us one way to influence, which is often through power grabs, good looks, or crude humor on social media platforms. As Christians, however, we are called to be light bearers in the world, influencing by love, service, and obedience to Jesus through the presence of the Holy Spirit. 

The last essential ingredient for the week is our amazing volunteers, who give their time to invest in the younger generation. We had a group of eight parishioners (Soul in the City Core Team) who helped plan the camp starting in last December and also helped out in various capacities during the week of camp. We had a group of 12 adult leaders who stayed overnight with the students the entire week, leading them in their serve groups, facilitating small group discussion, and offering wise counsel. We also had 90 congregation members serve during the week of Soul, including serving meals, providing security, praying over the students and leaders, and leading games and activities. The Lord was faithful in building up our team, providing resources, washing His love and mercy over all the students, and filling our community with the love of Christ!