{"id":2294,"date":"2008-08-14T18:23:10","date_gmt":"2008-08-14T18:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/?p=2294"},"modified":"2010-12-22T12:22:24","modified_gmt":"2010-12-22T17:22:24","slug":"6508","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2008\/08\/14\/6508\/","title":{"rendered":"Camping, Planting, Diversity \u2013 Keys to Midsouth Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

NORMAN, OK (August 14, 2008) \u2013 Editor\u2019s note: The following is based on an interview conducted by Don Meyer with Nancy Dieckow during the Midsouth Conference Annual Meeting earlier this year.<\/em><\/p>\n

Anyone who is familiar with the Midsouth Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church has encountered one name in particular \u2013 Nancy Dieckow, a member of the conference board and an individual who is credited by some as the author of the conference camping program.<\/p>\n

A nurse by profession, she completed training at Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago in 1960 and now lives in San Antonio, Texas. She not only has played a central role in the birth and development of the conference camping program, but also has been active in church planting, having been involved with the conference from its beginnings as the Midsouth Region.<\/p>\n

The former Midsouth Region was looking for a location to house a new camping program it wanted to start some 20 years ago, Dieckow explains, and focused on a Christian camp called Frontier Camp, located about halfway between Dallas and Houston, where the region hoped to rent space. Frontier operates its own camping ministry, but rents the facility for a couple of weeks each summer.<\/p>\n

“It still makes me cry when I think about it.”<\/h6>\n

\u201cI\u2019d had previous camping experience,\u201d Dieckow notes. \u201cJules Glanzer was pastor of one of the early churches and they asked him to get the camp rolling \u2013 and he asked me to be a part of it, because he knew I had a background in camping. There were like four of us on the camping board.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went out to look at it in the pouring rain and decided if it looked good then, then it was good enough for us,\u201d Dieckow recalls. \u201cWe had to guarantee a certain number of people, and with our little churches (about a half dozen), we didn\u2019t have quite that many. So, we had to pay for them anyway \u2013 we had 13 spots that we were short, so we called down to one of the Hispanic churches in the valley and asked if they had any kids they wanted to send to camp \u2013 we knew they couldn\u2019t afford it. They sent 13 in the back of a pickup (eight-hour drive in the middle of summer) with little bags full of their belongings. It still makes me cry when I think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, that was the beginning of the camp\u201d (the first camping experience was offered in 1988).<\/p>\n

When thinking about the camp today and the influence it has had on lives, Dieckow says the most significant thing is watching the kids grow through the years – and the number of kids. \u201cWe started out offering camping to kids going into the second grade up through the ninth grade. We divided them into three groups. A few years later we started a counselor-in-leadership-training program for the high school kids.” The two-year leadership training program in year one offers leadership classes, Bible study planning and means of sharing the gospel with small children. In the second year, the students apprentice with a counselor.<\/p>\n

“So, we\u2019ve now watched some of our kids start as second graders and go all the way through camp, go through the training program and come back as staff. The camp can\u2019t take credit for all of it \u2013 the churches play a big role \u2013 but the camp gives kids an opportunity to get away and really look at their life as a Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also has been instrumental in encouraging church planting within the conference, having been intimately involved in two major efforts over the years. The first was the former Champions Covenant \u2013 now known as Hope Covenant \u2013 in San Antonio. \u201cWhen they got ready to start Faith Covenant, Jules asked me to be a part of that. So Paul Lessard, Jules and myself started with Friday night family night in a hotel. We did stuff together, and then we\u2019d break off \u2013 Paul took the teenagers, I took the kids and Jules took the adults. And that was the beginning of Faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diversity: “To me, that\u2019s a big unifying factor in the conference.”<\/h5>\n

When asked what words she would use to define\/describe the Midsouth Conference to someone not familiar with it, the word \u201cdiversity\u201d was the first to come to mind. \u201cThere are small churches, there are large churches, there are Hispanic churches, there are African-American churches \u2013 we\u2019re now getting some Asian churches. Everyone has their own style of worship and ministries \u2013 nobody is competing with anybody. The small churches are just as accepted as the big churches. To me, that\u2019s a big unifying factor in the conference. The fact that we\u2019re all new also makes a difference \u2013 everyone\u2019s on that cutting edge of wondering what we will look like in 25 years. That\u2019s a freeing thing because there is no one out there saying this is what we have to look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was the impact of the change from a region to a conference? \u201cIt brought a little more local leadership when we were able to have our own superintendent rather than having someone from Chicago who already is wearing 10 hats come down and try to help us move on. That\u2019s been a big help. While we had good guidance as to where we were going, I think there\u2019s more ownership once you become a conference. \u201c<\/p>\n

And what of future plans? \u201cRight now, we have a lot of smaller churches and they kind of have to get their feet grounded. I think some of the big churches have a good vision of where they\u2019re going and what they\u2019re going to do. And, we keep planting new churches \u2013 and that\u2019s exciting too \u2013 but we have to help them grow and get to a point where they are mature and able to focus on their own ministries and beyond just getting the church started.\u201d<\/p>\n

Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NORMAN, OK (August 14, 2008) \u2013 Editor\u2019s note: The following is based on an interview conducted by Don Meyer with Nancy Dieckow during the Midsouth Conference Annual Meeting earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCamping, Planting, Diversity \u2013 Keys to Midsouth Growth - Covenant Newswire Archives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2008\/08\/14\/6508\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Camping, Planting, Diversity \u2013 Keys to Midsouth Growth - 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