An Open Door for an Unlikely Sports Camp

An Inner City Church

Chris Monson serves as the pastor at East Immanuel on Payne Avenue in the heart of St. Paul’s East Side neighborhood. Chris and Tracy both grew up in large suburban (i.e. mostly white, largely affluent) churches. When Chris received the call to East Immanuel, he would say he didn’t particularly have a heart for the inner city. Instead, he had a heart for lost people wherever they were at and was willing to go wherever he was called. 

Their small 95-year-old church of around 100 members is split between an older white population and a younger black population. They still have one founding member (she’s 96), and several people come from the Union Gospel Mission. Many of the youth group kids are from the neighborhood and predominantly black. A Karen congregation (Karens are refugees from Burma who have relocated to the United States) also meets in their building. 

Brent Voight, East Metro Area Director for Fellowship of Christian Athletes, first met Chris and Tracy many years ago when Tracy was the children’s director at Community of Grace Lutheran Church in White Bear Lake (if you read our blogs, you’ve already read about their FCA sports camp this summer). Brent and Chris have stayed in contact off and on since, and when Brent joined FCA staff three years ago, he began praying for ways that he and Chris—FCA and East Immanuel—could collaborate.

An Open Door

After the death of George Floyd, Chris spoke at Brent’s church in Lake Elmo and mentioned a community hot dog ministry East Immanuel would be doing throughout the summer and the need for volunteers. Brent signed up FCA for a couple shifts, recruited volunteers and headed for St. Paul on a Thursday afternoon in July. 

While the volunteers served the hot dogs, Brent and Tracy continued a conversation he and Chris had over coffee two weeks earlier.  Tracy said she would love to see a sports camp there some day and wondered, “Would it be possible to do one yet this summer?” Brent’s response: “Let’s do it.” 

If you Hold Sports Camp, the Kids will Come! 

Most sports camps require a ton of coordination. The dates hit the calendar months in advance, registration forms are worked and reworked, volunteers are recruited many weeks ahead of time, and parents register their kids in the spring. This is not the case with a sports camp in the inner city. The camp came together in just three weeks.

At first, Tracy wasn’t sure she would be able to find ten kids to commit to the three evenings of camp, but she and Brent agreed to do the camp for a minimum of 10 and maximum of 20 campers. She posted about it on two social media sites and invited the Karen pastor to bring his church kids.  The pastor loved the idea and committed to bringing 20 kids, while eight neighborhood kids signed up on social media. Tracy texted Brent to see if he was fine increasing the number to 30. Brent’s reply? “Absolutely!” 

Then more neighborhood kids responded, and the Karen pastor added ten more to his number. Tracy texted again, “How do you feel about 45?” Brent’s response, “Let’s do it.” Brent and his fellow FCA team member, Tony, in St. Paul recruited high school students from St. Paul Johnson High School, Stillwater Area High School and Woodbury High School to be camp leaders. Chris & Tracy invited some of their high school church youth group to be leaders as well.

In the end, 46 campers, 16 high school leaders, two FCA staff and Chris and Tracy attended the camp. In a picture of what Heaven will look like, there were black, white and Karen campers, with white, black and Asian student leaders and a staff person from Korea!    

The kids spent three evenings playing active games and learning about God’s love for them. To Brent, the camp was not all that different from the camps he was doing in the suburbs. Same games, same teaching, same structure.