Each summer, kids, students and leaders at Lifeway’s summer camps are invited to give to support Southern Baptist missionaries, and this year, campers gave the highest missions offering since 2017.
Joe Walker, interim president and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources, presented checks totaling $697,891.19 to International Mission Board (IMB) President Paul Chitwood and North American Mission Board (NAMB) President Kevin Ezell during the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee meeting on Monday, Sept. 22.
“Sacrificial giving is a basic part of following Jesus,” Walker said. “By taking an offering that will benefit missions around the world, Lifeway camps give campers the opportunity to take their money that might have been intended for T-shirts or snacks and sacrificially give to something with an eternal impact.”
During the 2025 camp season, as Lifeway hosted more than 120,000 campers representing over 4,200 churches, their continued partnership with the IMB and NAMB allowed them to provide missions education and promote missional giving among kids and students at Lifeway camps.
“The generosity of Lifeway campers and leaders toward the work of the International Mission Board is amazing,” Chitwood said. “Every penny given goes to the frontlines overseas to address lostness as the world’s greatest problem with the only solution – the gospel. I’m incredibly grateful for the partnership and vision of Lifeway in enabling campers to be a part of the most important work in the universe by participating in this missions offering.”
In 2025, campers, camp staff and adult chaperones at FUGE Camps, CentriKid, Student Life Camp and Student Life Kids Camp across the nation gave $216,642.43 to NAMB and $481,248.76 to the IMB.
“I’m grateful to Lifeway for instilling the importance of the work of NAMB’s missionaries into the younger generation of Southern Baptists as well as our role, as God’s people, to support their work through sacrificial giving,” Ezell said. “One of the great blessings of the Christian life is learning generous giving, and Lifeway has modeled that for these young people. These gifts will help missionaries cover the cost of reaching people in their communities. Our missionaries are grateful to Lifeway and their campers for their generosity.”
Increased giving at CentriKid
This summer, Henry Dutton, CentriKid Camps manager, led his team to integrate the missions emphasis into more aspects of camp — beyond the daily missions videos. This integration included simple things like a brief paragraph in each camper’s daily quiet time guide to remind them of the mission projects and a missions moment during Bible study time. They even included ties back to these missions partnerships through games during recreation time.
Dutton explained that this year’s theme at CentriKid was all about the great commandment — Jesus’ call to love God and love your neighbor. He said they were able to help campers see that one way they could love their neighbor was through giving to the missions offering.
“The goal of the entire camp experience is to help kids and students grow in their faith and in their walk with Christ,” Walker said. “Part of that growth is understanding that believers should always live on mission for God.”
But CentriKid didn’t stop at talking to campers about missions. In daily gatherings with the adult chaperones, CentriKid staff provided these leaders with a focused opportunity to learn and pray about the missions work being done around the world.
“We view ourselves as coming alongside the church to help complement their discipleship strategy,” Dutton said. And developing in kids a heart for missions is a part of that.
While CentriKid Camps made some practical changes related to missions this summer, relationships were the heartbeat behind these changes. Dutton said some of the CentriKid staff went to an international mission field, built relationships with missionaries and saw firsthand the work they were doing. Not only did this grow their love for missions, but Dutton said it also equipped them to be ambassadors for missions as they engaged with other camp staff and campers this summer.
As Dutton led the CentriKid team to invest more intentionally in their missions partnerships this summer, the fruit of that investment was seen as campers developed a heart for missions that compelled them to give. From 2024 to 2025, the per person giving at CentriKid camps increased by 15 percent.
“God used our little bit of effort, and it really did have an effect,” Dutton said.
Missions stories
This summer, Lifeway and the IMB continued their international emphasis on unreached people groups located in Northern Africa and the Middle East. Through daily missions videos, campers learned specifically about God’s work in the Horn of Africa and how they could join this work through prayer and giving. Through these videos, campers heard stories of people whose lives had been impacted because of the IMB’s ministry in the Horn of Africa, giving them a picture of how the money they gave this summer would make a difference in the lives of people around the world who they will likely never meet.
Alongside the international missions emphasis at Lifeway camps, FUGE Camps and CentriKid campers also learned about NAMB church planters in Provo, Utah. During daily missions videos, campers got to know a church planter in Provo and hear one man’s story of coming to faith in Christ through the church plant in that city.
Giving campers glimpses into missionary life and sharing stories of God’s transforming work in people’s lives around the world helps kids and students develop hearts for missions — not only providing a vision for giving to missions but also for living on mission themselves.
“Kids and students are not the church of tomorrow — they are the church of today,” said Sarah Farley-Beall, senior NextGen strategist and camps specialist at the IMB. “When we disciple and equip them well, they become catalysts for gospel movements, bringing fresh energy, creativity and urgency to God’s mission.”
— Marissa Postell Sullivan is a writer for Lifeway Christian Resources.