It was just past 11:00 a.m. in Greer at Panera Bread and J.P. Camp, a middle-aged man with dark hair and joy-filled eyes, smiled as he told his former professor — who just happened to be there — about a nonprofit he recently started. Camp’s passion overflowed while he caught his professor up on his present life — his wife, his kids, and his vision for the nonprofit.
Hours after that interaction, Camp’s mini white bus was parked at a church, and his shoes were parked alongside the kid’s shoes at the entrance of the building’s door. Three kids and another volunteer sat inside at a round brown table eating snacks and practicing spelling words. They then transitioned to the carpet where Camp sat with the kids and read from the Jesus Storybook Bible. Camp joyfully exclaimed, “This is so fun!”
Camp’s nonprofit, Uplift Kids Ministries, meets twice a week at a local church. Grade-level kids are picked up after school and driven to church where they receive free academic tutoring provided by church volunteers. Students also get time to play outside, eat snacks, and hear the gospel. Camp’s vision for Uplift Kids is to help more churches start their own after-school programs as a way for local churches to be a mercy ministry to their communities and share the gospel.
Camp said, “I want this to be just another tool in the toolbox for the church to reach community members that they might never ever be able to bring to the church or reach otherwise. So, this is kind of just another option for them to explore.”
Prior to starting Uplift Kids, Camp spent nine years leading an after-school kids ministry program at a different local church in Greenville. He said he loved the job so much that he’d die doing it. It was there that he discovered his “sweet spot” — education, mentorship, and discipleship all combined.
He said, “[The after-school program] showed me a world where discipleship and education sync up. And that really intrigued me.”
Another reason he loved the job was because he easily connected with the kids. He said he loved the things that they love, like Pokémon cards, video games, cartoons, and Fortnite. “For some reason I just relate to kids a lot better. Maybe I’m just a big kid at heart,” he said. He added, “I enjoyed that stuff … still do actually.”
But he couldn’t stay at that job forever. Changes in organizational structure made him feel that it was time to move on. So he left that job and lived several years through an uncomfortable “in-between” season not knowing what was ahead.
At one point, Camp applied for a customer support role at a company called Circuit Board Medics. During the interview, the manager — who happened to be a pastor — stopped the interview and asked what he was doing applying for this job when he was so clearly gifted in ministry. “You can have this job,” the manager said. “But don’t take it.”
Offer accepted; he didn’t take the job. Instead, he threw himself into learning about the nonprofit world. He got some nonprofit experience by joining his in-laws’ nonprofit called Uplift Appalachia, based in Tennessee, met with anyone who could help him, and even watched some YouTube videos on how to start one. Looking back, he said it was the Lord who uprooted him and moved him from his past church. Bitterness in his heart was replaced with forgiveness, and reconciliation. And out of it all was born a new ministry.
Rewind two decades prior and Camp didn’t think he’d be running a church-based afterschool program. He went to college assuming he’d be a teaching pastor because he thought, “What else is there to do in full-time ministry?” He didn’t have any passion for education or kids. But it was the simple act of volunteering in kids’ ministry at a church he went to after college that first sparked his interest. And it all culminated in Camp playing outside with kids on a hot Thursday afternoon after-school — because after years of hardship, he made it back to his sweet spot.
