Love God. Love Neighbor. Serve the World
Paige Nelson serves as the Director of Youth Ministries at East Heights UMC in Wichita, KS. When she is not hanging out with youth, which is most of the time, she spends time with her husband, Scott. She is an amazing dog mom to Harley and an avid K-State fan. Paige’s first trip to Mountain T.O.P. was as an adult 32 years ago and she continues to bring her youth each summer. Mountain T.O.P. holds a special place in her heart.
It is difficult to describe the impact Mountain T.O.P. has had on my life and the lives of so many of our youth and adults in a short blog post, but I’m going to attempt to capture it for you.
The high school youth and their adult sponsors from East Heights United Methodist Church have been making the trek to Mountain T.O.P. every summer since 1980. I have no idea how we originally found out about it, but I am forever grateful Mountain T.O.P. is a central part of our summer.
For us, Mountain T.O.P. has what we seek as we live out our mission to Love God. Love Neighbor. Serve the World.
If it is community, Mountain T.O.P. is very intentional about building a camp community who comes together as strangers, shares a common experience and leaves as friends ready to go home and live out our calling to fish for people.
If it is an opportunity to step out of our comfort zone and serve, Mountain T.O.P. creates space for us to see and experience things that are not part of our everyday life but will transform the way we live our life back home.
If it is strengthening our relationship with God, Mountain T.O.P. purposefully invites opportunity for connecting, building or renewing our faith through morning, mid-day and evening focused times of personal devotion, group sharing and worship. And, while it too, is difficult to describe, worship on the Mountain is like nothing else in the world. You are simply surrounded by His glory.
If it is opening ourselves to something bigger than ourselves and discovering our calling, Mountain T.O.P. is exactly where we need to be. It is where I first heard God’s call on my life to follow him into full-time ministry and I know it is where so many others have heard their calling and discovered their purpose.
“It is where I first heard God’s call on my life to follow him into full-time ministry and I know it is where so many others have heard their calling and discovered their purpose.”
At the end of each week on the Mountain, I invite our youth to share their experience in writing, a way to help them process everything the week gave them. As I read them each year, it never ceases to amaze me the way God, through Mountain T.O.P., provided exactly what they needed whether they knew it or not. Some focus on the projects and the families they worked with, some focus on the friendships made, some focus on the worship or something that spoke to them, some focus on the way they grew. All of them, in one way or another focus on their relationship with God.
We know that God is everywhere and that we can and do experience him each and every day in both grand and seemingly small ways, but there is something about Mountain T.O.P. God is just so real and present there and that is why our youth, and adults make our pilgrimage to the Mountain every summer. We look forward to discovering what God has for us, and we know, without a doubt, we will find it there.
