Real People Experiencing Life Together: How Mountain T.O.P.’s Spiritual Life Programming Helps People Grow in their Faith

Bree Cotton serves as a Program Manager this summer. She goes to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she is starting nursing school in the fall. She has been going to Mountain T.O.P. since 2018 as a camper and served as a Service Project Ministry Coordinator last summer. Bree loves to hike, cheer on the Vols, play board games, and drink Dr. Pepper. 

Mountain T.O.P. has always felt like a second home to me (as I’m sure it has to many of you!) Whether it’s the community that is formed in a week, the joy we share together, the way we can have a spiritual reset, get our hands dirty, fill our hearts with love, and play some much-needed nine-square, it all comes back to God. We’re all here to worship and explore our relationship with God more, while also giving back to a beautiful service community.

I think it’s so beautiful how, as staff members, we carry out all of the spiritual programming ourselves; it makes it so much more authentic and real. It allows staff members to grow in their confidence and relationships with God, and allows the campers to see how we are all real people experiencing life together.

We start our day off with Daybreak, as we turn our attention to God before we begin the work we’ve been sent out to do. It allows our campers to see what the theme of the day is and gives us all some much-needed quiet time before the chaos of the toolshed tool pick up and Elroy crate-grabbing ensues.

Mid-day Daybreaks allow our Major Group Leaders to get to know the members in their Youth Renewal Groups better. In Service Project, we get to have conversations about where we are in our faith, inviting homeowners and family members to join us in our time together. For Day Camp, we send our Youth Renewal Groups with prepared activities they can do together to get to know each other more. 

I love how there is such a variety when it comes to worship. In my past camp weeks, I’ve loved combining traditional and modern ways of worship together. Combining some of my favorite hymns and more modern Christian music brings balance to our worship. I think it’s so important to provide our campers with different avenues of experiencing God, because we all see God differently.

Through stations, individuals have a choose-your-own-path style of worship, where they can go to as many or as few stations as they please. In prayer worship, campers are encouraged to first pray by themselves, then in a group, and then staff members or other campers can pray over them as well. As a camper, this was one of my favorite worship styles because I got to explore different ways to pray and it strengthened the way I communicate with God. In Major Group worship, Youth Renewal Groups help to lead worship by providing insight on a specific prompt. This summer, we’re using the Mountain T.O.P. song and I’ve loved seeing the different ways everything gets tied together. But my favorite worship has to be fishhook worship. The way we all come together as a community and experience the love that’s been growing and the relationships that have been made just brings my heart such joy. And when we can go back to Mountain T.O.P.’s foundational verses, Matthew 4:18-20, it reminds me of all the campers who have come before me and how many will come after. 

My favorite part of my day as a Program Manager has been sharing and seeing how our community is enjoying their days and solving problems together. I love to hear stories about our homeowners, see what the Day Camp children are learning about, and how our campers are seeing and sharing God’s light.

I believe all of these parts of our spiritual life programming are equal; all of them are needed in our days on the mountain because all of these ways to experience God’s love and light open up the pathway to seeing and focusing on Him more. When we turn our eyes upon Jesus, we grow stronger and become more like Him.