BCY News

Sylvan Acres Ministry is being transformed by a bold new vision that will radically change Canadian Baptist camping on Vancouver Island.

Sylvan Acres Ministry, which is owned by the CBWC, had run a traditional summer camp near Youbou on Vancouver Island for many years, but in the last few years it had struggled to attract campers and run sustainably. No official camping programs were offered in 2008 or 2009 and the future of camping looked bleak. Something needed to change.

Historically, Sylvan Acres has been run by the Vancouver Island Association of Churches, a group of 15 CBWC churches. These island churches met and decided the camp needed oversight more consistent with that given other Canadian Baptist camps. They decided to create an independent camp board. Three island churches are represented on this board (instead of 15) and the camp has been made accountable to the CBWC Camping Committee, like other CBWC camps. This new structure became official in July 2009.

The new board brought in Jeff Dyer, formerly the Executive Director of Gull Lake Centre and now the COO of the Mustard Seed Society), as a consultant to help them with visioning. Through this process, the board believes God is calling Sylvan Acres to a new vision for camping that would focus on community and creation care by starting a year-round community retreat and ranching ministry.

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“A lot of prayer has gone into finding this new direction. We really like the Canadian Baptist vision statement of inviting faith, acting in mercy and cultivating leaders and want to make that part of what we do by creating a year-round ministry that uses a ranch format with horses to provide healing for marginalized children and fosters creation care. It wouldn’t look like a traditional camp but would be a community of faith where people could drop in and see the hands and feet of Christ at work,” says Rob Filgate, a pastor at New Life Community Baptist Church and co-chair of the Sylvan Acres board with Aaron Baxter.

Rob explained that the ranching ministry, which would help vulnerable children, has been inspired by the Crystal Peakes Youth Ranch ministry in Oregon which is a faith-based day use ranch that uses rescued horses to help heal the emotional and spiritual wounds of disadvantaged children age 5-18. Part of the Crystal Peakes ministry is to encourage the founding of similar ranches across North America.

“One of the first things we realized was that the current property didn’t fit the vision. It was far from the community we want to serve, hard to get to, hard to operate year-round and doesn’t fit with a vision of creation care because it is surrounded by clear cuts and telecommunications dishes,” Rob says. Told the property would be hard to sell, they advertised it for sale anyway and immediately had two offers. The land was sold to Teen Challenge, a faith-based addiction recovery ministry for teens.

The sale freed Sylvan Acres to take the next step, which is to find an Executive Director to shape the new vision, improve communications with churches, find new property and establish a sustainable creation care & ranching ministry. The position has been advertised and the board is now reviewing the applicants to select either an individual or a team of individuals to serve as Executive Director.

With funds from the sale of the original property, Sylvan Acres is hoping to purchase at least 10 acres of wilderness land somewhere in or near the Cowichan Valley. They are hoping to purchase land that is easy for camp users to access through public transit and where residential and ranching buildings can be built to suit the ministry’s needs. Sylvan Acres requests your prayers as they seek God’s will for the new ministry vision. “We are trusting that God has got something for us,” says Rob. “We have been blessed with the fact that we have no mortgage and no debt. Money is needed but it is never an issue with God and His timing.” As Sylvan Acres waits on God, they anticipate that the revitalized ministry could begin sometime in 2011.

Donations may be made to the Canadian Baptists of Western Canada via this website, by designating funds to Sylvan Acres Ministry. For more information, go to www.sylvanacres.org