• LIFT ("Leaders In Further Training") is a unique, semester-long discipleship program operated by CAMP-of-the-WOODS, a Christian family resort in New York's Adirondack Mountains.
• LIFT exists to train young leaders to become faithful ambassadors of Jesus Christ in accordance with their unique gifts and calling.
• LIFT equips students to think through critical issues of life and culture from a profoundly Christian perspective.  Students also learn servant-leadership through weekley service projects.  
• Hiking and backpacking trips in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains are an intentional aspect of our leadership and discipleship training.   
• Each semester now includes a life-changing 2-week MISSION TRIP!  We will be going to the Grand Canyon this fall and Ecuador in the Spring.
• Each semester we bring in superb GUEST TEACHERS who are experts in their fields, to teach intensive one-week courses on various topics such as cultural apologetics, spiritual life, and ethics.  Click here to find out more about our
•  guest speakers for 2009-2010.   

Many Christiansm come away from (or enter) college with shaky foundations: 

• Many confessing Christians are unable to articulate what they believe and why they believe it. 
• Many who were raised in the Church and who "know the right answers" are at a loss for how those answers apply to the way they live their lives. 
• Many live according to a dualistic worldview that leads to compartmentalization.  People experience a disconnect between their "spiritual" lives and pratical daily activities.  

• Know what they believe and why they believe it.
• .Live meaningful lives rooted in an intelligible faith.
• Be a redemptive presence in their sphere of influence.
• Understand and interact with the culture around them.
• Think about all of live from a distinctly Christian perspective.
• Discover their calling so as to live purposeful and holistic lives.
• Love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love their neighbor as themselves.

• In order to foster an environment for intimacy and growth, we limit our classes to 18 students, ages 19-26.
• We are looking for students who are committed to Christ and who desire to live lives of significance for His Kingdom.
• Many of our students have recently graduated from, or are taking a semester off of, college. Every student must have completed at least one year of college. LIFT students come from many backgrounds, but share a common desire to live purposeful lives in response to God’s call.
• Given the intensity of our program and the amount of work that is involved in each semester, LIFT applicants should be hard-working, dedicated individuals who are ready to be challenged and stretched.

• Tim Trezise is the LIFT director.  He is an accomplished rock climber and uses his expertise to create challenging outdoor adventures for our LIFTers.  LIFT students will test and surpass their perceived limits and gain confidence and character through these rigorous challenges.
• Tim Owens, ThM (Dallas Theological Seminary), is the Associate LIFT director. He is passionate about training young people to be effective Christian leaders through service, biblical and theological studies, and a range of outdoor and cross-cultural experiences. Tim is responsible for the LIFT curriculum and teaches the majority of the classes.
• Kathy Trezise is a skilled educator (she has a Ph.D. in curriculum development) and will be teaching some classes as well as mentoring some of the female LIFT students.  She has a love for outdoor adventures and will accompany the LIFT students on all of their outdoor challenges.
• Courtney Owens, BA Bible Teaching (Columbia International University), is Tim’s assistant. She also mentors the female LIFT students and takes care of many of the administrative details.
• Click here for more information about our incredible staff!

• The cost of LIFT is almost entirely provided by CAMP-of-the-WOODS as part of its commitment to developing Christian leaders. This includes housing, food, books, curriculum, and hiking equipment.
• Students are responsible for providing for their own health insurance and raising a portion of the mission trip cost (around $1500). The raising of this support is one of the activities included in the LIFT semester, so students need not try to do this on their own.

Classes:

• LIFT classes are designed to help students learn to think “Christianly” about all of life. Classes in theology, church history, apologetics, missions and ethics help students to discover their place in the Triune God’s redemptive mission for the world.
•  Students are typically assigned reading material prior to each class to facilitate better understanding and discussion.
• Students do light research, write essays and complete other assignments, but no academic papers or theses are required.
• Click here to find out more about classes at LIFT.  

Outreach:

•  LIFT students are involved in a wide range of outreach activities including building projects, an after-school Bible club, conducting services at an inner-city rescue mission and visiting people with mental disabilities.
• Through these varied activities students gain deep, practical insight into what it means to demonstrate the love of Christ.
• Click here to find out more about LIFT's outreach opportunities.

Service:

•  LIFT students serve CAMP-of-the-WOODS conference guests through housekeeping, food service and maintenance.

• These weekends of sometimes “thankless” work help LIFT students gain first-hand experience in being servant-leaders.
• Click here to find out more about the service in which LIFT students take part.

Cultural Engagement:

•  We believe that an important element of discipleship is learning how to interact redemptively with the ideas of culture. Rather than sequestering ourselves into safe and secure Christian environs, LIFT students are taught to engage the culture from a Christian worldview.
• LIFT students watch movies, read books and listen to music in an effort to understand and discuss important cultural realities.
• Click here to find out more about LIFT students' cultural engagement

Study and Reflection:

•  Personal solitude, study, reading and reflection are essential components of LIFT. Students often take advantage of the beautiful Adirondack surroundings as they seek greater understanding through time alone.
• Click here to find out more about the study and reflection in a LIFT semester.

Hiking:

•  Hiking and backpacking in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains are a wonderful part of LIFT. Hikes vary from over-land trails that are only a few miles long, to the more challenging yet attainable summits of the High Peaks. Each semester includes at least one longer backpacking trip (up to four days in length).

• The wilderness provides an excellent classroom for leadership and discipleship. Students learn trust, team-work, communication, perseverance, patience and other traits as they face the challenge and beauty of the wilderness.
• Click here to find out more about the hiking that is a big part of LIFT - and see beautiful pictures!

Community:

•  We believe that spiritual growth happens best with other people. LIFT is kept small in order to foster authentic relationships and life-long friendships. Some of the best moments in LIFT occur outside of “class time” in the informal gatherings that spring up. Deep conversations, great laughter, loving confrontation and rowdy celebration are vital to LIFT.

Day Off:

•  LIFT students usually have one day off every week. Students often take the hour-drive to the nearest "cities" for food and shopping, or enjoy their surroundings by canoeing, kayaking, swimming, running, mountain biking and hiking (or skiing / snowshoeing in the winter). These times contribute greatly to the development of community.

Church Leadership Initiative:

•  LIFT students are intentionally introduced to several churches and church leaders throughout the semester. Opinions of the “right way” to “do church” are stretched as we encounter very different styles and philosophies of worship. Students are taught to distinguish between essentials and non-essentials as they seek what is acceptable in God’s sight.

• Click here to find out more about our Church Leadership Initiative.

Mission Trips:

•  We are thrilled to be able to take students on a 2-week mission trip each semester. These extraordinary trips expand our horizons and ignite our imaginations for Christ.
• Our NIGERIA trip includes medical relief, prison outreach and visiting homes for street kids in Jos, Nigeria. (Click here for our '08 Nigeria trip report!)
• On our ALASKA trip, students were flown to remote Alaskan villages to minister to school children and their families. (Click here for our Alaska trip report!)
• We can still hardly believe that we took our first trip to ASIA in March/April '08, with time spent in Hong Kong, China, Thailand and Cambodia. We visited several different churches and learned from the church leaders, led worship services, taught English to kids in Cambodia, and had our worlds vastly expanded. (Look on the home page for our Asia trip report!)
• Click here to find out more about our missions.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Morning	Housekeeping	Classes	All Day Hike	Day Off	Classes	Serve at CAMP- of-the- WOODS	Church Leadership Initiative
Afternoon	Prayer/ Housekeeping	Outreach			Outreach		Lunch with Church Leaders
Evening	Movie Night	Study			Weekend Conference Guests		Study and Reflection

 

• No. Due to the holistic nature of the program, LIFT students devote the entire three-and-a-half months of the semester to LIFT. With so many activities and events taking up the vast majority of their time, students are kept busy with their studies, resting and building community during any "free" time that they find in the schedule. Such concentrated time reaps great rewards in the amount of learning and growth that takes place in each LIFT student's life.

• CAMP-of-the-WOODS owns houses for the LIFT students' use. Students eat all of their meals (when they're not in the woods) at CAMP's dining room, with excellent food provided by our chefs. There are also nearby restaurants to choose from if students want to 'spice up' their days off.
• The "Timbers" has four bedrooms (each fits at least two people), two bathrooms, a small kitchenette, full laundry facilities and a large living area with a fireplace. It is located less than 1/4 mile from CAMP and is an easy walk. Our men usually inhabit the Timbers.
• The "Oaks" has six bedrooms, some of which are very large, three bathrooms, a full kitchen, full laundry facilities and a large living area. It is located right across the street from CAMP, and is usually home to the women.
• Students are always pleased with the accommodations and the food, as their needs are very well provided for.

• We are in the process of communicating with faculty at certain Christian colleges in hopes of facilitating the giving of college credit for a semester of LIFT. If you are interested in pursuing this possibility, the best thing for you to do would be to connect with your advisor or a professor at your college and work on having LIFT count for credit. Other similar programs to ours have found that this works well. LIFT could be a great option for fulfilling an internship or other credit you need for leadership training or experience, or for introductory Bible classes, Church history or missions.
• If this is important to you, please contact us about working with you and your school to help you get credit for LIFT.
• Keep in mind that a semester of LIFT will be extremely helpful to have on your resume. Any prospective employer (Christian or non-Christian) will definitely take into account your time here and all of the hands-on leadership training and experience you will have gained.

~OR~

2) Click here to go to the CAMP-of-the-WOODS "Online Giving" page, and choose the "LIFT Mission Trips" option. This allows you to securely pay online with your credit card. We will mail you a receipt for this tax-deductible gift.

• It is important that LIFT students be completely committed to LIFT during the short 3 1/2 months of the term. In exceptional circumstances, students may be allowed to miss up to two days of the semester if they have a highly important obligation. In most cases, a student will not be accepted to do LIFT if he or she would need to miss more than two days. Please contact us with any questions about this.

• We have found that visitors tend to significantly disrupt the LIFT community dynamics, so we ask that you devote these short months to seeking God and what He has for you, and leave time for visiting with friends and family after LIFT ends.

With a few exceptions, the answer is no. We ask that all LIFT applicants be finished with at least one year of college prior to participation in LIFT. In accepting LIFT students, priority is given to individuals who have finished college or have only one or two years left.

Our LIFT 20 (Fall '08) mission trip will be a return trip to Nigeria, West Africa. This will be the third LIFT trip to Jos, Nigeria, and we are very excited to be going back to see the people we have grown to love. We look forward to involvement with medical outreach, working with orphans, and possibly even entering prisons again with the good news of Jesus Christ. God has truly blessed our Nigeria trips in the past and we are eager to see what He has in store this time around.

LIFT 21 (Winter/Spring '09) will be taking the first-ever LIFT trip to Brazil, where we will experience life in the Amazon. Heading into some remote villages, the LIFT team will be able to form relationships with people from an entirely different culture and learn from them while also being able to be a blessing through work projects and educational opportunities. We are excited about this chance to explore new worlds and see God at work in incredible ways.