Compassion Camp: What Every Living Thing Needs

To receive a complete sample of Session One, click here.

Single-Entity License: This purchase can be used with one church, camp, school, or organization. If you plan to use this curriculum with multiple churches/groups, you'll need to purchase a Multi-Entity License. You can get more information here.

Compassion Camp: What Every Living Thing Needs is a VBS curriculum that is highly flexible, adaptable, and fun for the entire church—we have even included a youth component as well! Compassion Camp could be run as a traditional 5-day VBS program or spread out over multiple weeks for an extended program. Churches have used it for family camp weekends or their entire church-wide fall programming. There are endless options available to suit your needs.

Through Compassion Camp: What Every Living Thing Needs, participants will explore what all living things need to live—shelter, food, water, air, and community—and how they can have compassion for the living earth, especially in their local ecosystems. Through awareness, gratitude, wonderment, reciprocity, and kinship, participants will consider how to become co-sustainers and participants in the work of God’s creation. Using Psalm 104 as the grounding text, along with additional supporting scripture, participants will closely examine the interconnectedness of the whole earth—humans alongside the more-than-human world.

If you plan to run Compassion Camp with one church or group, you need a Single-Entity license and you can purchase Compassion Camp here.

If you plan to join multiple churches or groups for your Compassion Camp experience, you'll need a Multi-Entity license. Please fill out the request form here.

Compassion Camp Session Themes:

• Every Living Thing Needs Shelter—Shelter Protects Life: Psalm 104
• Every Living Thing Needs Food—Food Energizes Life: Psalm 104
• Every Living Thing Needs Water—Water Hydrates Life: Psalm 104
• Every Living Thing Needs Air—Air Sustains Life: Psalm 104
• Every Living Thing Needs Community—Community Produces Life: Psalm 104

What comes with Compassion Camp?

COMING WINTER 2023: This fall, we're introducing a comprehensive Compassion Camp edition for youth. Unlike the present youth version, which necessitates the purchase of the entire curriculum, the upcoming version is a standalone product. This enhanced resource aims to facilitate a seamless, churchwide Compassion Camp experience.

We also have a brand-new liturgy resource that goes along with this theme, Liturgy for Compassion Camp: What Every Living Thing Needs.

Five sessions that include the following:

• Gathering & Music: Introduces the session’s theme and is written as a guide so you can have the flexibility to fit your context. The Gathering is also an ideal time to lead everyone in the original music written for each session.
• Bible Story: Child-friendly paraphrases of the scripture accessible for all ages, highlighting and celebrating the Bible’s focus on creation’s flourishing. A focus on poetry will strengthen the bond of the more-than-human world. For preschoolers, we include a Bible story booklet and a coloring page with imagining and wondering questions to connect more deeply with the story.
• Create & Play: A fun mix of crafts and activities throughout all five sessions to practice our compassion skills and have fun together.
• Movement: Physical engagement to connect our minds, bodies, and spirits with God. We will focus on breathing alongside basic yoga poses, connecting Compassion Camp’s main themes with our lives.
• Recreation: Cooperative games that get participants’ bodies and minds moving and reinforce Compassion Camp’s themes and takeaways.
• Compassion in Action: These activities help participants think creatively about sharing their compassion and love. These small, simple, and tangible acts help us express God’s deep compassion for each other, ourselves, and the world.
• Sending & Music: Similar to the Gathering, the Sending wraps up the session’s theme and is also written as a guide, giving you the flexibility to fit your context. The Sending is another excellent spot to lead everyone in the original music written for each session.

Original Music & Lyric Videos: We have one theme song and five original songs that accompany each session's theme. These are professionally produced and include a variety of different music styles. The music is available to purchase on iTunes and to stream on both Apple Music and Spotify. You can check out the music below:

We also created lyric videos for each song which are available on YouTube. You can see our lyric video for Welcome Home, below:

Individual Leader Guides: The individual leader guides make it easy for you to provide volunteers with all the information they need for the component they are leading. We offer leader guides for the following components: Gathering/Sending/Music, Bible Story, Create & Play, Movement, Recreation, Compassion in Action, and the Youth Component.

Appendix: Designed to help you further your journey and exploration of compassion, we included a list of additional books, resources, and links we found while creating Compassion Camp.

Posters: Print these posters out to add to the decor for your Compassion Camp. The Psalm 104 poster is 24x36 inches and is mentioned specifically in the Bible Story section. The other posters for each session are 11x17 inches.

Media Kit: The media kit includes illustrations and images from each session’s theme, our logo in a variety of formats, as well as promotional images that you can use in newsletters, social media, and your website.

What You'll Receive

When you make your purchase, you will be taken to a page to download your product, and you'll also receive an email with a link to download Compassion Camp. You will download a ZIP file where you can access all of the curriculum files. If you aren't familiar with ZIP files, a quick YouTube/Google search will help. We are still finalizing two of the songs, and we will send an update with those two song sheets and sheet music as soon as they are finished.

Refund Policy

If you accidentally ordered more items than you intended or ordered the wrong item, please contact us at info@illustratedministry.com and we will be in touch with you to discuss available options.

If we decide a refund makes the most sense, then your refund will be processed, and a credit will automatically be applied to your credit card or original method of payment, within a certain amount of days (which depends on your banking institution).

Otherwise, since our products are digital and are automatically delivered to you upon the completion of your checkout process, we do not offer refunds on digital products licensed/purchased from Illustrated Ministry, LLC.