What is The Well?

by Matt Ginter, UF Campus Minister

“It’s like church camp… without the fun stuff.”

It was the summer of 2017. We had just completed our second year of “The Well,” a week-long summer faith experience for high school students at the University of Findlay. Asking those in attendance for some feedback on the week, one young lady chimed in quickly with the above quip. We all laughed, understanding her intention to be more playful than pejorative, but the unofficial motto stuck. Ever since, we have often found ourselves beginning any explanation of The Well, tongue-in-cheek, with that very phrase. Now, to be sure, we’ll never print it on a flier or state it in an official capacity. But in its own way, the phrase— “church camp without the fun stuff”—is an almost perfect summation of The Well.

What would we print on a flier? We would share that The Well is a uniquely transformative faith experience, full of dynamic worship, immersive study of Scripture, and engaging discussion; that high school students are invited to spend a week on the University of Findlay campus exploring their Christian FAITH, their IDENTITY in Christ, and God’s CALLING on their life. An invaluable opportunity for spiritual formation and vocational discernment, The Well is also a great chance for high school students to experience campus life for a week: eating in the dining hall, spending meaningful time on campus, and connecting with current college students. “Fun” in its own way, The Well invites high school students into an intentional week of discipleship and development.

As we come to the summer of 2023, we anticipate welcoming our eighth batch of participants! In some ways the mission we began with back in 2016 is much the same today. Early in 2015, the Lilly Endowment put out a call for grant proposals to create youth theology institutes for high school students on university campuses. The Lilly Endowment—for those unfamiliar—is deeply invested in the religious health of the country. Per their website: “Our primary aim in religion is to deepen and enrich the religious lives of Christians in the United States... We are especially interested in efforts that nurture the religious lives of children, youth and young adults and share the beauty and vibrancy of Christian faith with a new generation.” After engaging with a lengthy grant proposal process, the University of Findlay was notified in late 2015 that it was to be awarded nearly $400,000 to create just such an opportunity. The stage was set. 2016 would be our first go-round. Nervous and excited, we set about to work.

Things didn’t go exactly as expected that first summer. We anticipated recruitment would be easy; we thought college students would line up to help staff the week. We kept expectations at what we thought were reasonable levels: we budgeted to accept up to 50 high school participants (completely free for them) and aimed for a dozen college students to help staff (in a paid capacity) that week. How could we not find 50 high school students interested in spending a free week on campus exploring faith, identity, and calling? And why wouldn’t a dozen college students sacrifice a week to hang out on campus and get paid? Suffice it to say, we underestimated the difficulty of starting something brand new. Recruiting high school participants took us well into June that year, requiring much more effort than originally expected (and yielding only 36 high school participants). And finding college students to help staff that week was an all but impossible task! With hardly any current college students available, we turned to recent alumni to help out. Even so, God blessed that first go-round of The Well and used it as an important first step in what would turn out to be a much longer process…

So much of our time that first summer was spent on content creation. We were confident that quality content would be a key catalyst for our high school participants; that challenging and encouraging them in their faith walk would propel them to richer depths of discipleship. And we did see students (in the words of that summer’s tagline) propelled to ‘peer deeper into the faith, [to] see God more clearly and find themselves more fully.’ But our daily content wasn’t necessarily the key catalyst in that process. Student after student, when asked what was most impactful from the week, cited the time, attention, and wisdom of the college-aged mentors. Where we had sought primarily to instruct with content we found greater impact inspiring by way of community. Quality content needed to be there, don’t get me wrong. The lesson would not be missed as we moved forward.

If, in some ways, the mission we began with for The Well back in 2016 is much the same today, it has also adapted and grown as we have learned year-to-year. One of the biggest changes we made was in the area of leadership development. If our college-aged mentors were to be such an integral part of the experience for our high school students, we felt it would behoove us to invest accordingly. Reallocating funds (with Lilly’s approval), we recruited a team of college students to serve as summer interns. Compensating them for their time and effort, we asked them to spend extensive time in training and preparation for The Well. Part of that preparation involved real-time experience interacting with high school students before The Well, sending them to denominational church camps to help counsel their senior high weeks. Investing in, and developing, college-aged leaders to serve at The Well proved to multiply the blessings of communal discipleship at The Well tenfold. Attendance grew each year. Spiritual impact became more and more obvious in the lives of those participating. And we were just getting started.

We have been so blessed, in the past seven years, to see 207 different students join us for The Well at the University of Findlay (a number of whom attended multiple years). The majority of these hailed from Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana…but we’ve also seen students join us from Pennsylvania, Illinois, Arkansas, North and South Carolina, Connecticut, California, and Washington state. What a blessing to see high school and college students spend meaningful time together in worship, study, fellowship, and prayer. What’s more, the impact has clearly gone beyond the week itself. Summer interns—in light of their experiences— are discerning and pursuing calls to vocational ministry. Participants are sharing the impact on their faith walk, even while still in high school; the importance of The Well in giving them a discipleship framework within which to walk. We thank God for the blessings to this point, and look expectantly for many more to flow in the years to come!

How can you get involved? We solicit your prayers. Reaching the next generation is so crucial, and no amount of planning or execution will substitute for humble and consistent entreaty before the Lord. Additionally, as Lilly Endowment funds inevitably dwindle and fade, the need to fundraise and subsidize will increase. If you feel called to contribute and support financially, we would be glad to talk with you about possibilities on that front. Lastly, we would love to see YOUR high school kids potentially join us on campus for a week. It is a rigorous week; students are asked to spend significant chunks of time reading, reflecting, discussing, and praying. If you have a high school student yearning to take that next step in their discipleship walk, we would love to see if they might be a good fit for The Well!

Students can apply to participate in The Well at www. findlay.edu/TheWell. This year’s program will run from Sunday, July 16 – Saturday, July 22. We have a team of eight interns and a host of other volunteers ready and eager to serve! Ephesians 2:10 will serve as a theme verse this summer: we are God’s MASTERPIECE. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Our deepest desire at The Well this summer is that we might help high school students discover what they have been created anew in Christ to do as they look down the path before them. Classic artwork will serve as a day-to-day thematic motif, surveying the works of Rembrandt, Caravaggio, van Gogh, and more as we explore life and Scripture together.

Despite our unofficial motto, it’s sure been fun.

The 2022 Summer Interns with UF President Dr. Fell