From a single beloved trip to a year-round, multi-modal wilderness ministry.

A beloved tradition outgrowing its capacity.

Central Community Church had something its people loved: an annual backpacking trip, led by passionate volunteers, drawing more interest each year. CCC's leadership recognized the appetite, and recognized that scaling it well would require more than passion.

To open the wilderness to more of their congregation, the church needed the systems, training, and shared methodology that turn one heroic trip per year into a sustainable year-round ministry.

A way to grow without losing the soul of it.

CCC didn't want to lose what made the original trip special. They wanted to multiply it, to give more of their congregation access to wilderness as a place of formation, with trained leaders, formation-rich content, and the professional-grade safety systems to support real expansion.

A two-day Wilderness Ministry Training at Snoqualmie Pass. May 2025.

Wilderness Formation hosted 11 leaders from Central Community Church, led by Haley E., CCC's Core Lead Wilderness Volunteer, for a two-day intensive at Snoqualmie Pass. One night, two days, food and lodging fully provided by WF.

The full WF curriculum, condensed for a team ready to apply it back home immediately:

• Foundations of wilderness ministry: theology, ethos, and the role of the facilitator
• Trip systems, logistics, and group management in the backcountry
• Risk management and critical incident response
• Stewardship and creation ethic
• Content development and facilitation, so CCC could write trip content for their own context
• Recruitment and leader development, so the ministry could keep growing

Outdoor Central, a year-round, multi-modal ministry.

In the year following training, CCC named their wilderness ministry Outdoor Central and built it into one of their flagship programs:

• 150 participants engaged across the year, compared to a single trip's worth before training
• 11 trained leaders sharing the load, not one or two heroic individuals carrying the whole thing
• Year-round, multi-modal programming. Summer climbing days, summer bird walks, winter bouldering nights, Nordic skiing, night skiing at Snoqualmie, ski days at Stevens.
• Multi-generational participation. Kids and adults side by side. A whole-family ministry, not a young-adult activity.
• Professional, polished communications. Newsletter, Instagram, in-app registration through the CCC church app.
• Professional-grade safety systems embedded across every trip, run by trained, certified leaders
• The WF theology of wilderness showing up in CCC's own voice: their newsletter invites the congregation to "enjoy God's creation and good fellowship," echoing WF's Christ, community, and Creation framework

The methodology works at scale.

CCC is the proof point for everything Wilderness Formation does. A real Seattle church grew a beloved annual tradition into a thriving year-round ministry in the space of one training engagement.

The methodology works. At scale, across modalities, generations, and seasons. If your church has the appetite, we can help you build the capacity to match.