Thanks for finding us on the Web!

We at Discovery Ministries are so excited to enable you to accomplish your group's goals through the medium of outdoor experiential education. The physical, spiritual and mental challenges presented through our activities can have a long-lasting effect when associations are made to real life, and we love helping people make those connections.

The most intensive teaching tool we use is the challenge trip. These trips will include canoeing and/or backpacking as the main experience, and we provide all the equipment, food, and technical assistance needed for the activities. We employ a non-directive leadership style. This means we give participants the responsibility for getting to their next destination, for setting up camp and cooking, and for making many decisions involving the group's well-being and progress. Our facilitators' main role is to keep participants in acceptable parameters of risk and to help direct spiritual growth during teachable moments. At the end of each day around the campfire, the group discusses what was good about the day, what went wrong, and what they want to change for tomorrow. Scripture reading, study and memorization are an integral part of the trips. See more about DM's 7- to 14-day challenge trips.

For those of you who do not have time for a full 7- to 14-day trip, we offer the recreational trip. These are generally 2- to 6-day trips. Depending upon your goals for the trip, we may use rock climbing, hiking, canoeing, whitewater canoeing or a mix of these as the venue. We use a more direct leadership on these trips, employing teachable moments and nightly debriefing/Bible study time to direct spiritual growth and thought. Experiential education remains the backbone of our teaching method for these trips. See more about DM's recreational trips.

If your group needs a real bed and access to bathroom facilities (whether that is just a felt need or an actual need J), we offer our Discovery Ministries campground and retreat facility or what we call in-camp retreats. We have two lodges, one cabin, 38 campsites, and a pavilion. We will instruct many of the activities included in the challenge and recreational trips in camp or as a day trip. On camp we have low-ropes courses; high group initiatives; low group initiatives and a climbing wall. You can spend the day away from camp doing caving, climbing/rappelling, orienteering, or canoeing and then come back to a catered meal and a soft bed here at camp. Our leadership/teaching style is flexible for in-camp retreats. Generally, after each activity except canoeing, we conduct a debriefing which draws a lesson from the activity and helps participants make connections between those experiences and real life. If you desire to conduct your own lecture-style teaching time, you may reserve outdoor areas and meeting rooms in the lodges.