CASE STUDY • CENTRAL COMMUNITY CHURCH • SEATTLE, WA

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

How Central Community Church transformed an annual backpacking tradition to Outdoor Central, a thriving year-round ministry serving 150 participants in its first year post-training.

150

11

PARTICIPANTS IN YEAR 1

LEADERS TRAINED

6+

12mo

TRIP FORMATS RUNNING

YEAR-ROUND CADENCE

A beloved tradition outgrowing its capacity.

THE BEFORE

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.

WHAT THEY NEEDED

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.

WHAT WE BUILT TOGETHER

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

"The final five sessions were fantastic. Teachable moments, trip logistics, stewardship and creation ethic, intro to risk management, trip and content creation."

HALEY E.

Core Lead Wilderness Volunteer · Outdoor Central

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

THE AFTER

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.

WHY THIS MATTERS

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.

"Thanks for guiding us. Our church body loves collaborating with other churches, organizations, and people. It's powerful to connect and grow as we engage in Seattle spaces together. The content training, and the training in general, was excellent."