Summer at MBC

Each summer we host more than 3,000 families at our conference centre. A week at MBC provides an impactful opportunity for people of all ages to renew their faith journey with Jesus Christ. The daily Bible teaching is the bedrock of our summer ministry with teaching specific to children, youth, and adults.

Connecting with like-minded families is also a key aspect of our ministry and serves to build resilience as family members connect with others who understand their challenges and have life experiences to share. The weekly schedule is designed to foster strong and healthy connections within families – spouses, parents & children and amongst siblings.

Each week families are equipped to face a world that is increasingly adept at destroying biblical faith, especially among young parents and youth. Our Transforming Culture Sessions (and podcast) provides biblical discernment for many of the difficult societal trends and topics that families are facing. Weekly Resilient Family Workshops provide practical tools and resources for navigating parenting proactively as well as providing encouragement when things may not go as planned or hoped for in family life.

MBC Retreats

MBC offers a schedule of 14 different retreats in our beautiful Muskoka setting that are strategically designed to accomplish our mission. Each retreat has Bible teaching as its cornerstone and is designed with specific needs or pain points that families face today. Here are just a few of the retreats we offer:

• Family Fusion: Unique (designed in partnership with Guidelight). This retreat encourages families who share a journey with parenting children with exceptional abilities. Each family is fully sponsored (through generous donations) to attend and a team of trained volunteers is available to ensure that all members of the family have a refreshing and rejuvenating experience.
• Family Fusion: Chosen. Designed for families that have adopted or are fostering children, this retreat provides an exceptional opportunity for ‘one another’ encouragement through the challenges that adoption and fostering can bring. Biblical teaching brings out the fundamental truths about family and identity that gives strength to press on in difficult times. The networking that happens at this retreat is a key benefit to the families that attend.
• Family Fusion: Hope. New in 2023, this practical retreat for grieving parents will help navigate the steps toward a journey of healing. Parents can join in this space as together with trained facilitators, they can walk, share, and care with and for one another.
• Young Adults Retreat. Today’s society has created a particularly difficult environment for young people to develop resilient biblical faith. This retreat is designed to help these youth form a strong faith and positive relationships. If we want to see resilient, faithful families in the future – we need to be forming resilient young disciples.

Some of our retreats are offered annually and others are on a bi-annual rotating basis. For more information on all our retreats this year – please go to our website at: https://www.muskokabible.com/retreats

Ministry to Pastors & their Families

When our leadership team was conducting research to help focus our mission, there was a clearly identified need to encourage and strengthen pastors and their families. To that end we have developed opportunities specifically designed to meet this need.

1. Ministry Leader Respite Retreats. We offer our accommodations/services to pastors and other ministry leaders for a time of respite and at no cost. This is available to them for personal respite retreats of mini family getaways. We have many pastors now enjoying this opportunity each year!
2. Marriage in Ministry Retreat. New for 2023, this is a retreat specifically designed for pastors and their spouses. There are unique challenges that they face, and this is an opportunity for them to be ministered to in a safe and supportive context. Conducted in partnership with Heritage College & Seminary, this retreat is expected to become an annual event.

Youth Discipleship

Each year our activities at MBC and Camp Widjiitiwin provide a platform to invite more than 125 young people between the ages of 15 and 25 years of age into an intentional, community-based discipleship and work experience. Our student staffing program is specifically designed to grow resilient disciples of Jesus Christ.

In an age when young people are avoiding Christianity and there is a documented exodus of youth from the Church, it is imperative to invest in forming strong faith in these young lives. Our students serve in a variety of work experiences – dining room, maintenance, ministry programs, our Widjiitiwin program, etc. and live in a community where biblical values are lived out and the Bible is the lens through which these young people can learn to discern the culture around them. An authentic experience with Jesus Christ is encouraged through various teaching and worship elements as well as times of prayer. Each year we witness tremendous life transformation as these students encounter and come to own a living, biblical faith.

Widjiitiwin

Widjiitiwin is a program of Muskoka Bible Centre (MBC) that addresses the unique and complex needs of marginalized youth and their families.

The name Widjiitiwin is an Ojibway name meaning “helping one another” and this is the very thing we hope our Widjiitiwin program will be.

Currently, the Widjiitiwin Program links with a community partner in the following communities:

• Malvern
• Jane/Finch
• South Etobicoke
• Guelph
• Hamilton

Each of these community partners joins us in Muskoka for a week of summer camp at Camp Widjiitiwin. More than 300 campers attend Widjiitiwin each summer. These campers enjoy an amazing week of camp, including activities like archery, basketball, canoeing, swimming, rock climbing, and much more. Each community group also participates in Bible teaching, devotional time, singing and prayer as a part of our commitment to teaching our campers about the love of God and His plan for them.

As the Widjiitiwin program re-launches after the COVID-19 pandemic, we will continue to roll out new program elements to bless our community partners in a variety of ways. In the future, we plan for the Widjiitiwin program to be a year-round program where we will bring families and individuals up to our MBC retreats so they might have opportunity to be blessed, to receive great Bible teaching, and rest in God’s beautiful creation in the Muskoka.