A church in the heart of the city, with a heart for the city

Colorado church, interfaith partners host ‘friendship camp’ with UTO support

July 16, 2026

[Episcopal News Service] There was a moment during the recent Friendship Camp in suburban Denver, Colorado, when “the whole room dropped into this space of reverence,” the Rev. Lauren Grubaugh Thomas told Episcopal News Service. It occurred during the campers’ daily time of meditation and prayer. A 12-year-old boy from the local mosque led his faith’s call to prayer in Arabic. It marked an opportunity at the camp for Muslims to practice their religion — and for campers from other faiths to learn about the diversity of all religious experience. “You could just feel the energy in the room shift,” Grubaugh Thomas said, and even the youngest of the camp’s cohort of kindergarteners through eighth graders snapped to attention. Grubaugh Thomas is an Episcopal priest who launched a new worshipping community known as Holy Companion about three years ago in Sterling Ranch, south of Denver. This year, Holy Companion developed plans for the interfaith Friendship Camp with another new worshipping community, the Highlands Ranch Islamic Association. The four-day youth camp drew participants and volunteers from a variety of other faith traditions, as well as the Interfaith Coalition of Douglas County. Friendship Camp, held June 22-25 at Grace Presbyterian Church, was supported by a $40,000 grant from The Episcopal Church’s United Thank Offering. The success of this inaugural event is already planting seeds for expansion in the coming years. Organizers, initially planning on 25 campers, easily reached capacity with 34, and Grubaugh Thomas said they hope to sign up as many as 60 children for next year’s Friendship Camp. “Our children are in school with peers of many faiths, and no faith,” Grubaugh Thomas said. Friendship Camp’s goals are both to provide children with fun enrichment activities in their own faiths and to raise their awareness of religious pluralism in their community and the wider world — to “create a space for learning how to intentionally practice respect and curiosity.” At least seven distinct religious faiths were represented at this first Friendship Camp, including Judaism, Buddhism and Brahma Kumaris, a form of Indian meditation. The structure of the camp was partly based on programming developed by the Interfaith Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. Each daily session ran from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The day started with an opening ceremony in the church. The campers were then divided into “practice groups” based on their faith traditions, so that they could participate in faith-specific activities, such as learning new prayers or meditations. For other activities, the campers formed religiously diverse groups based on their ages to learn about different religions’ teachings on four themes: gratitude, courage, forgiveness and care of nature. Each day, the age-based groups rotated to a different themed activity led by the more than 30 volunteers. The children ate lunch together and also had opportunities to play games outside on the church’s lawn before returning for closing ceremonies. Sister Rida Zafar of the Highlands Ranch Islamic Association said her community appreciated Friendship Camp as a safe space for children to have fun while learning about their neighbors. “From the daily opening ceremony, to shared lunches, team building games and STEAM [science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics] activities, everything was crafted precisely and wonderfully to help teach and encourage practice of shared values of gratitude, forgiveness, courage and respect for nature by children of all faiths,” Zafar said in a news release about the camp. The UTO grant helped pay for the time Grubaugh Thomas and other organizers put into planning the Friendship Camp, as well as hiring a documentarian to produce a short video about the camp that will help with next year’s fundraising and camper recruitment. UTO announced its latest round of grants last month, awarding nearly $1 million to support 25 projects in the United States and worldwide, including the Friendship Camp. Religious pluralism is something Episcopalians respect and value, “but we actually don’t have a chance to practice it most of the time, beyond mere tolerance,” Grubaugh Thomas said. Activities like Friendship Camp can encourage people to share and talk about different religions in a more affirming way. Plus, the activities were designed to be plenty of fun for the kids. “We had campers going home telling parents, ‘This is the best camp ever,’” Grubaugh Thomas said. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.