Eddie and Allyson Willis

Last updated: October 14, 2024

Camp ministry and retreats had already played a significant role in both Eddie and Allyson’s lives before they met. When they did meet it was, serendipitously, at a United Methodist Conference camp where they would return several years in a row. “Four years later, I proposed in a canoe at that camp in North Mississippi,” Eddie says. “And we’ve always been in youth ministry or campus ministry-type positions.”

Eddie had started to discern a call to ministry in college and was drawn to teaching and discipling young people in a recreational setting. Similarly, at 16 years old, Allyson felt a call to ministry at a retreat during an altar call for people who felt called to ministry. “I went down front having no idea what that meant,” Allyson says. “At that point, ministry to me meant the person in the pulpit behind the lectern in a church and it was just that one position. I didn’t have a clue what ministry really meant.”

Eventually, Allyson worked as a counselor at the same UMC conference camp and Eddie brought his church’s youth group to the camp. “And so really out of the gate, our life was camp,” Allyson says. “Our life was music and being able to share Jesus with other people in an outdoor setting. So our baseline started through camping ministry.”

Camp Life to Seminary Life

Eddie was involved in both leading worship and speaking at various retreats and camps, so before getting engaged, he and Allyson would end up at or plan on being at many of the same events. Even after they were married and started their time at Asbury Seminary, they still maintained a schedule of serving at camps and retreats. “Some of our friends would laugh and call us the weekend warriors because they would hear either my suitcase or both of our suitcases just rolling down the hallway to go to the car because I was going to jump on a plane and be at a camp or a retreat,” Eddie says.

Having already worked in ministry, Eddie and Allyson knew soon after they got married that they wanted to pursue more theological education. They had friends who had gone to Asbury Seminary and witnessed the positive impact it had on their lives. So, Eddie and Allyson followed their friends’ lead and found themselves a great fit at the Seminary. Eddie began pursuing his Master of Divinity degree while Allyson worked on her M.A. in Mental Health Counseling. “Before we got engaged, I was on a different track towards a different type of career,” Allyson says. “Once we got married, I just knew that the Lord wanted me to pursue secondary education in an area where I could really learn how to help people as far as being a better listener, helping people process and dialogue through difficult times.”

Eddie and Allyson began to experience how Asbury Seminary provided them with both education and a community to help guide and foster their ministry vision. “The counseling program was very rigorous,” Allyson says. “The academics were right on par with what I knew I needed in order to be proficient in the field.” Eddie adds, “It was challenging, but at the same time we were there with our peers who were pursuing similar degrees and similar goals and visions.” 

The programs in which they became involved and the relationships they formed would majorly influence the camp ministry they would eventually pioneer. Eddie was involved in student government, which existed on the Wilmore campus at the time, and he and Allyson volunteered with Ichthus, the Christian music festival that takes place in Wilmore. Additionally, professors and local leaders such as Dr. Chris Kiesling and Dr. Maxie Dunnam, former president and President Emeritus of Asbury Seminary, had a significant influence on their ministry vision. “So many of the things I didn’t even realize at the time were leading up to the launch of this camping and youth conference 20 years later,” Eddie says.

After graduating from the Seminary, Eddie and Allyson quickly became involved in vocational ministry. Eddie had positions at a couple of different churches before moving to campus ministry, including serving 14 years as the campus minister at the University of Mississippi Wesley Foundation. Utilizing her counseling degree, Allyson joined a community mental health group and worked as a practicing therapist for nearly a decade. 

A Call to a New Kind of Camp

As they were embarking on some of their first ministry experiences after seminary, Eddie and Allyson began to discern a specific calling among youth. “We started feeling that there was something needed for the young people in the Wesleyan circles, the people called Methodist, and even beyond that,” Eddie says. One influential moment came while Allyson was leading a workshop at a retreat of about 40 church kids. She was talking about the crucial role of memorizing scripture for one’s personal devotion and began reciting a few common bible verses, expecting the kids to finish. “Just radio silence,” Allyson says. “And I really had trouble holding it together for the rest of the workshop. I left and I just wept uncontrollably.” She was heartbroken that these kids from great churches and loving parents simply didn’t know the Word of God.

Eddie and Allyson began praying about how they could answer this perceived call from the Lord. “We felt like we had the abilities to make a difference,” Eddie says. “After much prayer, I was walking on a gravel road with a hot cup of coffee and I just knelt down and prayed. And the vision for these camps came about.” A core part of this vision was discipleship. “ …our whole platform is that we really want youth to learn the word of God, for it to be planted in their heart,” Allyson says. “That is their sword of the Spirit. So we wanted to provide a platform, a place, tools, and follow-up for youth groups and parents to be able to realize the seriousness of taking Scripture deep.”

Eddie and Allyson used connections they had at Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center to rent some space and began inviting friends who had youth ministries to attend the first iterations of M28 Camps. “M28 comes from Matthew 28, ‘Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,’” Eddie says. 

Campers, Disciples, and Disciple-Makers

M28 camps share many similarities with other church camps but with a specific focus on discipleship. They have worship services in the morning and evening, workshops, shared meals, and even a Vespers prayer time at night. There is also free time to do beloved camp activities in the afternoon. Also in the evening, the students gather in small groups, called D groups, led by college-aged counselors for intentional discipleship. “We’re talking about faith. We’re wrestling with scripture. We’re asking, Lord, where are you and how can I grow deeper with you?” Allyson says “And so that was the retreat model, taking those elements and then scheduling it in with power-packed fun for the students, fun music, games, activities, all kinds of opportunities for them to play.” 

As the vision became a reality, the camps began to steadily grow. This summer, they had almost 1600 students attend the camps in total with 22 young adult staff members. Earlier this year, Eddie left his position as director of the University of Mississippi Wesley Foundation and he and Allyson were able to start working full-time at M28 Ministries, the parent ministry of M28 Camps. Although Allyson made the decision to step away from full-time mental health counseling after she and Eddie had the first of their four kids, she has found her education and experience incredibly beneficial to their work. “Honestly, hardly a week goes by in all sincerity that I’m not using my degree,” Allyson says. “It’s been just a beautiful degree to partner with the lifestyle that we live, the ministry that we do, the people that God has brought into our life.”

As the mission of M28 Camps continues, Eddie and Allyson hope to see the camps offer discipleship in at least three different ways. One is, of course, for the student campers. A vital second one is discipling the college-aged staff and counselors who help run the camp. “We’re building up college students just as much as we are building up the young people,” Eddie says. And the third is discipleship to the adults, namely the youth ministers, parents, and volunteers. “We want them to be fed,” Allyson says. “So we have adult discipleship groups and workshops for them that are focused on their own personal faith journey.”

In this way, M28 Ministries is more than just about putting on excellent camps that students and adults will want to return to year after year. As they continue to endeavor for the discipleship of a generation, Eddie and Allyson hope that the ministry serves as a wellspring of resources and encouragement to others so that they may effectively carry out the great commission in their own context. “More than anything, we’re teaching people how to dig the well because we don’t want people to feel like [they] have to come back to M28 in order to be fed,” Allyson says. “We’re not the feeder. The Lord is the feeder. So to be able to teach people how to go, give them the tools, you go dig the well, and we get to rejoice with you.”