Silver Lake and The Connecticut Missionary Society
Silver Lake and The Connecticut Missionary Society
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Since 1957, Silver lake conference center has provided a place where youth can learn their Congregational heritage, root their faith and strengthen it for a lifetime journey, play in Gods backyard, work together in a lasting comradery, develop their spiritual fervor servicing the Lord.
The following article written by Gary Thompson appeared in the March 2026 Steeple and pays tribute to the Silverlake Conference center and provides historical context to Silver Lake's roots in the Connecticut Missionary Society.
A Lament for Silver Lake
A Lament for Silver Lake
Sometimes history has a way of sneaking up on you, and, when you least expect it, kicks you in the posterior to get your attention; usually when you forget or ignore the lessons learned. Yet we must recognize that our history is always present not only in our personal lives but in our community church life as well.
Timothy Dwight was the President of Yale College from 1795 to 1817. In his time, he observed that the two buildings that best define the State of Connecticut were its churches and its schools. Indeed, these two represented a union that provided definitive growth for both; feeding and nurturing one another. From the beginnings of the Connecticut colony to its statehood, the congregations, both Congregational and Episcopal, still fed the schools, with students to studying theology and returning as ministers, deacons, or missionaries to support their congregations and nurture their spiritual life in their communities and beyond. Far from being easy they produced the “spiritual shepherds” together.
It was in this developing environment that both Congregational churches and schools created the Missionary Society of Connecticut, a church agency, in a “binding covenant” to “combat religious and political infidelity” in 1798. As early as 1744, Congregational (Ecclesiastical) Societies of Connecticut sponsored missionaries into the back country of New York and Vermont to ensure that settlers did not become lacking in their religious zeal and to bring the word of God and the presence of Jesus Christ in the lives of the “pagan” natives.
Continually expanding, they sponsored missionaries into what became the Northwest Territory and into the territories of the Louisiana Purchase. The Congregational Churches of Connecticut raised funds annually to support this effort. Between 1800 and 1815, the Missionary Society published a monthly Connecticut Evangelical Magazine to further supplement this funding in “… support of missions in the new American settlements and among the heathens ....”. They contained Congregational news and doctrines. This is the kind of spirituality that these missionaries and itinerant ministers from the Missionary Society, like frontiersman Joseph Badger, Rev. Nathan Bailey Darrow, Thomas Robbins, and divinity student Hiram Brigham carried in their haversack into the new frontier and as far as Hawaii.. These missionaries sponsored the creation of libraries and schools as they went.
In 1957, the Society, now an agency of the newly formed Connecticut Conference of Churches, purchased more than sixty acres of wooded campground on the shores of Mudge Pond in Sharon, Connecticut to establish a summer camp for children in grades 4 to 12. It was formally Camp Eaton for young boys. They renamed it the much more appealing “Silver Lake” and proceeded to convert it to a place where youth had a place learn their Congregational heritage, root their faith and strengthen it for a lifetime journey, play in Gods backyard, work together in a lasting comradery, develop their spiritual fervor servicing the Lord.
Over almost 70 years, (and prior to the COVID pandemic) the Missionary Society expanded its program to be year-round for multigenerational guests, staffed with youth and adult volunteers (the onsite missionaries), for summer camp as well as youth and adult retreats. It became the pinnacle of the Missionary Society’s original design: to bring the word of God to those who have not heard it or forgot it and the presence of Jesus Christ into their life.
Here’s the rub, Silver Lakes embodies what Timothy White saw in the 1790’s, consolidating the church and the school into a single entity. An environment where faith could be found, strengthened, nurtured, and clung to. Silver lake has become a church that transcends the four walls and roof of a standard New England Congregational Meeting House. The alumni of Silver Lake have been known to refer to it as “God’s Backyard” and “this Holy Place”. The seeds of Its flowers have blossomed into clergy, missionaries, and lay leaders just as the schools did in 18th century Connecticut.
Over its seventy years six Monroe Congregational ministers (Rev. Jennifer McClinchey Gingras, Rev. Dr. Peter Allen, Rev. William Terry, Rev. Dr. Kristen Provost, and Rev. Danna Allen Walsh); three missionaries (Mark Day - Kenya, Rev. David Gaewski – Brazil, and Holly Sniffin – North Carolina), and numerous lay leaders were nurtured on the hallowed grounds. One of our members (Gay Muizulis) is an original teenage volunteer from camp’s opening in 1957. You can’t make this stuff up, our roots run deep at Silver Lake!
Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!
Isaiah 55: 1
In a scene from the Michener historical non-fiction, Hawaii, the wife of missionary Rev. Abner hale [Rev. Hiram Brigham], Jerusha Hale, interrupted a group of natives carrying a baby to the ocean’s edge intending to abandon it in the water to drown. This was a native custom, because the child was born with a “port-wine stain” which they considered to be a malformation and “ugly”. Trusting in God that their action would not jeopardize their acceptance by the natives, and their work to firmly establish a church and school on the island, the Hale’s saved the child from infanticide and raised him to manhood. He became the cornerstone of their efforts to bring the word of God and the presence of Jesus Christ into the natives’ lives and a legacy to the school and church they successfully established.
Like the child and the missionary church in Hawaii, the existence of Silver Lake and the Connecticut Missionary Society is in jeopardy of losing its existence. In 2020, the first year of COVID, the Connecticut Conference, inclusive of its agency, the Connecticut Missionary Society, merged with the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Conferences to establish the current Southern New England Conference, UCC under a united covenant. In the short time that Silver Lake has been part of the new Conference “the campers and overall use of the site has dropped “precipitously” by 36% from 950 in 2015 (prior to the current formation of SNECUCC) to 250 in 2025.More concerning, it incurred an operating deficit of $355,000 in 2024; apparently leaving an “ugly” port-wine stain on the balance sheet.
The Southern New England Board of Directors’ response to this in November 2025 was to announce that they were “winding down programming” after the 2026 summer camp season. Accordingly, there will be a vote in September, 2026 to in which the historical Connecticut Conference will be asked to vote on dissolution of the Connecticut Missionary Society (owners of record of the property). Will this allow the SNEUCC Board of Directors to sell off the property with a market value of $4.5 million? It appears this would allow the conference to recover their losses with substantial interest, in favor of the abandonment and elimination of a centralized outdoor youth and adult ministry.
What church in our Conference does NOT cover a budget deficit with a portion of its returns on investments in its portfolio? Is it not possible that the recovery to higher usage of Silver Lake needs more time than the two years after the end of COVID to recover from its impact? Or the was the “precipitous” drop in campers exacerbated by the sudden change to the Silver Lake staff two years ago and again last year? Has the lack of the expected expansion of the wider circle of participation by the historical Massachusetts and Rhode Island Conferences played a part in this “ugly” wine stain? Maybe… or maybe not!
Regardless, this is where history gets its kick in. For over 225 years our missions and missionaries have maintained their resolve to bring and/or strengthen spirituality to those in need of it. They have never been profit-seekers but rather fund users. From this perspective the “Ugly” Deficit is an investment. Their profit from their efforts can only be measured by the devoted disciples they help to create and the work they do. To view it any other way is to convert holiness into transactions, like the money changers in the Temple; and we know how Jesus thought about them!
Silver Lake is not a commercial business establishment existing to provide financial profit to the SNEUCC. The spirituality that it offers is not a commodity for sale; it is free for the asking by anyone seeking the word of God and the presence of Jesus Christ in their life. Even if it were, its supply and demand curves are both infinitely inelastic, meaning they never intersect to establish equilibrium to define a price point; ergo, the spirituality is “priceless”. Jesus did not tell the wealthy man who asked how he could secure a place in eternity with God to go and sell what he has and bring it to him. He told him to share what he has with those who are in need and become a devoted disciple. Spirituality offered by missions and missionaries are given outright, not sold.
No. To abandon the mission of the historic Silver Lake Conference Center and eliminate the CT Missionary Society in order to absorb its assets flies in the face of our new Southern New England Conference’s covenant and mission. As long as there are new generations looking to follow Jesus’ path of love and service, this missionary church is worthy of its existence to seek out those who do not know, refresh those that do, and cling to what is good.
Historically Faithful,
Gary L. Thompson, Church Historian - Emeritus
Monroe Congregational Church, UCC
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good…. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction [and hardship], faithful in prayer.
Romans 12: 9, 11-13
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