Each person who attends The Walk to Emmaus® has a sponsor. A sponsor is a person who has been through an Emmaus experience and is willing to share that experience with another new Emmaus participant. The sponsorship of a previous participant frees the current participant from any personal responsibilities that might distract him or her while on the experience. Sponsorship also undergirds each participant's 72-hour experience with prayer and other expressions of God's love.

According to the dictionary, a sponsor is one who takes responsibility for another. The suffix "-ship" refers to the skill involved in the activity. So sponsorship is the skill of taking responsibility for another.

Adapted from Sponsorship by Richard and Janine Gilmore. Copyright © 1998 by The Upper Room.