On Summer and Summer Camps

Pray now. Pray for youth camp. I am privileged to be able to preach at four camps this summer--Skycroft in Maryland, Jonathan Creek in Kentucky, Great Escape in Mississippi, and Camp Caswell in North Carolina.

Many of you who honor me by reading this blog are involved with youth ministry. So you know that summer means summer camps. Youth groups will hit the road throughout the summer. In addition to the "big" camps--Student Life, Centrifuge/MFuge, Fun in the Son, Great Escape, Youth camps put on by state conventions--there are lots of small camps, some even "one church" camps.

All of them are staffed by adults who are passionate about seeing kids become followers of Jesus and become disciples. These incredible adults will stay awake beyond imagination, plan creative ways to study the Bible, play some great games, and listen late into the night as students visit and re-visit what it might mean to take some risks in faith.

All sorts of students are at these camps. There are students who made a profession of faith in Christ as a child and are now examining that faith as an abstract-thinking young adult. There are friends of the faithful who have never been to church or church camp in their lives. They are at camp because a student in a youth group convinced them that it would be the funnest week of the summer. And their eternity will change as they hear and process the Good News.

There are skeptics, seekers, believers, blamers, fakers, takers and difference-makers. They are students and the Holy Spirit is relentlessly pursuing them because adults loved Jesus enough to create the environment called camp.

We can pretty much imagine what is going on at camp--arrival on Sunday or Monday, getting into the rhythm of camp on Tuesday or Wednesday, establishing trust, getting comfortable, barriers breaking down...winding down on Thursday and Friday and heading home...followed by nonstop sleep until church on Sunday.

Prayer is critical at every stage, right up to the prayer for parents and church members to fan the flame of camp instead of throwing water on the fire. Pray for the thousands of students who go to camp this summer that they don't get over it. Pray that a generation will teach an entire convention what it means to reach lost friends without any fanfare--just life on life, ropes courses, and late night junk food.

To God be the Glory.