Let me start by saying that God meets us everywhere and in any setting. He can divinely show up at any time. He may even use a donkey (see Num. 22).
BUT I know for a fact, God meets us when we create spaces for him.
Summer Camp has always been that place for me.
Camp will always be my favorite place in the summer because I know how much spiritual fruit comes from camps! I also want to note that some things that happen at camp are not good. That warrants another conversation, one that we won’t talk about today.
My fellowship—the Assemblies of God—has local geographic districts. Mine is in Southern Missouri. Every district has its own camp and is tasked with running its own camps and retreats. Here in Southern Missouri, the Assemblies of God churches go to summer camp in Rocky Mount, Missouri. The campground is called CrossPointe Camp. There is a brilliant amphitheater point at the campground with a giant cross. At youth camp, we close the last night at “the pointe” for a short praise service.
This campground is a sacred place for me! I know God meets people here. Those who seek will find!
My mom was protective of me as a child. She was incredibly particular about the places I went. Growing up, she was around a lot of abuse in her community, and she wanted to protect my brothers and me from the things that she had seen and experienced. Knowing what I know now about the world and her experiences, I get why she wanted to keep us safe and how cruel the world can be.
She was not comfortable sending us to camp until my dad went with us when we started our church in the 6th grade.
That camp changed my life.
That week at camp, I encountered God in a way that I had never encountered him before.
It was July 20th, 2011, when I was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, praying in the altars with my dad, my brother, and church friends. That day changed my life.
The altar at camp will always be a place where I know God spoke to me.
It’s an altar where I will tell my kids the story of God’s faithfulness in my life. He met me here!
I know the exact spots, and over the years, there were many of them.
Two years later, in 2013, at youth convention in Springfield, Missouri, I was called to ministry. God simply told me during prayer time that I was going to work in ministry. He didn’t tell me what position I would be in, where I would serve, or anything in detail. Simply that I would serve God in the church.
Obviously, God’s providence is its own. In my own understanding, I don’t think I would have accepted that call or even heard it in the first place if I hadn’t encountered God so powerfully and known His authentic presence, having not experienced God and been filled at kids camp two years prior.
I genuinely believe, with my whole heart, that encountering God and being filled with the Holy Spirit in 2011 changed the trajectory of my life. Simply being in the room that day altered the trajectory of my life, pointing me on a path towards hearing God’s voice and offering my life as a living sacrifice to him.
Well, that’s simply not the case with everyone, for not everyone is called into full-time vocational ministry. Anecdotally, I’ve seen that within my own tradition, camp was a vital part of our ministerial identity. That’s not to say God doesn’t call kids who don’t attend our camps… but it is, I think, an encouragement and a testimony that if we’ll simply get into the room where God is sought reverently and given sacred space, he will meet us.
It’s a place without phones, without the pressure of your family, without the problems at school. It’s a sacred place AG folk have set up to hear from God.
That’s why I love camp: it’s a space where we can commit to the Lord. We can leave behind our distractions, our fears, and simply seek after God.
It’s not the only place like that, but for many, it’s the most accessible place. Camp shouldn’t be the only place where those kinds of encounters happen, but for many, it’s the starting place. I know for me, as a young 13-year-old boy, it was my starting place.
And I had grown up in church. I’ve done junior Bible quiz, VBS, Sunday night services, Wednesday night services, revival services, but for me, it was my first time authentically and genuinely encountering the power and presence of God in my own life.
As I get older, I realize that the story really isn’t centered on me, though. I am just the recipient of God's power and presence. Yet, there had been much soil that had to be tended and tilled before that moment happened. As a pastor now, I see the importance of adult leaders and pastors who sacrifice everything to give a child the opportunity to encounter God.
My dad, our lead pastor, already in his 50s, sacrificed to take us to camp. He sacrificed sleeping on a really thin mattress, being tired from walking all day, playing with us in the pool, doing belly flops and bruising his body, and eating less than immaculate food for the potential, the simple chance, that his kids would seek God for themselves, and for the chance for God to divinely change their lives.
The hidden story of my encounter with Jesus is the sacrifice of adults in my life who recognized the irreplaceable blessing that camp can be for those who come seeking God.
As an adult, I grieve for the days when our lives were not nearly as busy. I remember a time when we had space and margin to attend camp.
Every day was not packed so full that we couldn’t miss a week to attend camp.
My prayer is that people would not forget the blessings that camp can be and the truth that we don’t get any more time. That every missed moment we have in the altar, every missed opportunity we have to seek the Lord in sacred space, every missed opportunity we have outside the Tabernacle and God’s people, is a moment we’ll never get back.
I am so glad I was at summer camp in 2011.
