Camp is Great! Church is Better!!

Pray for the summer camp staff.
Pray for the kids who made decisions at camp!  
Pray they would grow closer and closer to God during camp!

Pray they would grow a deeper connection with a local church.
While camp is great, one week a summer is not enough for genuine spiritual growth.  

While exciting summer camps are awesome.  C.S. Lewis wrote,  "The church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ."

I have loved speaking Biblical truth into the lives of campers of all ages, kids to adults, during a week in the summer.
Even more so, I love being part of the church's weekly, even daily, ministry in the lives of individuals and families.

CAMP IS GREAT!

In sharing my testimony, I always say that at the age of twelve, I was saved at a junior high camp.  I usually say something like this: "It was there that God grabbed a hold of my heart.  I do not remember the speaker or the sermon.  I do remember being overwhelmed by the fact that I could not live the life God wanted me to live in my own strength.  I repented of my sin and called out to Jesus to save me."

I am very thankful for Christian camps. I had many great experiences at camp as a child, which is why I send my children to camp, why I served as a counselor at camp in college, why I love speaking at camp, and why I serve on the board at Camp Patmos.   

BUT Church is Better!!

I am very thankful for so many great camps, Camp Patmos is a camp I was involved with in Ohio. In their mission statement, they share that it "exists to assist the church by impacting lives for Christ through a serving staff and relevant programs grounded in the Word of God." 

Camp provides an intense, focused time outside the everyday routines of life.  This intense focus on chapels, devotionals, and many other things provides great opportunities for growth, but living from camp to camp is not how God designed us to live.    While time a short time at camp is refreshing, the church provides ongoing encouragement (Hebrews 10:24, 25) and edification (Ephesians 4:11-15).