When Russell McCrory was 10 years old, he gave his life to Christ at a Lifeway Crosspoint camp. At a youth evangelism conference in 1998, he responded to God’s call to ministry and later worked for Lifeway camps.
Fast forward a few years and McCrory, student pastor of First Baptist Church Montgomery, continues to prioritize camp and retreat experiences for the young people he serves.
“Over the last 16 years of student ministry, I’ve seen how God works in a special way at camp, DNow and similar events as students separate from the world and are immersed in worship, in God’s Word and with God’s people,” he said. “It is more than just an emotional experience. Camp is truly one of the best opportunities for people to hear God more clearly and respond.”
‘Myriads of stories’
Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, agrees. Lance grew up attending camps and retreats at Shocco Springs in Talladega and credits a Bible study teacher there with laying the foundation for his decision to follow Christ.
“There are myriads of untold stories that can be shared as a testimony to the ministry of places like Shocco,” Lance said. “In this day of a lack of connectedness and chaos in people’s lives, being on a retreat at places like Shocco can make a world of difference for people searching for answers.”
These days, there is no singular camp model. Some camps and retreat centers, like Shocco Springs, primarily serve as hosts. Churches and parachurch organizations like Lifeway plan their own Bible study, music, games and free time activities utilizing Shocco’s lodging, dining and recreation facilities.
Other camps, like WorldSong Missions Place in Cook Springs, a ministry of Alabama WMU, plan programs and hire staff to implement them.
Often, camps and conference centers provide a blend, hosting organized events but also offering day or overnight packages for the use of their facilities.
Regardless of their approach, Christian camps share the common goal of helping young people, and older people too, connect with their faith in a deeper way by unplugging from the routine of daily life.
Fostering connections
Connections are fostered through worship and Bible study, but also through mentoring and modeling. That’s what Haley Hoggle experienced at WorldSong.
Hoggle was in second grade when she first went to camp at WorldSong. She loved it so much she went back summer after summer, first as a camper and later as part of the staff.
Now a freshman at Troy University, Hoggle said what stands out to her about her camp experience is the focus on missions.
“WorldSong is really where I developed my heart for missions,” Hoggle said.
“We are the light of the world, and we are supposed to share that light with the nations,” Hoggle said. “We need people to go to Madagascar, Mozambique and India, but we also need people to serve locally.”
As a college student on a campus filled with many international friends, she regularly has gospel conversations with people from around the world. She is applying one of the most important lessons she learned from the missionaries she met at WorldSong.
“The missionaries had lived in the countries we studied, so they knew the culture and the people,” Hoggle said. “They really impressed on me that missions is not about the place, it’s about the people.”
Sense of community
Not everyone gets it, that sense of community built in a camp setting, but for those who do, the impact lasts a lifetime, said retired Alabama Baptist state missionary Jamie Baldwin.
Baldwin first went to Shocco Springs as a relatively new Christian. In fact, when a friend asked him to go to Shocco, his first question was “What’s a Shocco?”
But as a camper at Shocco, he began to see “being a Christian wasn’t about an experience with Jesus, it was about a life with Jesus.”
In 1971, he spent his first summer as a member of Shocco’s resident summer staff. He and his wife, Beth, lived and worked full time at Shocco for three years after their marriage. It was at Shocco that Baldwin first felt God’s call to ministry and at Shocco that he “settled it with the Lord that He had called me.”
Baldwin said that every year since 1971 some aspect of ministry has taken him back to Shocco, and he expects this to be the case as long as he lives.
He’s a firm believer that camp ministry is vital to the spiritual development of children and youth.
“The camp experience is something that can change your entire life,” Baldwin said. “People have found careers, met spouses and answered God’s call at camp. Only eternity will tell how many lives have truly been changed by these ministries.”
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