Camp Testimonies

I used to be the Minister of Youth here at Peace, way back in the ‘90's. A lot of our current teens were not even born then, but that’s another story for another day. When I first came to this church, we were having a cycle of kids who were . . . shall we say - DIFFICULT. OK, some of them were pretty much hoodlums.

But that would all change for about one hour every year. No it wasn’t at Christmas time, it was during Camp. Now you’ll have to understand that we had gotten into the habit back then of having a big bonfire on the last night of camp. Which was pretty ridiculous when you consider that it might be 100 degrees with 100 percent humidity, and we’d be sweating around a campfire.

Now the reason we had a bonfire was because we had a testimony service on the last night of camp. Kids that had made decisions for Christ during the week would stand up around the campfire and tell everyone what the Lord was doing in their lives. That was all great.

But the amazing thing was that all the trouble makers wanted to participate too. Now, it would be one thing if God had really gotten ahold of their hearts and really changed them, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I say that because within an hour of that campfire service, when they got back to their cabins, they were causing all kinds of trouble again.

I remember one particular guy, whom I love to this day, would stand up and give a testimony. ON this one year, just one testimony wasn’t enough. We would kind of go around in a circle, so this one guy wanted to testify so much, he’d actually stand up here, then while someone else was talking, he’d walk around to another position so he could testify again.

There was only one problem: Nothing changed. Within an hour, my radio would crackle with the news that he was causing trouble again. You see, He was moved, but he wasn’t a continuing worshiper. The response God expects to His party is Active faith and continuing worship.