S’field Baptist, May 2012
Rural Bible Crusade… Baptist church camp…Wheaton, Illinois. J. Lloyd Hunter. Sent letters to 4000 public school teachers. Gospel of John and the plan. 400 teachers responded and my teacher was one of them. 10: a button. 32: New Testament. 500: a new Bible and 1 week at camp.
8 short…Mom gone.
I think I was a racist. Only white kid in my cabin… 7 inner city Chicago boys an me. Granddaddy longlegs…
Lamar Coleman.. Red.. gone one Sunday, Matthew, Mark and Luke
Uncle Ernie… run up a tree. Taught us about hell every night. I wasn’t too certain what heaven was like, but I could describe hell in detail. Baptists…once saved… Pres: no chances.
Bottom line: it was there that I met Jesus Christ and accepted Him as my savior and Lord. I had never missed a church service or a Sunday School lesson in my life, but there was something about the camp experience that made Jesus Christ real.
Started Christian Performing Arts Camp 30 years ago… grown from 2 counselors and 12 kids at one camp to 4 camps, 70 counselors at each, and hundreds of kids. And we don’t advertise. …word of mouth.
Non-denominational.
About 70 on staff each week…nearly all are former campers. Dance, music, drama, video making, puppetry…and lots of testimony, praise and prayer.
Why the success? Because people pray. Because members of our community support it financially. Because God honors what we give to Him.
Sorry if you wanted a speaker tonight. I’d rather just tell stories.
Group of 5th-grade boys… dance.. “Have somebody pray for you.”
7th grade boy who wanted nothing to do with camp. His friends begged him to come. They prayed for him. In his 8t-grade year he came just to shut them up and planned on having a lousy time. He’s now one of Bloomington’s most sought-after lawyers and the director of our camp.
Aaron…deaf boy
Kidnap unruly camper
A boy asked me to go to the altar with him…kids all over… But he said “Wait a minute.” I told her there were some spaces available. “No. My mom told me the spot where she asked Christ into her life. I want to do it in the same spot.”
Boy who wanted to wait ‘til the next morning, Sunday…to go to the altar “Do you think God will let me live until tomorrow morning so I can go to my own church’s altar with my dad?”
Daniel....Zebco 22
I play perhaps 100 gigs a year...for the last 20 years the money has gone to fund camps…I’m not bragging…there’s nothing better to do with my money. Every year our fraternity meets…40 years now.. I am by far the poorest man at the table…bankers, real estate, mortician, contractor, insurance… And I am the richest man at the table.
Tuesday morning I met with a lady…a farm wife… a widow. She gave me a very large check and said, “Make sure that every child can go to camp.” In effect, she paid for every camper all summer. She asked to remain anonymous. She said, “God has been good to me and the only reason He’s been good to me is to that I can be good to others.”
One night last summer, my camp director called me over and said, “Did you notice what I just noticed?” “What?” “Six of our camp counselors came to camp because that lady once paid her way.”
I make the mistake of listening to the world news before I go to sleep each night. Wish I didn’t do that. I must stop. But after I shut off the TV I spend a moment at my bedside, simply praying for the youth of our nation. No power on earth can defeat a praying grandmother, a praying father, a praying mother or grandfather. Nothing.
2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Please…let us turn our fears for the world…our concern for the world…into one of the church’s most effective tools for reaching kids for Christ… summer camp.
Once upon a time, some lady, some man, somewhere, gave money to this thing called Rural Bible Crusade…and paid my way to camp. Because of that, thousands of kids have accepted Christ at my camps…one of our little campers now runs the Campus Crusade for Christ Camp in Colorado where thousands attend each summer, another runs her own camp west of here, and hundreds are doing things in Christ’s name that I’m not even aware of. In a day when interest rates are down, this is a mighty powerful investment.
I write plays…my work will have been performed in every state of the union this year…Yesterday: New South Wales…won’t attend any. But I will never miss a camp as long as I can walk. My work has appeared on professional stages and on television, but nothing beats the sight of a 12-year-old boy taking the hand of his 18-year-old hero and saying, “Would you to the altar with me.” And in about a month I’ll get to see that performance again and again and again.
Sing: This little light of mine.