What I Taught at Summer Camp 2004
Tom Shrader shares observations from East Valley Bible Church's 2004 summer camp, highlighting how the Word of God, the power of the gospel, and God-centered worship produced genuine life change in students. He emphasizes that sound doctrine must translate into behavior, pointing to research affirming that evangelical Protestant men are more engaged husbands and fathers. He closes by urging the congregation to value and invest in student ministries, cautioning parents not to underestimate the spiritual depth and real pain that young people carry.
“The Bible tells us what's right, what's not right, how to get right, and how to stay right.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Summer Camp
Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 34 min
Themes: youth ministry, bible study, worship, gospel, spiritual growth, parenting, life change, sound doctrine, parent, youth leader, teenager, new believer, struggling with faith, mentor, young adult, feeling misunderstood
Scripture: Hebrews 4:12-13, Romans 1:16, 1 Corinthians 1:18, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, 1 Corinthians 11:28, Ephesians 4:4-6, 1 Timothy 4:12, Romans 10:9-10
Theological Themes: biblical authority, pneumatology, sanctification, becoming holy, soteriology, gospel power, hermeneutics, word of god
Full Transcript
The Word of God Is Life-Changing
Today I want to talk to you about what I saw at summer camp this year. I have probably a half a dozen or a dozen points, and we will just work our way through them, take our normal teaching time, and hopefully you will see how important I think all of this really is to you and to me and to us and to the church.
Here is the first point: the Word of God, applied by the Spirit of God, is life-changing. That could become so basic that we go, ho-hum, move on to the other stuff. After all, this is East Valley Bible Church, so we all have this thing about the Word of God. But I am going to make this point probably four times today, because there is a tendency to perhaps start to believe that a lot of this stuff is age-sensitive — meaning, yes, that is certainly true for young adults and moms and dads, but is it really true for students?
The author of Hebrews writes: "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of the soul and the spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." That includes students. "There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do."
The Word of God, applied by the Spirit of God, is a powerful thing. We say this to you all the time: the Bible tells us what is right, what is not right, how to get right, and how to stay right. That is what Paul tells Timothy — it is good for doctrine, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. We study the Word of God that we might know the God of the Word, and we emphasize again and again that a timeless God does not produce dated material.
When the Word of God is taught, when it is studied, when it is read, it lays us bare. It just opens you up.
What Happens at Seven in the Morning
At summer camp, there are a couple of things that never get talked about publicly. One of them is the meeting that takes place each day at seven in the morning. That is a meeting of staff — not dads, not students, but staff, discipleship leaders, the people working directly with students.
The primary purpose of that meeting is not to sort out logistics, but to hear what God is doing in each group. I always try to be there, especially for the Monday morning meeting — that is after Sunday and communion — to hear about how students' hearts are being broken, how conviction is taking place, how reconciliation is happening. A student might say, "I cannot wait to get home. I need to call my mom and dad, tell them how we have sinned, and ask for their forgiveness."
One of the dads there this year said to me, "I have heard you talk about how you do not dumb it down for the students — your words, not mine — how you just teach the way you do on Sunday morning or at Priority Living." He said, "That is exactly what you did." And the reason that works is because it is in the Word of God. You take the Word of God, you lay it out there, and then you pray like mad that the Spirit of God will apply that truth to the heart of a student, or their mom, or their dad.
The Power of the Gospel
Here is the second thing I saw: the power of the gospel. Paul writes in Romans 1:16, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." And again in 1 Corinthians 1:18, "For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
All of a sudden, you see the power of the gospel to transform lives. Now, I understand the setting — we have five hundred-plus students, it is an emotionally charged time, and if you wanted to manipulate these kids, if you wanted to stir them up into some kind of frenzy, it would be pretty easy to do with the right video, the right music, and just the right words. We go out of our way to stay truthful to the Word and pray that the Spirit will apply it to students' lives.
On the last night — the last service, the last time we would all be together at camp — I simply said, "If God touched your heart this week and you made a profession of faith, you claimed Jesus as your Lord and Savior, would you stand?" About fifty or sixty students stood up. It is an incredible moment. Now, am I skeptical? I am. I doubt all sixty of those students truly made a profession of faith — but they may have. I do not know.
What I do know is this: every year, eight or nine months later, or even a year or two after the fact, when I come to a baptism service, I will hear students say, "It was two years ago at summer camp that God saved me," or "It was six months ago at summer camp that God saved me." One young student stood up — because there is always a sharing time at the end of the last night — and he
A Life Transformed at Camp
He said, "I've been around church a long time." He had been at East Valley Bible Church so long he might have come in a car seat. He was about twelve years old, and he said he never really knew whether he was a Christian or not. Knowing that communion was coming, and feeling uncertain, he went over to the chapel all by himself and started praying. He got his Bible out and read: "If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised you from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." And he said, "I'm a believer. I've been saved."
That is just the power of the gospel. It is an extraordinary thing to watch work. It is absolutely remarkable to watch physical changes take place in a matter of days. And then to get home and have parents say, "What came back on the bus is a different kid than the one I sent over."
God-Centered Worship
Here is the third thing I saw: staff, students, and dads engaged in God-centered worship. I mentioned we did something very different on Sunday, and that was exactly that. Those outdoor pictures you saw were taken at an outdoor amphitheater — if you can imagine the students sitting there, looking back toward where the band was playing, with trees nearby and the ocean right there, sailboats going by. It was just an incredible sight.
We met that morning for an hour and a half to two hours, that afternoon for two hours, and that night for probably two and a half to three hours. The last night we were there, our time of worship and praise was four hours. You sang some of these same songs this morning — songs that emphasize God and who He is. "Turn your ear toward heaven and hear the noise inside, the sound of angels' song. And all this for a King, we could join and sing, all to Christ the King." And the song *Enough*: "All of you is more than enough for all of me, for every thirst, for every need, you satisfy me with your love, and all I have in you is more than enough." And: "You're the famous one, great is your name in all the earth, the heavens declare you're glorious, glorious, great is your fame beyond the earth."
It was absolutely extraordinary to watch dads, staff, and students fully engaged in God-centered worship. Not all of them — especially that last night, because four hours is pretty hard. You saw some kids who were exhausted, some who were probably thinking this was not really for them. But you also saw people who were genuinely praising and worshiping Jesus.
Doctrine Translated to Behavior
Here is the fourth point: I saw doctrine translated to behavior. If you say you are a Christian, it must affect how you live. You cannot separate these two things. If you say Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Savior, Jesus is my Master, then that claim has to affect how you behave.
Though this next point is not directly related to summer camp, it makes the point very well, and on this Father's Day I want to extend a happy Father's Day to all the dads, grandpas, and perhaps great-grandpas here today. This is an article from *USA Today* from last Thursday. I have edited it for length, but I believe I give you an accurate representation of what it says. It reads: "Religious men, especially evangelical Protestants, are more involved and attentive husbands and fathers than men who are not religious, new research shows. Protestant evangelical dads come out on top compared with every religious group in the U.S., says University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, who conducted the study."
The article continues: he analyzed data from three large surveys conducted several times from 1972 to 1999, examining behaviors and attitudes toward family and gender among different religious groups, including Catholics, various Protestant denominations, Jews, Muslims, and others. The results point to greater family involvement and less domestic violence among church-going Protestants, especially evangelicals. Wilcox says religious men outscored other fathers on most family life indicators because religion stresses family life.
Now, the article also presents the other side, from Scott Coltrane, chairman of the sociology department at the University of California, Riverside. He writes: "Some churches teach that fathers are the head of the family and that there is a pecking order with women and children at the bottom." He also downplays the advantage of going to church or being an evangelical Protestant when it comes to being a good father, saying: "I see that there are multiple paths to involved fatherhood. The key is whether a family is child-centered, and whether the parents show love and control that makes for a good family. Any family can do that, whether they are religious or agnostic."
Now, this man is clearly far smarter than I am — and maybe he is even watching us on the internet right now, though I doubt it — but listen to that last sentence. He says any family can do that, whether religious or agnostic. Obviously they can, but they don't. That is precisely the point of the article. Anybody can do it — I understand that — but they don't do it. I have argued this for a long time: evangelical Protestants are the best fathers, mothers, children, employees, employers, and citizens. Does that mean they are one hundred percent perfect? No.
A Doctrine That Shapes Behavior
What we believe has to affect how we behave. Consequently, we understand a role that God has for us all through the culture. Anyone can grasp that idea, but most don't act on it — and that is the point. You saw it at camp, over and over again. We heard from the Point Loma staff that soon after they get to know who we are, they say the same thing every year: "You're the best group we have throughout the entire year. You're the best group that comes here."
This may sound egotistical, but I can tell you why. I am confident we are the most doctrinally sound group that has been on that campus. We have kids — and here is a shock — who are legitimately converted, so they understand they cannot behave like everybody else. It only takes one or two kids to undermine that, which is sobering, and we always have an incident or two that impacts things. But their doctrine translates to behavior.
A Biblical Approach to Communion Is Compelling
Here is the fifth thing: a biblical approach to communion is compelling. Communing is, in many ways, at the heart of what we do at camp. We meet Friday night, then all day Saturday, and come back Sunday — and Sunday night is communion.
Students are prepped in their discipleship class that this is a very important time. If you are a Christian, you need to participate and can participate in communion. If you are not, you use this time to do what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 28: "examine yourself." Take a look at who you are.
This is a great call and charge to you and me each and every week when we gather together — to examine ourselves, look honestly at who we are, how we are doing with the Lord, whether there is sin in our life, whether we are coming in a manner that is unworthy. There is something compelling about that. So when you were watching that video and kept seeing those cups and that bread, I hope you understood: that is a communion time, just a great time.
Diverse Backgrounds, Real Hurt, Real Pain
Here is the sixth thing: there are diverse backgrounds of students at East Valley Bible Church. I couple that with the next point: there is real hurt and real pain here.
I think back to what some might call the good old days — the days at Dobson when we were just starting. They were not the good old days. I have no desire to go back there. When we were on Dobson, East Valley Bible Church was just a year old or so, and we were a very homogeneous group — essentially all Caucasian, all biological mom and dad with their kids, family pretty much intact, not much externally evident pain or suffering or hardship. Everybody looked pretty good.
We are in a different place now, with a lot of real hurt and real pain. That really comes out at summer camp. I want to warn you against your own prejudice, which is to minimize what you hear from a student. There is something that is amazing to me about hearing a 12-year-old say, "I've had a really difficult year." Sometimes in my mind I want to say, "You don't know what a difficult year is. You've never tried to start a business, never been fired, never had to navigate all the things adults navigate." But the truth is — they do know. When you listen to their stories, some of these kids have gone through more in a year than you go through in ten.
A Father's Day Illustration
Yesterday was Father's Day. Earlier in the week, the girls got hold of me and said they wanted to do something special. They told me they would pick me up at 11:15 on Saturday, and that I should not dress the way I always dress. I asked what that meant, and they said I could not wear shorts, flip-flops, and a t-shirt — I should wear something like I would wear on Sunday. I said I had long pants, and they confirmed that would do.
So yesterday I felt like a little school kid. I asked Susan, "Do I look okay? Am I dressed all right? Can I go out like this?" They picked me up and I asked where we were going, because I had in my mind what I thought we would do — I figured we were going to see Shrek and then go somewhere nice. That was not it. We drove down the freeway, on the 101, then the 202, then got off at 24th Street. We were going to the father-daughter Father's Day tea at the Ritz.
I said, "I should have worn a different shirt. You should have told me." They said, "We tried to, Dad. You don't listen." There were all these little girls in their snow-white dresses, and in we came marching for the Father's Day tea. We had a blast — two and a half hours, drinking tea, which none of us actually like, eating these little things. After about 40 minutes, Haley said, "We have to stop at In-N-Out on the way home. When are they going to bring us something to eat?" I told her I thought that was it. It was terrific — so much fun, so sweet and so innocent.
The Weight of the Divorce Epidemic
While I was sitting there, I was thinking of a couple of the girls from summer camp who had come up and said things like, "My dad left on a business trip and never came home," or "My dad just one day picked up everything and left." The divorce epidemic has catastrophic effects. You watch these 12, 13, and 14-year-old kids — especially the girls — trying to sort through all of it. They want to be loved so much. It is a great area of ministry for us, the hurt and the pain.
We have been talking about evangelism the last three weeks, and quite a few of you have said —
Serving One Another
Look around for somebody that is hurting. Look around for somebody in a group who is all by themselves. Look around, and maybe you will see a student, an adult, or somebody in the office that you would not even want to spend time with. Go to them, and there is an opportunity to evangelize. This evangelism has expense to it. It is costly. All of a sudden, you begin this whole process not just of evangelizing, but of serving.
I saw people serving everywhere at camp. The word minister means to serve. I saw what you would normally expect: staff serving students, dads serving the staff and serving the students, students serving students. One of the staff people who went had a great many physical issues while she was leading a discipleship group, and it was really three of her students who made a pact so that one of them was with her at all times.
It is always dangerous to single someone out, but Amy Short went to camp as a discipleship leader. When this lady became sick, we needed a nurse — next year we need to take a doctor, and I am volunteering you now — but Amy was not going as a nurse. She was going as a discipleship leader, yet she literally spent three days, day and night, serving this lady. It was a huge testimony to everybody at the camp.
One Body
That experience reminded me that we are all part of the body of Christ. Paul writes: "There is one body, one Spirit, just as there is also called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all." That is not age specific. It is really something.
I want to caution you — and I am going to mention it again in a moment — against minimizing these students. It is not uncommon for a junior high or high school student to come up to me and say, "In my quiet time this morning I was reading this, and I thought this," and they will put those ideas together in a remarkable way. When I was teaching on the Trinity, one of the junior high kids came up and said, "You know what it is like, Tom? It is like a compound word — three words that are all the same on their own, and then there is this compound word." These are extraordinary kids.
Do Not Look Down on Their Youth
The students are the present and the future. I understand that the children are our future, but I am telling you, you do not need to wait for them to get in the ball game. Paul writes to Timothy: "Let no one look down on your youthfulness." That is our tendency — they are kids, what do they know? I understand they lack a lot of life experience, and they may not have all the wisdom that you or I have. But some of them have more figured out at fourteen than I did at thirty.
So how do you win them over? Paul continues: "In your speech, and your conduct, and your love, and your faith, and your purity, show yourself to be an example to those who believe." That was the motto of camp — live large, letting the doctrine begin to flesh itself out in all that you do. Not everybody lives that way, and if they do, we do not necessarily live that way. We live differently.
Closing Thoughts: What I Saw at Summer Camp
I want to congratulate some of you on these remarkable kids that you have. I find that when I do, parents will often say, "Really? They are not like that at home." There is just something about being with someone who shares your DNA — you cannot really show them what you have got until you are a little older, I suppose. But I am telling you, some of you have extraordinary kids, and I know it is God's grace and your obedience. There are students in this church who are extraordinary, and you can see right now that God is already doing great things in their lives.
One of the things I do at camp is have a student share their testimony at each service, and then always a staff person as well. Rhonda Osborne shared hers, along with six students and six staff members. There are people out of that group whose stories are extraordinary, and it is remarkable what God is doing in their lives. So congratulations to you.
To others, let me simply say there is hope. Some of you put a kid on the bus and got the same kid back, and that is really disappointing. I have no idea how many parents called me, emailed me, or stopped me on campus before camp to say their son or daughter was really struggling, and I told them I do not have any magic dust — maybe God will do something, maybe He will not. But I am watching lives that have been changed, lives of students that people gave up on a long time ago. So do not give up hope.
A Place for Your Student to Be
Student ministries at East Valley Bible Church is a great place for your child to be. It is an affirming place, reinforcing what you are teaching at home — if you are teaching biblical truth to them. It is a place for that student to minister. We were there the last night, worshiping, really going after it, and Lorraine leaned back and said, "Can you imagine a parent not wanting their student in this?" I thought, no, I cannot. And that is a rather striking comment, because apparently over the last week or two there had been several parents whose children
Student Ministries at East Valley Bible Church
Some parents, as their children are getting promoted out of fifth grade into sixth grade, have said they don't want their kids in student ministries. The person who told me this didn't share who they were, so if you think I'm picking on you, I'm not, because I don't know. I'll tell you this: I can't even begin to understand that thinking. I cannot imagine a better place for your child.
If you've got a kid who's struggling, student ministries is the place where they're going to find other students who can make a difference in their life. I had a girl come up to me on Saturday night — I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier — and she said she didn't go to church here. I asked how she got there, and she said she came with somebody else who also doesn't go to church here. She was crying, and when I asked her why, she said, "I never knew." She was 16 years old. She said, "I never knew something like this even existed. I didn't think it was possible to have fun without drugs and sex and booze."
If you've got a kid who's struggling, this is a great place for them to see other kids living differently. And if you've got a kid who has it all together, there cannot be a better place for that child to minister to others. Some parents seem to be concerned about what a sixth grader is going to be exposed to around older students. The answer is nothing — or perhaps whatever sin is already in your sixth grader, and I would think you'd want to know about that now.
We used to pray that God would bring older students into the lives of our kids, so they could see that it's not just mom and dad or their adult staff leaders who believe this. There are cool junior and senior high school kids who believe this, whose lives are changed and different. Student Ministries at East Valley Bible Church is a magnificent place for your student to be.
Every year I talk about this. We spend a tremendous amount of time, energy, effort, and money on your students, because I really do believe that they're not just the future — they're the present. When you look at these students, you are seeing the church. And they are dying to know that you love them and care for them.
The first night at camp was a hip hop night, so I was out there hip hopping — Dodger jersey, Dodger hat, shorts, bling, the whole thing. I got up there and I was doing it, and the students went absolutely nuts. I was singing along and I ran out of words entirely. When I came off the stage I said, "I look great," and then immediately corrected myself: "No, I look stupid. I know I look stupid." But the reason I'm willing to look stupid is because I want those students to know how much I love them and care for them. I really want to see East Valley Bible Church be all it can be, and if we don't minister to our students, we are missing a huge segment of this church.
You and I need to understand that and affirm it. I wish you could see how great these kids are. We have our knuckleheads, and we have kids who never seem to get it. But we also have great, great kids who are absolutely living this gospel out — sharing their faith, having their lives changed by God, and getting ready to take that gospel back to their schools. They are doing what you and I should be doing. Don't look down on them because of their youth, and they will win you over with their speech, their love, and their determination.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for Jesus. Thank You for the love and the joy that we find in Him and Him alone. As we end this time together, open our hearts. Let this really express who we are and how we feel. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.