Xtreme Passion - Articles

WORKERS! TIME FOR CAMP
By Rod Rice

Hebrews 10:24-25 (Amplified), “And let us consider and give attentive, continuous care to watching over one another, studying how we may stir up (stimulate and incite) to love and helpful deeds and noble activities, not forsaking or neglecting to assemble together (as believers), as is the habit of some people, but admonishing (warning, urging, and encouraging) one another, and all the more faithfully as you see the day approaching.”

I thank God for His Word, I thank God for the Holy Spirit, I thank Him for the personal relationship I have with Him, and I also thank God for the Body of Christ. I know God will speak to us one on one, but we also have to be alert when someone else in the Body of Christ is speaking because God will also speak to us through others in His Body.
This is why it is so important for us to assemble together so we have a greater opportunity to hear from God.

I learned a long time ago that God is not foolish that He would put all of His eggs in one basket. In other words, He will not entrust just one person, one church, or one ministerial organization with all He has, but He will distribute through His WHOLE Body everything He has.

This is why it is so important that we come together for church services, conferences, seminars, minister’s meetings, camp meetings, Bible studies, and just fellowshipping with one another. God has spoken to me many times through someone at a casual lunch or dinner. This is also why I believe that it is so important that we provide an atmosphere for the youth to come together and hear from God and experience His presence and move in His Spirit.

I would like to encourage every parent, pastor, and youth ministers to get your teens involved in the AFCM Xtreme Passion Youth Camp. I know from personal experience the impact camp can make on someone. I received the call that God had for my life at an AFCM Summer Youth Camp in 1981.

I thank God for the influence I received at camp through the ministry of Greg Glassford. I attribute a lot of what I am doing today in the ministry to what I obtained while I was at youth camp.

We need to help the next generation of leaders not to forsake the assembling of themselves. Camp is an awesome assembly for them to receive from God. Please! For the teens good, the parents good, and the churches good, get your teens to camp this summer!

It has been said that of teenagers who attend three consecutive youth camps, 80% never leave church. Also, 77% of Christian teen values and moral beliefs they choose to live by are made at youth camp!

I have been involved with our Minnesota Camp Director, Brad Brede, for several years and we are always amazed to see how receptive these young men and women of God are to God’s Word and Spirit.

We have never come away from camp disappointed or let down because we always experience exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we can ask or think at youth camp.

Youth camp is my favorite time of ministry throughout the whole year. We’ve had kids who were on the verge of suicide, but today are training for ministry because God called them out of hopelessness and then He called them into the ministry.

Pastors, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and guardians, PLEASE DO NOT TAKE YOUTH CAMP LIGHTLY! It will help them considerably and it will be a great blessing to you to see what God can do with them and through them!

This year at the AFCM Xtreme Passion Youth Camp we have Brad Brede from Eagle Bend, MN and Randy Mitchell from Blaine, MN.

Our camp this summer will be held in Paynesville, Minnesota on July 7-11, 2008. For more information, contact Jennifer Jorgenson at Brad Brede Ministries 218-943-1084 or jennifer@xtremepasion.org.

Again, I cannot express the importance to get our young people to camp! Make sure we see them there! It will change their life and then they can help change someone else’s life. Who knows, it may be your life that they change!

By Rod Rice