Bible Camps and ACOP Culture

[Karlena]

Bible Camps have played an extremely significant part in my spiritual journey. At Bible Camps, I accepted Christ, was water baptized, baptized in the Holy Spirit, and received two different miraculous healing miracles as well as prophetic words of encouragement. The environment at Camp is always filled with good fellowship, fun times, and peaceful places for quiet meditation, reflection, and prayer.

[Rachel]

Adult and family camps are important. I can remember many times where family camp has healed my family and brought us closer together. Being sent to Street Invaders and Eston Encounters as a teen was good, but I felt like my family did not always understand what I had experienced. When We experience it together, Jesus helps heal wounds and creates more of an unbreakable bond. At the end of camp we get to go home with our family. They keep us accountable and remind us of what God did at camp. This is something youth do not always have when they attend camps and other christian programs. Lots of kids do not have homes where the Name of Jesus is the head of the household. This is why I think adult and family camps are important.

[Caleb]

I think family camps and adult camps have had such a significant impact on the Pentecostal movement because of the richness of community. When a bunch of believers go to a remote place away from everyday life purely to praise God and grow in faith in him together as a community, amazing things are going to happen. God hears our prayers and he sees our every thought and action, and when they are all concentrated in one location, its probably really hard for God to miss that and do nothing. Its like wearing a 12 point buck costume and wandering through the middle of a hunting camp. We’re painting a target on our backs for God to do great things.

I grew up going to Eagle Lake Bible Camp my whole life and god did amazing things. At family camp as a kid was where I developed a strong love for God and his creation. At chapel meetings during youth camp was where I dove into the scripture and heard God speak to me for the first time. I gained lifelong friends there and have continued to minister to them and other campers, sharing my journey with them and seeing kids healed and saved. Camp was the biggest influencer in my life to devote everything to Jesus.

[Micah]

Camps were very foundational in my life and faith, as I was exposed to very passionate and vibrant expressions of worship that I wouldn’t have been around frequently. I was water baptized at camp, and learned what church-friendship could look like through friendships with other people that were excited about what God was doing and wanted to have fun and seek the Lord (as opposed to a very broken school where there was not much hope nor were there deep friendships). It provided a place to soften my heart to God and people.