Today we began our first day of summer camp 2022. We have seen a significant increase in registrations for this summer. We are on pace to have the most campers ever in a single summer.
There are an estimated 12,000 camps in the United States alone, and 62% of them are residential. Joy El is one of those camps, and that’s why I am so excited that Joy El offers this experience. It’s because summer camp changes lives, and the impact is long lasting.
Wanting to learn more about the effectiveness of Christian camps, Jacob Sorenson began what came to be known as the Effective Camp Project. They didn’t know what their research would find. He writes, “We were prepared to discover that camp was only particularly impactful for a few or that outcomes did not tend to last. The major finding of the study was overwhelmingly clear: “The Christian summer camp experience directly impacted the participants in empirically recognizable ways, and those impacts extended to their supporting networks (Sacred Playgrounds: page 6).
This summer is no different. We will be helping children to see how God‘s ancient Word is still extremely relevant for campers today.
Last week while I was equipping our summer staff I took them through Psalm 19. The second half of this Psalm describes how God’s word impacts us. It begins by stating that the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. When I asked the summer staff if their souls had ever needed to be revived, hands shot up across the room. And then, when I asked them if they had experienced God‘s word bringing this revival to them, they responded with great affirmation.
I invite you to read Psalm 19 just to see how powerful and relevant is God‘s word.
Will you please pray with us? That God will impact every child who comes here this summer? We have seen him do miraculous things these last few weeks as we bring together the final details for summer camp.
And I invite you to invite someone to summer camp. Many sessions are filled, some are almost full, but there is still space available.
