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Why Camp? · Bible Tract Echoes Podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey friend, today on the broadcast, you will get to sit shotgun on the conversation I got to have with one of my dear friends last year at Summer Camp.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Listen in.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: You may notice that the ambiance, the surroundings behind the microphone are just a little bit different.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Once again, I'm not in the office.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is becoming a little bit of a theme.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And part of the reason for that is because I'm spending the next four or five weeks in Summer
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, we're not here just to have fun.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, we have the opportunity often to have fun at summer camps, but we're also blessed with the opportunity to invest in young people.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And my partner in crime, my comrade and arms, I've got Zack Kinney with me today.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: First time on the radio.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And for those listening on the radio, Zack's, Zack's a good-looking guy.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's hating that I'm saying it right now putting his head down for those you watch on YouTube, but all of this is ever great time is that we truly have a great time of human life.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and all seriousness it's it's a lot of fun to have friends in ministry.
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think there's there's two things about that.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's it's as fun as it can get it's as fulfilling as it can get and I feel like our We've been through some stuff.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've had some late nights early mornings this week and I feel like that's what kind of knits us together.
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's amazing.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: The question we're going to be asking in kind of answering this week is why summer camp.
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we are gearing up for another week of camp.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've concluded one, we're gearing up for another one, we're kind of smack down in the middle of all that.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as we jump in here,
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want you to answer for you.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: When I asked you that question, I made alluded to what the thing was going to be.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: You came right back and you had an answer for why camp and it goes deeper into this immediate answer, but give the folks for people wondering why are we talking on summer camp?
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: One, we got a fifty-two for you.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's made a phenomenal impact.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Start with the biggest decision for you.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so when I was a thirteen year old boy, I'd come to summer camp for two summers at teen camp.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: My entire life is a junior and grew up in church, but at around thirteen, the Lord had been working on my heart even before my week of camp that I needed salvation.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then I was listening to some lies to the devil.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was, you know, kind of in the culture of the world, I was kind of in my own pride thinking that if I tell people that I'm unsafe, then
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, they're gonna think of me differently.
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're gonna judge me and all of this and all that.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I came to Summer Camp and on a Tuesday night, a great preacher here named Robbie Morrison preached a message.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just remember, and this doesn't always need to happen, but it's happened to me a few times and I love when the Lord just has your heart in his hand and he squeezes a little bit.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just remember just weeping the entire time, just knowing.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: that I needed salvation.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I went through with kind of a hard heart and I wasn't feeling great that week and we usually do a snack shop at the end of the night.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I actually asked my counselor, can I go up to my cabin because I do not feel good.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: which is not for like you.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I like to interact with people.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's a social individual.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: We get long as I think you're a little more extroverted than I am.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm probably a little more introverted, but we're kind of getting young on that sometimes, but you go up to your cabin then, and which is totally out of the ordinary.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: What happens next?
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I go up there, I get into my pajamas, I'm looking at my bed, and I remember this as clear as day.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm looking at my bed.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just felt all the weight of the conviction that the Lord had just been, I've been kicking against the prex for weeks and weeks and weeks.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just felt the Lord say, you know what you got to do.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I just,
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was alone in that cabin.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I put some decent clothes back on and I didn't put shoes on.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Remember I didn't put shoes on for some reason.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was I was thirteen and I walked down in my brother-in-law actually Curtis Baker was in the lobby of the auditor of the tell we call the cabin.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was really just the room that we do the services in.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I talked to him about it.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I talked to him about doubts about salvation.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I talked about, and he asked me like, well, what, what have you done to be safe?
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I, for some reason, I don't know what the spiritual roadblock was.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't explain it clearly.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just couldn't get my mind wrapped around it.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he just sat me down with a Bible and showed me that the reason I, I'm going to,
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: not spend eternity in heaven is because of my sin.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I needed to give my sin guilt to Christ and rely on him and him alone to take me to heaven when I die.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that once I'm in the Father's hand, no man can plug me out of the Father's hand.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And once I did that, I got right with Lord.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember it was technically really, it was a Tuesday night, it was a Wednesday morning when I finally got done.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember it's a long walk back to my cabin.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you are familiar with Common Ground, I was staying in the chapel, which is one of the first buildings you see when you walk into camp.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's probably about
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Two tenths of a mile away from the Tabernacle and I'm walking in the dark and walking on a gravel road.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I choose no shoes.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And on the way there, I was like kind of picking my feet and I got, you know, my feet were tender.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm the way back.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just felt my yolk was easy.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: My burn was like my shoulders were light.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just remember jogging back to my cabinets.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, so happy in the joy of my salvation.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that, for a while before that, I couldn't sleep.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: As we say at Comgram, we sing the song, let the Lord have his way.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had no rest, no peace until the Lord had his way in my life.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And once I did that,
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I went, I hit that bed, I was sleeping on a cotton the floor, that cotton the floor couldn't even anymore comfortable.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I sat down, I went right to sleep and I just had that piece, that wonderful piece from God and all.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's been a couple of a few young people this past week that ended.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Here we are starting another week where we're one week down three ahead of us and a couple of folks made that decision this very week.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're getting a little bit of the real behind the scenes of camp because over the weekends and all the time of stuff, there's lawn tractors and there's things going on on the background thankfully with the art of modern technology.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: We can drown most of these days, but there's a pretty loud, what are they doing out there?
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: We didn't, or something?
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, in all seriousness, one of the things I love about this style outside my office is it feels real.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of clinical, it's kind of just very like, prim and proper when in the office, but here we've got a, we've got a cabota, just riding around.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is our real life.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're just sitting on a bench, having a conversation.
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: What else is this?
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what it makes campus awesome.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you have the opportunity, it pulls you out of the norm.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And actually, I'm outside the norm, norming in the office, head down, grinding, working on Bible track stuff, and still working on a massive amount of Bible track stuff and responding to emails all that.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we've had our head down in a different way, praying.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: asking God to work in the lives of these young people, had a phenomenal time.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: The message is to conclude the week.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as we look towards this next week, the preacher is coming up.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to ask you to pray for what God is going to do.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not only at this summer camp, but at so many around the nation.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to ask you, though, we got just a little sidetrack.
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You let into it so well.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to ask you if you're listening right now.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you know that you know that you're saying?
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe your like Zack was a thirteen years old and you're not sure.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe there's something stand between you and the knowledge that you are on your way to heaven.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Friends, please don't let another day go by without getting saved.
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's absolutely incredible the difference.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to ask you if you would, if you have questions about that.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you're bothered by this discussion, you say, I don't know that I know.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would ask that question while it was preaching this past week.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you don't know, I'm going to ask you to text me.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Reach out to me.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Actually, I had some folks already reach out to me today asking some different questions.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Text me at this phone, over you ready?
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Three, zero, nine.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: So three, one, six, seven, two, four, zero.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: That number again is three, zero, nine, three, one, six, seven, two, four, zero.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now is that you made a lot of other decisions again?
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: We got about four minutes left here.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Tell us about one or two other decisions that were defining moments in your life that have put you on the path.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Still young man.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And figuring out exactly what God has for you.
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a very possible.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And missions work might be in maybe in popping new guinea, some different places, but you're also open to whatever God has for you.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: But how did you get to that flight?
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, for the people listening right here, Zach is an unusual guy in relation to the vast amount of young men with the twenty two twenty three twenty three now.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: The amount of young men that their soul desire is a serve God, you wouldn't know as well as I do.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: That comes few and far between in our modern world.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So how did you get to that place?
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's not like you were forced into this mold.
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're not mama called and daddy sent in three minutes.
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Tell us some of other of this finding decisions you made.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think kind of what went hand in hand with my salvation was, and this is one of my prayers for common ground is that kids can come here and that they can, I was raised in church as you know, and shortly after I got saved actually, my parents left church, and I think what I did at summer camp was really pivotal in me having some Lord willing, some fruit, fruit that had last in eternity, some crowns of cast that are Savior's feet.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the Lord used
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: That summer for me to make the faith of my Savior, my faith, the faith of my church, my faith.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just a faith that I followed.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just a culture that I was familiar with.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It became my faith.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was bought in.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I felt like,
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: me just getting real with God and saying, Lord, I honestly don't know what you have for me exactly right now.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm okay with that and I place my trust in you.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I give you my life and I just surrender my all to you.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can do it in what you want.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember praying, if you just want me to clean the bathrooms in my church, you know, I could stay after school and I could clean the bathroom.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I could do, I'll do that.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you want me to preach, I'll preach.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: But just that, that's surrender.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: that that first initial surrender was free and then from from there and they out it was it's been a constantly trying to get my flesh in line and surrender to what the Lord has for me whether it's in my own spiritual walk with him or it's in the decisions that I make in life and like that ball that it's a football analogy that was kicked off a common ground and one of my prayers for common ground is that
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Kids, it's a lot.
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Summer camp is a lot.
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of emotion.
• 10:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of fun.
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of preaching.
• 10:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's an environment where they're away from the world.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's an environment where it's different than their normal life.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: What we're trying to get here at Comic Ground is to
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's to create an environment where the Holy Spirit moves freely.
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where the Holy Spirit has room to work and hard to last.
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where hard and hearts are made, are made tender.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that people can break and submit their will.
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And not just do it in an emotional way, not just do it in their own flesh, but do it in the power of the Spirit.
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do some stuff.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of my pastoralists says that preaching should be
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: appealing to the intellects and the emotion to lead somebody to a spiritual decision.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're appealing to their intellect, you're appealing to their emotion and leading them to a spiritual decision.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're trying to do.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're not just trying to get kids wrapped up in the emotional Islam camp or get kids to cry at the altar for the sake of crying just because they're wrapped up in the emotion.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, we're trying to get kids to hear the voice of the Lord to own their faith.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's own their faith.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Amen.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm thankful for Zack, not only as a friend, as a compatriot, as a partner in arms, but I'm thankful for the burden he obviously has.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he's referenced this place that we're at right now.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've been a part of many different camps.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I hope you have a summer camp that you go to.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hope you feel half as strongly about it as Zack, as I hope you've made half of the decisions that Zack has.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm going to ask you if you would to consider summer camp.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: You say this is an odd thing for the host of Bible Tract Echoes.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can I tell you?
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: There may be no better place for me to recruit life-long gospel track users than at a summer camp.
• 12:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because if one fourteen year old gets in there hard, I had a young man today coming to ask me, he said, where did you get that track line?
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got to tell him where I got it from.
• 12:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got to give him the last track wall that I had left in my bag.
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was so appreciative for that.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: That young man might go on who knows who's going to get saved because that man uses gospel tracks.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now we have to sign off here.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've got a wonderful time.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm looking forward to just really a few short hours.
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: The camper is going to be rolling on the property when it gear up for another week.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, Zach.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Have a wonderful time.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you're listening right now, as always, have a great day for his glory.
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll talk to you soon.
• 12:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: God bless.
• 13:12
  [UNKNOWN]: you
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning in to Bible Tract Echoes, the radio ministry of Bible Tracts Incorporated.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Want to see our gospel tracks and other resources?
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Visit us online at BibleTracksInk.org.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's BibleTracksInk.org or follow us on social media to learn how you can partner with this ministry.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for listening.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: May the Lord richly bless you as you live for him.