Last year I got to experience Hume Lake for the first time as a counselor. I was blown away at their focus on Jesus and emphasis on connecting students back to the local Church. You can read about my experience here. This post is dedicated to sharing what Jesus did in the lives of my students this past week as I was able to go for a second time with the same church as last year.
We were 27 guys in all, 24 students with three counselors, and were packed into a two story cabin. I knew most of them from my time with them last year, but there were several of them who were new or had been on the periphery of the ministry. 7 of them were super seniors, while another 7 of them had just graduated 8th grade. While there was a huge age gap, the spiritual maturity of the students was on a much smaller range. There were a few students who had never been to church nor had heard the gospel, while the rest of the students struggled with their faith in Jesus. This meant for an uphill battle of trying to walk the fine line between friend and leader as we sought to protect the younger students from being exposed to certain things while meeting the older, recently graduated students where they were at.
The first night was awesome and discouraging. Hume Lake’s theme for this summer was entitled “Bingo.” It was the story of Elijah put into the context of a farm. Bingo, the farm dog struggled to trust in his farmer, Old Mac, while he fought against Jezy and her wolves in order to tell his barnyard friends that their scarecrow was no substitute for their real farmer who could truly provide for them. The opener was very well done, and the biblical story that was being told was surprisingly accurate even with all of the fur, feathers, and tails.
However, going back to our cabin, I soon realized that I had forgotten how difficult youth ministry is. The students were going crazy and it was hard to get them to focus and settle down in order to process what they had seen. In fact, it seemed that most of them only came to have fun and couldn’t care any less about Jesus and growing in their faith. I went to bed thinking about why I was there and wishing I could just go home.
Things didn’t start to change until Tuesday night which is when Hume usually does their decision night. I appreciate that they are willing to assume that God is working in student’s hearts before Friday. So, the sermon is wrapping up, and the speaker is calling for people who want to experience Jesus in their lives to stand up, and surprisingly, one of the senior guys stands up! He was one of the guys who had been in and out of the ministry for the past few years but had never shown a lot of interest in Jesus. However, the youth pastor and I got to speak with him after and pray for him, and it was apparent that Jesus was changing his heart.
The next day, another student approached me and asked if I could buy him a milkshake. Last year, I had taken this same student out for a milkshake and a walk around the lake in order to talk to him about Jesus. This year, as we walked around Hume Lake, he told me that he needed Jesus. He had been running away for so long, but he knew that he wanted Jesus to be in control of his life. He told me that he was afraid of reading the Bible because he “was afraid of what he would find out about himself.” I asked him if he wanted to know what God thought of him. Hesitantly, we turned to Ephesians 1-2 and read how God regards us as saints, blessing us with every spiritual blessing as he lovingly adopts us into his family and lavishes upon us a grand inheritance in Christ. We read how we once were dead in our sins and enslaved to the evil one, but in Christ by grace through faith, we have been made alive, elevated above evil, and commissioned to good works as God’s own workmanship. Ecstatic, the student held out his hands and asked to pray. Last year, he was the agnostic skeptic who loved Metallica; this year he became the believer who loves Metallica.
Later that night, the first student stayed behind after chapel, (as did many of the other students) and we again got to pray and encourage him. He and the other student had dove into scripture in order to discover more about God and themselves. The Spirit was alive and working in these student’s lives.
The last day was by far the best. We were able to take communion as a church, and there we announced that Sam (the first student) was going to be baptized later that day. After our time, another student (Josh) came forward and asked what baptism was. We explained that it symbolized that dying to oneself with Christ, being cleansed from sin, and rising with Christ to new life as a public declaration of faith. After this (and little more explanation), Josh told us that he too wanted to be baptized. He said that as we worshiped under the stars the previous night, he felt the love of God for the first time. Later that day, we joyously baptized Sam and Josh in Hume Lake and celebrated as a church.
I write this post because recently our world seems bereft of hope. Our culture is reeling from death and injustice and is falling into holes and hells of segregation, division, and hatred. The gospel seems but a dim light going out. I write about my experience at Hume Lake so that you would know that our hope does not have to be dashed by what is going on in our broken world. The Spirit is working and making hearts come to life. There is death all around us, but God is still in the business of redeeming what is broken and making all things new. I saw him in a fresh way at Hume Lake, and I pray that we might not lose hope. God is on the move.
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