Johanna, Hayden, and I spent last week on the beach at Port Aransas, TX for the 5th Annual Beach Bash Youth Camp. I started Beach Bash back in the day when I was serving as the Youth Pastor at FBC Goldthwaite. Over the years, it’s taken on different shapes and sizes, as we’ve combined with various churches and groups. But every year one thing has not changed and that is our vision of using the draw of the beach to reach unchurched students and get them to come to camp with our various churches to hear that God loves them and wants a relationship with them.
This year’s Beach Bash was probably the best one yet. Around 200 students from six churches spent a week hanging out in the pool, lounging on the beach, getting sunburned, and most importantly joining together to experience the life-changing power of God. Throughout the week we saw God do some incredible things as students’ lives were forever changed. God took dead things and made them alive by drawing students into a relationship with Jesus Christ. He restored broken relationships. He poured his love and grace out on hurting teenagers. He gave hope to the hopeless and peace to the troubled. God showed up…BIG TIME. And there were tons of lives changed. We still don’t have the final numbers, but with what we already know, almost 30 students gave their lives to Christ for the very first time and almost 60 other students made some other type of significant commitment in their spiritual walk. Beach Bash 2009 was incredible. And now that the sunburn is fading, I can’t wait until next year!
No comments:
Post a Comment