Are we losing the battle?
Do you remember winning? Games, athletic events, achieving personal goals, and the big win your team has been working towards all year! That sense of excitement is hard to match! Winning feels great and losing feels terrible. I want to talk about a win, but first I want to share my heart with you about a place where I see that we are losing. There is a battle for the heart of a generation, and we are losing the battle! Children in our culture are drifting away from God. We are fighting the spiritual drift, but there is a strong gravitational pull away from genuine faith.
On November 18th, two students from the high school closest to our house were arrested for killing a man in a drug deal. We don’t know these boys, but we know several kids who know of them. This situation has reminded me that these things don’t just happen in the news. They happen in kids in our communities who are within reach! I’m convinced that the way we keep these tragedies from happening is to reach the hearts of the children in our communities! When we focus on reaching individual kids with the truth of God’s love, we start an outreach that is organic and infectious! That kind of influence goes beyond a program. That kind of influence is what transformed the lives of fishermen and tax collectors into passionate disciples. That is how we reach into the dark places where we are losing the battle for the hearts of our children.
Even in the midst of this battle, we are seeing so many wins at camp as we witness lives transformed by the love of Christ! We are seeing children and families experience God’s love in tangible ways as they accept the challenge to push past their fears and dig deep into the truth of God’s word. We are seeing God’s mission of redeeming the world move forward as we work to ignite a passion for Christ among the remnant of children we serve. We believe the opportunity to win in bigger ways for God’s kingdom begins with winning in the smallest ways in each heart. With your help, we highlight walking with God and transform every moment at camp into an invitation to take another step into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. Thank you for supporting us as we head into our 29th year in the fight! Together we win more hearts and that kind of winning will make an eternal difference! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Bill Chapman