Winter Camp is a key element of urban youth ministry on the West Coast. The Oaks provides a dynamic, experiential, Christ-centered weekend program, hosting around 400 teens among World Impact and other urban partner ministries. Winter camps have been a special time for our students to get away, hear the Lord’s voice, and bond with one another. The camp environment provides a great balance of fun activities and a safe space for deep conversations. City youth leaders attend, already relationally invested in the lives of the youth through living in the community, going to sports games, school campuses, and having regular youth group, which help the teen campers feel cared for by the leaders as they share the weekend together.
This year, The Oaks is excited to present the Winter Camp 2016 theme, PIVOT: Change the Game! This comes from Ephesians 2:10 which says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” We desire to equip teens to look deeply at their lives, hear God’s word through speakers and worship, feel the support of their peers and youth leaders – to determine a course-correction as they engage back in their home neighborhood.
Last year many of the students who came were unchurched, just starting to learn about Jesus, and what He means for their themselves and their community. However, God often moves in cabin-time discussions after the messages. A youth leader shares here what this looked like:
“At first, the guys in my cabin were hesitant to share, each looking around at each other to see what the others would do. They came in with a dynamic of making fun of each other and feeling the need to act hard so they would not be vulnerable. However, deep down each of them knew that God was speaking to them and calling them to share their heavy burdens and pains. Antonio* finally broke the ice and shared the pain he had been through in his life. With tears, he shared how he had kept this buried inside.
This vulnerability allowed many of the other guys to share their stories and where they needed God. After each person shared, we linked arms and prayed over each other. This was a beautiful picture of how God is near the brokenhearted.
Antonio decided to follow Jesus after that weekend. He had felt the contrast of God’s love to what he was experiencing on the streets. He had seen so much violence, hatred, and pain. He was tired of running and allowed God to meet him where he was. It was amazing to see Antonio’s faith to share how he needed Jesus provided a breakthrough for the others.”
This story exhibits how Winter Camp transforms communities, through a context in which the gospel is shared, lived out and contextualized. When youth leaders are given a solid 48-hours with their students, breakthroughs occur and new identification of the Spirit’s gifts in teens are recognized. We see God growing His “oaks of righteousness” as teens engage in the city neighborhoods they return to, living in vision of the new possibilities they witnessed at camp.
*Name changed.
