You know you’re at a camp in Texas when you have kids who traveled 7 hours or more to get to camp and never left the state.

You know you’re at a camp in Texas when jalapenos are served as a condiment at every meal.

You know you’re at a camp in Texas when running from bees in flip flops with burrs in your heels isn’t a camp activity, it’s how you get around.

Day four was amazing! As far as camp activities go, it wasn’t much different from any of the other days of camp… just a lot of fun. But more than anything, I was excited about what we were going to cover in our services.

The misfit we introduced in the morning session was the Samaritan woman at the well. We see how Jesus struck up a conversation with her pretty quickly and he cut right to the chase. He began talking to her about spiritual matters, essentially offering her this “living water.” Then he went straight for the jugular. He addressed her sin. Now, the very order of his conversation tells us a little about what is important to Christ. Although Jesus knew this woman was a lowly Samaritan and a woman who couldn’t keep her personal life in order, he still offered her life. He knew of her sin and wasn’t afraid to call it out.

So, in the evening service, we dedicated our time toward talking about sin, patterns of sin and sins that we tend to keep in the dark. Secret sins. We learned how it is our nature to hide sin and cover up the things that make us uncomfortable. However, when we don’t deal with our sins, it festers and grows and entangles us (Heb 12:1). As an illustration, I brought someone up on stage and slowly as I described various sins that hold us back, I began chaining him up. First around the waist. Then handcuffs wrapped through the waist chain. Then the legs. Lastly, the volunteer sat down and I chained his waist chain to the chains around his legs so he couldn’t even extend his legs. I pointed to the volunteer and said that this is what our sin does to us. It keep us from being able to run the race marked out for us. Sin will mess us up.

I got pretty personal and talked about the sins that many of these kids are likely to be struggling with:

• Lies
• Gossip
• Bad Language
• Bad attitudes
• Smoking, Drinking or Drugs
• Inappropriate thought life
• Temper
• A sharp tongue
• Inappropriate music and movies
• Magazines, videos or webpages with inappropriate pictures

I talked about how many of these sins draw us back. Our sinful nature has a hunger that craves some of these things and every time we go back, we feel shame and guilt. That’s the sneakiness of sin. I shared how many of us who are trapped in a sin also hear a voice in our head that lies to us. It says that we’re disgusting for doing that thing, for looking at that magazine or saying those words. The voice tries to get us to think that we’re all alone and we need to hide our shame.

Then the lights went out and one singular light came on directly above the stage. I spoke about how Jesus is the light and in the light, we can’t hide our sin. There is full transparency. If we truly want freedom from our sin, we have to walk into the light and confess our sins, get them out into the open. When we do that, sin has no power over us.

I shared a pretty personal struggle that I had when I was their age. I shared about my shame and guilt that I carried for several years and how coming into the light changed everything for me, how it set me free to run the race in a way I’d never experienced. Between the content I shared, the sensitivity of the subject matter and the somewhat emotional draw of my personal story, there were very few dry eyes in the room. The Holy Spirit was at work in heart across the room. I closed with prayer and a song (I surrender all) and we dismissed directly to small groups and hundreds of kids walked into the light. Amazing!

Yes, day 4 was incredible!

You know you’re at a camp in Texas when swimming isn’t really that refreshing unless it’s above 106 degrees.

You know you’re at a camp in Texas when you have to break up fights among the counselors over who’s best, Longhorns or Aggies.

You know you’re at a camp in Texas when you’ll have beans, rice or a tortilla with every meal.

You know you’re at a camp in Texas when even though it might delay their activities, the kids are still praying for rain!

So, on day three of our Chase the Light camp series, the kids learned about Nicodemus, the Misfit Pharisee. He was a misfit because under the cover of darkness, he went to meet with Jesus privately. He knew a lot about Jesus as the Pharisees had been observing him and his work, but he didn’t really know Jesus. He was intrigued and was interested in knowing who this man really was.

The thing about the Pharisees is that they were pretty secure in their faith. They followed the law in such a way that they were secure in their eternity. Many Pharisees actually considered them the gatekeepers of heaven. If anything, they knew they would be in heaven. When Nicodemus came to meet with with Jesus, he came to get to know Jesus, but immediately, Jesus began challenging everything Nicodemus knew about going to heaven. Jesus shared information with Nicodemus that he didn’t have.

So, on night three of camp, I had a talk with the kids in a similar context as Jesus’ talk with Nicodemus. I realized that many kids in the room had never had the gospel explained to them in a clear and concise way. Many kids in the room though maybe did have faith in Jesus. However, many of those kids could tell you all the right answers, but their faith wasn’t based on all the information they needed to have. Let me explain. I gave my heart to Jesus when I was 4. I loved Jesus with all my heart. If you asked me why, I’d probably tell you all the right answers like “because Jesus died for my sins.” There’s nothing wrong with that, but part of the reason I believed all of this is because it is what my parents had been telling me was true since the time I could talk. It’s what my kids pastor and sunday school teachers told me every week. In part, my faith relied heavily on my parents faith. That’s good, but at some point, my faith has to become my faith.

So, on night three, I clearly explained who God is, why he created us (for a relationship) and how sin got in the way of our relationship and how God created a sacrificial system where the blood of lambs could bandaid the problem and then how God provided a better lamb, his only son, to remedy to problem once and for all. After sharing the entire gospel presentation in that way, I asked kids what the appropriate response should be to that information.

That night many kids came to faith for the very first time. Many kids who had already chosen to follow Christ were impacted significantly and they began to see their relationship with God entirely different. Woo hoo for night three!

You know you’re at a camp in Texas when you have to break up fights among the kids over who’s best, Longhorns or Aggies.