September 13, 2024
Last summer, the student ministry at First Baptist Church in Jasper, Tennessee, didn’t meet for the month of July. Students weren’t showing up.
Coming into this summer, Dusty Tuders, pastor of students and families, was feeling discouraged by the students’ apathy and lack of engagement. He’d been on staff at the church for a couple of years and wasn’t seeing the fruit and connections he’d hoped to see.
But this summer, the students of First Baptist Church Jasper met every week in July. And not because Tuders planned events for them. Earlier in the summer at MFuge, 19 students latched onto the idea that they could be a part of a revival generation. When they returned from camp, the students began a weekly prayer service, gathering around 25 students to intercede together on behalf of their lost friends and family members.
A few weeks later, Tuders was at Student Life Kids Camp with the elementary-aged kids from his church when he received a text message. The students would be meeting at one of their houses for prayer that week since he wasn’t available to let them into the church. He was in awe. It was the same group of students he had at the beginning of summer, but their time at MFuge had ignited a new passion in them that was outlasting their week at camp.
According to camp leaders, Lifeway entered the 2024 summer season with expectancy—not wondering if the Lord would move but watching with anticipation for the where and how. As the summer began, they felt it was clear God was working as He brought more than 114,000 campers representing over 4,200 churches across 220 weeks of Lifeway camps—FUGE Camps, CentriKid Camps, Student Life Camp and Student Life Kids Camp.
This summer, Lifeway’s FUGE Camps (Centrifuge and MFuge) and Student Life Camps emphasized the same theme—Revival Generation. Along with the camps’ emphasis, Lifeway has also been praying for and equipping students and student ministry leaders for revival through Youth Ministry Booster cohorts and a student Bible study, “Revival Generation: Awakening to a Movement of God,” by Shane Pruitt, national director of next gen evangelism at the North American Mission Board.
And Pruitt had a front-row seat to see God building a revival generation, as he preached a week of Student Life Camp at Myrtle Beach in June. “In the past, if at least 10% of the crowd made some sort of spiritual decision, that would have been seen as a great movement of God. However, at the Student Life Camp I preached at, we saw nearly 25% of the crowd respond,” Pruitt said. “God is definitely doing a unique work right now amongst this generation.”
That week, over 150 students committed their lives to Christ and an additional 70 students accepted a call to ministry. Another week of Student Life Camp at Orange Beach saw over 200 salvations among students. Throughout the summer, over 3,500 kids and students accepted Christ as Savior and over 1,500 surrendered their lives for ministry or missions.
At CentriKid Camps, kids explored how God gives above and beyond everything they can ask or think with the theme “Wow Factor: God Gives Great Gifts.” And kids at Student Life Kids Camp set sail to discover what it means to be lost and to be found, embarking on a journey to find who God made them to be with the theme “Voyage.”
The last week of camp has come and gone for the 2024 season, but the revival generation doesn’t end there. Like the students of First Baptist Church Jasper, students across the nation who attended a Lifeway camp this summer have the opportunity to continue to fan the flame of revival as they return to their communities and schools this fall.
For those who made salvation decisions this summer, the personal revival they experienced impacts their lives well beyond the summer or even the next semester but for eternity. And students who acknowledged a call to a ministry of making disciples committed to impacting generations for eternity.
Kyle Cravens, team leader and camp coordinator for FUGE Camps, believes pastors and church leaders have an instrumental role to play in helping their kids and students build on their camp experience for lasting impact, making camp more than a moment but a spiritual marker in their lives.
“Once students have been physically distanced from a spiritual high for some time, it’s easy to tuck that away in the back of their minds and live as though there’s no evidence of the change that took place,” Cravens said. “You’ll want to challenge your students to not let this happen.”
Pruitt echoed this, calling churches to lead their students to walk closely with Jesus, pray for the spiritually lost they know by name, let people see the fruit of the Spirit in their lives and open their mouths to share the gospel.
Lifeway is preparing to serve even more churches and campers in 2025. Registration is open and camps are filling up. Camp leaders said many churches that came this summer have already signed up for next year. To find out more about Lifeway camps and to register for camp in 2025, visit Lifeway.com/Camps.
