The past two weeks I’ve been a part of something we fondly refer to as Truth School, a two-week church camp for jr. high and high school students that I serve in every summer. I love it so much that I think next year’s hashtag will be #best2weeksoftheyear.
Now, I know what you’re thinking… Summer church camp. Everybody has fun. Everybody gets emotional. Everybody gets fired up about God. Then everybody goes back to the exact same way they were before when they get home… It’s the church camp high that eventually wears off. I experienced it when I was growing up, and quite possibly every kid that grows up in church will experience it until the Lord comes back. However, I want to highlight why Truth School is different and why I think it truly has a lasting effect on some of our kids.
- We help them learn to pray over Scripture. If someone is truly going to thrive as a Christian, they must learn to truly nourish themselves with the word of God and develop a personal time with the Lord. The best time to develop such godly practices? Now.
- We help them pray for their friends. To touch God’s heart for man and experience the joy of fruit-bearing wrecks people (in the most positive sense) for the Gospel, for the rest of their lives.
- We help them learn to speak. I mean… the name of our blog is “EachOneHas.” I had to bring in 1 Corinthians 14:26 here :)
To read the Bible and get into the truth is one thing. I hope every kid that grows up in church handles the word of God for themselves. That would be great! (Hopefully they get saved in the process). However, it is quite another thing to get into Scripture with the thought of speaking it to someone else. Having the intention of spiritually feeding others with what you receive from God’s word is totally different matter.
The apostle Paul speaks about this very thing in 1 Tim. 4:15-16:
Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Young Timothy needed to immerse himself in “these things,” as well as “practice” and “persist” in teaching others. The benefit is two-fold: 1.) He gets saved 2.) Those who hear him get saved too. Because of 1 Cor. 14:26 we know that this word isn’t only applicable to apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers, (the Peter and Paul’s of the world). It’s actually very relevant to all of us small potato believers, the pinky fingers of the Body of Christ, and it’s even relevant to our kids.
If prophesying truly builds up the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 14:4), and every believer in a church meeting can truly do that (14:31), then we probably need to start opening our mouth and practicing (even at a young age), so that each one can truly have when the the whole church comes together (14:26).
That was a long sentence…
Anyway, that’s what we did. We prayed over God’s word. We prayed for our friends’ salvation. And we endeavored to prophesy for the building up of the Body of Christ. Practice may not make perfect in this area, but it sure does help. For all of our kids who sincerely had an open heart and tried, I think they are charting a course for the rest of their lives that is filled with God’s glory.
To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all the generations forever and ever. Amen. —Ephesians 3:21
(p.s. Soon I’ll be doing a follow up post with all of my favorite videos and pictures from Truth School.)
EachOneHas 
I wish our truth school was like that too. As far as I could remember, we only did pray-reading and prophesying but for me, I wasn’t so impressed with the matter of praying for my friends not until I went into college! By the way, your t-shirts are nice! Wish I could have one.
Thank you so much, even we older ones are becoming like the teenagers to group together and pray for our friends and family.
As a former “summer church camp”er, I can remember the emotional high and the inevitable crash that happened so often in my church-camp experience. However, as a parent of children who have passed through this kind of truth school-ing and as a observer of others who have enjoyed this wonderful intensive time in the Word, I can say that THIS is different! These young ones come away with spiritual “bulk”. There is not the emphasis on changing outward behavior that, in my experience at least, made way for enormous disappointment when I inevitably failed after all my good intentions. Rather, there is emphasis on handling the Word of God, both taking in and flowing out. There is training to pray, not just by instruction, but by practice together. How wonderful is our future and how blessed is this generation! Thank you for this post!
I was really impressed with all the kids saying how much they loved Truth School and how they were deeply impacted to make Bible reading and praying for their friends a habit. I feel like these two weeks spent with other young people who love the Lord and love each other really touched them at the core. May the Lord remind and encourage them to pick up these daily Christian practices!
P.s. Let me know if you want me to email you any pics/videos!
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