I was in a quandary. While I was serving as camp pastor last summer at a very beautiful youth camp well attended by 178 campers ranging in age from 9 to 12, the director asked me to make a call for campers to commit themselves to follow Christ. The call was to take place on Friday evening or Sabbath morning so that both pastor and campers would have all week to warm up to each other and I would have time to win the youngsters' confidence. That was not the problem. Nor was it that camp pastoring or making calls was new to me. It was simply that I had been disappointed with previous camp calls involving such momentous decisions.
The campfire bowl was not conducive for large numbers of campers to come to the front at the time of the call. Yet this was not the reason for my quandary.
The problem was peer pressure. It is not unusual for young people to come forward, simply following the lead of a fellow camper who has the courage to venture forward. Although such a response is not necessarily a wrong one, it is much better if a young camper makes a decision because he wants to make that decision—not because his best friend has said, "Come on, let's go forward. Everyone else is."
Peer pressure can also work in the opposite direction, of course. A young person feels a deep conviction that he ought to go forward. But a fellow camper, for whatever reason, may state openly that he isn't about to make a "silly" decision such as that.. As a result, the residents of an entire cabin may sit motionless. They appear uninterested, yet for some that is far from the truth. How to deal with this problem—that was my quandary.
The camp director kindly allowed me to work my way out of the dilemma as I saw best, and the resulting solution was one that I found to be amazingly simple yet very effective. It is something that works not only for summer camps but also for Weeks of Prayer at the church school, Pathfinder campouts, and other similar situations.
At the evening meal on Friday I gave to each counselor one blank card for every camper in his or her cabin. These cards were to be filled out with each camper's name, address, age, and cabin name or number. I then asked the counselors to bring these cards with them to that evening's campfire program, where further instructions would be given.
Following group singing and some excellent staff presentations around the campfire, I had the opportunity to conclude the continued story being told each evening and to make the call for commitment. I began by requesting the counselors to give each camper the card bearing his or her name. The campers were asked to refrain from folding, crumpling, or tearing their cards. Briefly 1 emphasized how the camp was a Christian camp, how each counselor and staff member had dedicated his life to Christ, and how the Sabbath was a special day for the campers. I pointed out how God wants His children to have fun while at camp, and this naturally led into a discussion of heaven as a real place where Jesus will be personally with us, where we will have endless enjoyment. After emphasizing how much Jesus wants each camper to be there, I said, "If we miss heaven we've missed it all."
At the climax of the presentation, as the embers of the campfire were dying, I asked each camper to take his card and hold it so that his or her name was right-side up. Then I asked the following three ques tions:
1. "Would you like to commit your life to Christ?" I briefly explained what is involved in such a commitment. If they wanted to respond positively, they were asked to tear off the top left-hand corner of the card just above their name.
2. "Have you been baptized by immersion?" Again, this was carefully explained for the sake of those who might not be familiar with what is involved in baptism. Those responding affirmatively were asked to tear off the top right-hand corner at the end of their name.
3. "Would you like to be baptized?" Again, proper explanation was given. If the camper's answer was Yes he or she was to tear off the lower-left corner below the beginning of his name.
I followed these questions with a prayer of commitment and asked the counselors to collect the cards, which were to be given to me immediately following the service. I could hardly wait to go through the cards. The results were most encouraging. Of 178 registered campers, 165 made some response by turning in the cards. Of those who turned in cards, 159 made a commitment to follow Christ in response to the first question. Fifteen of those responding to question number one indicated that they had already been baptized (question number two), and 128 requested that they be baptized (question number three). This means that only 16 of a total of 159 who committed their lives to Christ were hesitant about baptism. As soon as camp closed I mailed each camper's card to the pastors of his home church.
Some pastors who serve as camp pastors view it as a time to have an extra vacation, to do little more than give a morning devotional, present a camp council talk, and tell a campfire story. But I found that if I can identify with the campers by riding horseback, hiking, swimming, and working on crafts with them, and even by sitting on the fence at their rodeo and joining in their pie-eating contest, then when the time comes for asking them to make a life-long commitment to follow Christ, they will respond positively— especially if that decision can be made in the privacy of their own conscience.