NEW FREEDOM, Pa., (BRN) – Three generations of discipleship, ranging from young men in their 20s to grade school boys, took the field at Mason Dixon Baptist Church (MDBC) in New Freedom, Pennsylvania, June 19-23, for an all boys sports camp.
Playing off of a girls dance camp that they hosted last year, Mason Dixon desired to offer a camp for third to sixth grade boys in the New Freedom/Shrewsbury community.
“We really wanted to attract a different demographic. We’re always trying to think of different ways to engage different people from the community that aren’t necessarily coming out. So, sports camp because there’s tons of sports around us, we know it will be a point of interest, and I really was hopeful that we would draw some of those unchurched kids from the community,” said Mason Dixon’s Children’s Ministry Director Jess Beck.
Prior to the camp starting, a total of 30 boys were registered to take part in the free, week-long sports camp. During the week, campers had the option of attending a three-hour morning session or a three-hour evening session, with both meeting times teaching the same curriculum. Roughly 15-17 boys participated in the morning session, while another 8-10 showed up for the evening.
“I feel like whenever you can combine something that the kids are gonna love and Jesus it’s a good thing. So, I was excited to just, you know, offer a camp that parents weren’t paying tons of money for, and hopeful of bringing new faces in,” said Beck.
In need of some help to pull off this boys sports camp, Beck inquired the help of Pastor Robbie Mays, who grew up attending Mason Dixon Baptist Church, but now serves as the Associate Pastor of Campus Ministry at Big Woods Bible Church in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.
“I knew that sports were a point of interest for Robbie and that he was solid in the Word, and kind of just went from there with it…I feel like it was a pretty organic creation,” explained Beck.
With both churches on board for the collaboration, Mays got to work planning out the activities as well as the curriculum for the camp.
Throughout the week, campers learned how to play ultimate frisbee, soccer, lacrosse, handball, Gaga ball, kickball and some basic plyometric exercises. Every day, campers participated in a 15-minute gospel-centered and sports related lesson, followed by another 15-20 minutes of small group discussion.
“Every single day, each kid in each session heard the gospel at least twice through the lesson, if not more through prayers [and] one-on-one interactions with coaches,” said Mays.
“No kid can say, ‘I don’t know what the gospel is,’ because they didn’t hear it. They probably don’t remember it – let’s be honest, they’re third to sixth graders – they’re smart, but they aren’t going to remember necessarily the specifics. So, that’s why it’s been really helpful breaking things down and relating it to sports so they have an illustration as well as a fundamental truth point that go together.”
While Pastor Mays took the lead on teaching and the organizational portion of the camp, he had several volunteers and other “coaches” help him instruct and engage the campers. Two of these young men are students a part of the New Life campus ministry that Mays leads in Lock Haven, while others were young men Mays grew up with and poured into during his time at Mason Dixon.
“It’s really neat watching Robbie pour into his students, and then our youth is helping, so I knew that they were going to be getting, watching and seeing almost a full picture of cross generational discipleship,” said Beck.
In preparation for the sports camp, Mays recruited one of his former New Life students, Josh Keefer, as well as one of his current New Life students, Noah Bakaj, to help him run the camp.
“it was really cool to see how Josh, one of the coaches who helped, seeing him facilitate these small groups and taking what he did at New Life and kind of dumbing it down a little bit, because he’s speaking to kids much younger than him…and just seeing as I’ve been pouring into him, he’s been pouring into Noah – even outside of camp this week – and Noah’s been able to pour into some of the middle school guys and those guys have been able to pour into the campers…it’s been really cool seeing how all of that funnels down,” said Mays.
He continued: “It’s also really encouraging because it means that not everything is dependent upon me, like, if I’m not around a kid, he’s still hearing the gospel, he’s still seeing a good influence [and] he’s still learning both about sports and about God.”
This visible multi-generational impact of discipleship also carries over into Mays’ life as many of the kids attending the sports camp are children of men who have discipled Mays – including Mason Dixon Senior Pastor Terry Felton.
“Here I am handing him (Felton) a security code, like, you’re giving me your kid, trusting me to teach him about Jesus and about frisbee, [and] even within that, he has instilled such confidence in me through the Holy Spirit and through Christ that he trusts me,” said Mays.
Years of discipleship made a week of collaboration possible and provided countless moments of gospel conversations with the next generation. The hope is to offer the sports and dance camps as an annual outreach event in the New Freedom/Shrewsbury area and reproduce a similar style of outreach in the Lock Haven region.
“Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes, ‘There’s nothing new under the sun.’ We didn’t create a sports camp. We didn’t even create a gospel-centered sports camp – FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) has been doing that for years and years and years – but what we did do is we tailored a gospel-centered sports camp to third-sixth graders in the Shrewsbury/New Freedom area, and that’s an idea that we can replicate in Lock Haven easily,” said Mays.
“What works at one church doesn’t always work in another church, but it’s good to see what is working at other churches, and if you’re able to either collaborate, share ideas or take something and kind of piggyback off of that idea for your community – that’s the goal.”
The sports camp wrapped up Friday, June 23, with a gospel presentation and a brief graduation-style ceremony for the campers and their parents, at which the boys were given Bibles and their camp workbooks to take home.
