Stories from Camp - Uncut Conversation

Alright everybody.

Um hello.

I don't have an intro for this, but um I'm sitting here with our youth pastor, Thomas.

Is that weird to say?

That feels super weird to say.

Yeah.

What's up, old friend?

Hello.

We haven't we haven't spoken in almost a week.

I know.

I moved you off my contacts.

Uh you unpinned you unpinned.

I pinned Robertson.

No.

Yeah.

No, that's that's real.

We still talk, but just not every day.

Like we used to- Exactly.

We used to have like work tasks to do together, but as I stepped out of the youth stuff and you stepped into it, I am not in the pinned contact material anymore.

So now instead of uh my mom, or no, it was Annie and then my mom and then Madison.

Yeah.

Now it's Annie and my mom and Robertson.

Well, good for Robertson.

Yeah.

I'm I'm super happy for him.

It's a good place to be because you're funny in the group group chat and you're fun to text.

But you don't have to text me anymore.

Robertson's awesome and similar to like the like strength and weakness dynamic that we had, I think like Robertson is really strong in a lot of ways that I need to work on.

So it's worked out cool in really good ways.

So this is basically like a recap of how camp went.

Yeah.

Um, because I want to hear about stories and I've got probably a bunch of questions.

I was seeing some videos of just hilarity ensue with some of the people that went on the the camp trip.

Yeah.

Um, but before we talk about this year's camp trip, uh tell me why you think camp is an important thing for students to go to.

Yeah, so honestly, with the student life stuff, we've been going to student life.

This is our third year.

We just got back from our third year.

Um I think for this trip, we had a lot of students that had already been saved, they'd already been baptized.

I I kind of after seeing the roster and who was going, it wasn't gonna be like, oh, we're gonna have a lot of salvations, a lot of baptisms.

Like that wasn't the vibe this year.

Right.

But what I did know was that we have, if you guys didn't know, we had about 40 to 50 sixth graders come up into the youth on Sunday.

Uh and I just felt like we really just needed to strengthen like the core students that are there all the time.

Gotcha.

And really just like challenge them to set the culture for those new sixth graders.

And I'm just really big, I think the Lord's put it on my heart, just like church community and really valuing the family we have at church uh has been something I've always been really passionate about.

And so that's kind of the thing we focused on.

I'll say I I convinced a teenager to go join the youth on Sunday, and she's like, I don't know.

And I was like, Thomas told me he's talking about why church.

I was like, because you can make friends anywhere and you can read your Bible by yourself.

So why why church?

And so it's cool to see that, like, I know I don't know if I've ever really thought through camp in that way to go, you know, what are the needs of this specific group as we're going away to a trip we've done before?

Some of them have been there before.

Yeah.

But like if half of them are have been baptized and, you know, believe in the Lord and some of them have been following Jesus since they were little, this isn't like a salvation moment for them.

So what is it?

Do you feel like you were able to get them a lot closer and stronger?

It seemed like a cool vibe uh when I was walking in there on Sunday.

Yeah.

Do you think that camp accomplished that this year?

Of course.

Yeah.

Every Sunday after camp.

I mean, we've experienced it, whether it was the road trip in Gatlinburg or LAJ or student life now, like that Sunday back is special because everyone misses each other so much.

Yeah.

Um, so what were some of the highlights?

What's what stands out to you?

You're only a few days away from getting back, really.

Yeah.

Uh well, with the like community really valuing the friendships and the family we have with each other, like Robertson and I planned our specific like church event nights around that.

So yeah, there's like this time block at the end of each day after worship, after teaching, and all of that.

Yeah, youth pastors run it and they give you a a room to basically go into.

And we've seen kind of like the range of uh rooms that you can get stuck with.

And I saw the room that you got this year.

It was the best room, and it had to have been the best room that they it's the best.

It was like this big gallery.

It was like a college college lecture hall.

Yeah.

Like that's exactly what the vibe was like.

It probably held like a hundred people.

We had 86.

And so it filled the room, and we did karaoke night on Tuesday night.

Okay.

Uh it was karaoke slash talent show.

Nice.

And so uh a student, Justin, he brought a saxophone.

He's like really into band and incredible saxophone player.

He got to play saxophone.

It was movie boxers, uh, TikTok.

But mainly it was just like karaoke night was singing uh to them like vintage one direction and old Justin Bieber songs.

Um but it was really fun.

And I think that that totally did what it we were wanting it to do, which is just like let everyone not take themselves very seriously, let our guards down, dance, goof, be goofy with each other.

And I think that really set the tone for the rest of the trip.

So who was dressed like a hot dog?

I saw multiple guys.

Yeah, Catalina and Bella brought hot dog costumes, and Haley uh took the third one that they had.

They had an extra one just in case, I guess.

And so they I think they wore their hot dog costumes like at least two full days the whole time.

Seriously, like all day.

Just like sitting in the auditorium doing the rec games, yeah, all in the hot dog worshipping and the hot dog costume, everything.

It was great.

That's awesome.

The amount of churches that came up to them and were asked for their picture and stuff, like they were so.

They were like the camp mascots just because they decided to bring and then that the day that they wore hot dog costumes, they served hot dogs for lunch.

That's insane.

So people wanted pictures of them eating their hot dogs with the hot dog costumes.

Do you have pictures of this?

Yeah, I do.

Okay, good.

Yeah, we're yeah, all of those pictures will be on the screen right now.

Yes, I've had a few people ask me where pictures will be, and we'll we're gonna figure all that out soon.

Okay, cool.

Um, tell me about the team.

How how is the team?

Yeah, the team was like a new team-ish.

Yeah.

Lots of like people who aren't on the student team normally, but trusted, awesome people.

Yeah.

How was the what was the vibe?

How did it how'd it go?

I don't know the exact ratio, but I think it was like at least half of them had never been before.

But every single person is like extremely involved in our church.

Like Tiffany and Sue like are highly involved with all the outreach stuff.

They're the kind of people that we could ask to do anything and they would be down.

Yeah, and they're good friends with Leah too.

And Leah, uh, I saw some videos of Leah dancing.

I just saw videos of everyone dancing that's been going around.

Uh it seemed like the team embraced like every time I went, it was like, what I hope is that we can kind of step outside of our normal, not maybe personality, because you want to bring some of that to it, but just like let your yes be yes, be excited, be over the top.

It seemed like everyone was yeah, in camp mode.

Gotta shout out Connor.

Connor uh helps Warren with all the facility stuff.

Yep.

And he's like, you know, Connor, he's he's a pretty quiet, reserved dude.

Doesn't like being in the spotlight.

And uh I I kind of set him up and and hyped him up to do a karaoke song from the very beginning of camp.

And so everyone chanted his name and he went up there and he owned it.

Because you mentioned that earlier in the meeting.

Yeah, so I put uh Connor and Riley, Riley Beach, he's really involved in our church with the eighth grade and ninth grade guys, and it was just really sweet seeing Connor and Riley like be big brothers to those guys.

A lot of those students being in eighth grade, they've never been to camp before.

And going to uh going to a college campus, having a lot of like free roam, and there's a lot of walking we have to do, and then also being around like senior guys, like that can be overwhelming.

And I think Connor and Riley were like the perfect big brothers to like be younger and be like kids and play soccer and make new games, but also help them like step up and kind of like level up their maturity and their faith.

Um, and so it's just really sweet.

There were so many cool things like that in camp.

Um what other things?

We so this is cool.

We gave everyone pocket journals as we uh as we left, and I just really casually mentioned like, hey, I'm sure you have your like study Bible notebooks that you're gonna use for notes, but bring this pocket journal just to like write down God stories or write down cool things that God showed you during quiet time.

And I really wasn't anticipating those being used much, but I I it was shocking, it was truly shocking.

You would have been shocked at the amount of students that had pages full.

I I'm pretty sure some of the students filled up their pocket journal with notes and stuff.

Um, and that was extremely encouraging to see that they took that seriously.

Yeah, and I think to me, that's the biggest win from my experiences going on the road trip and then like leading the camp stuff is like teenagers are so often caught up in their own world.

Like there's the sports world, there's the entertainment, the video games, whatever it is, the the the friend groups dynamics that are going on, school.

Yeah.

Um, and camp is just such a break from all of that to just say, like, what other week of your life are you like worshiping multiple times a day, sitting together with other people who are doing the same thing, and just like kind of being in that mindset.

I think for me, reading the Bible, like that first like took off in my heart on those camp trips and on those road trips.

Um, and so it shocks me in the sense of like, yeah, there might not be a culture of that with our students always like being note takers or whatever it is.

But it doesn't shock me to say, like, you went and took an extra step of intentionality to say, like, hey, this might be helpful, carry this with you during the day.

Yeah.

And that they actually like really responded to that.

I actually think that it was like the fact that it was pocket-sized, yeah, uh, allowed them to put it in their back pocket and carry it and have it other when otherwise they wouldn't have anything.

Yeah.

Um, so it was really cool.

Were there any students who like surprised you with their leadership or like surprised you with I have, yeah.

Uh specifically, I think of Malachi Fattis.

Yep.

Uh shout out Malachi.

Malachi, you're amazing.

I walked uh out of the worship center on Thursday morning with Malachi and just straight up told him, like, Malachi, I think you're the smallest kid on this trip, but you by far have the boldest courage and faith.

And like he was so good at leading that the student life staff were pulling him aside to go like hype up another church group that was completely unrelated to us.

Um I'll I'll find a way to share that video.

I think Jackson Olmsted got a video of it.

Okay.

But uh yeah, he was like going and hyping up our Surge squad.

It's like blue team that we were on.

That's so cool.

Did Surge win again?

Uh we were well, okay.

So there's three rotations.

So there's Team Shock, which is yellow team, team surge, which is blue team, and then there's like three different instances of each event.

Yeah, where basically like you get your chance to cheer for the spirit stick.

Yes.

And if you cheer the loudest, so they didn't do that this year, actually.

Okay.

They did different stuff.

Nice.

Um, but uh for all of our church, we were Surge B, so we got the B rotation for all the events, and we were, I think, undefeated.

Nice.

But uh, I think the other two rotations lost.

They dropped the ball.

So I think Shock took the week.

Wow.

But his hands represented, and we we got the wins that were.

So you got the loss that didn't matter, but a lot of wins that probably mattered a lot more than that.

Yeah.

What was there a so you you know what you know what I mean when I say this, but for the sake of anyone watching, yeah, at camp, it's like a pretty emotional experience sometimes because they're kind of out of their rhythm and by night three, they're dog tired, they've been out in the sun all day, and there's usually like a you know, here's the moment, and uh everyone starts crying.

Yeah.

Was there a crying night?

Yeah.

Was there a crying thing or was it different this year?

Um how did how did it play out?

Because the first year we went to camp, there was a really, you know, emotional prayer night where we prayed for a bunch of people in the group.

And then the second year, that kind of happened during worship.

So we deferred going to the room to pray.

I was like, I think we need to go play now instead of extend to this crying thing.

And I'm might be dismissive of it in in some ways, but you don't ever want to just like rinse and repeat, like, oh, there was an emotional high last year.

We have to have an emotional high this year.

Yeah.

Was there anything like that?

Like any kind of breakthrough moments or like there was a cry night, definitely.

Yeah, but I I just want to say at the start, like student life is so intentional about things like that.

And I I honestly do think they do an amazing job.

And so, like the acoustic like call to response night is Wednesday night, right, instead of Thursday night.

And that gives you like a day to decompress instead of going from a really emotional, like deeply spiritual evening to like packing to leave.

Like, that's a weird transition.

So uh Wednesday night, we kind of talked to the students about like, hey, like we've talked to the campus past year.

There's gonna be a call to get saved, we're gonna do an acoustic set, there's gonna be a lot of opportunities to respond in worship.

Um, and just challenge them to like just take that really genuinely.

Yeah.

Uh, and it was really, really sweet.

The perfect amount of crying happened.

Perfect amount.

That's that's great.

And uh just shout out to Nick Person, who is the campus pastor.

He pastors a church in in Raleigh, North Carolina.

I actually got to have a conversation with him and just let him know like, hey, these are the things that our students uh deal with sometimes, uh, and just like specific ways that it would really bless us to have that response moment.

And he honored it so well.

That was honestly one of the biggest like God stories was uh having that conversation with him and getting to see how he blessed us and honored us.

Yeah.

So I think I know what you're mentioning because our our church is not a very like response, it's not like don't do altar calls.

Like Justin talks about that all the time.

Yeah, don't come to the top come to the front.

It's like this is a between you and the Lord thing.

Yeah.

Or stand up if you are gonna commit to X, Y, or Z.

Yeah.

So we've experienced that at camp.

So you had that conversation with the campus pastor.

Yeah, I was really honest.

I said, like, hey, sometimes, and not just our church, but all the churches, some of the students can be drawn through a motion to maybe stand up in confusion or like have a lack of clarity.

Right.

So I just asked him, like, hey, make it really clear that like the people coming to talk to Robertson and I, like, they're making the decision to follow Jesus for the first time.

And if there is like a feeling of a need to repent or anything like that, uh like stay in your seat and then come talk to us after.

Right.

That way there's not a confusion of like, are you getting saved right now?

It's like a flood the stage and you're trying to discern in the moment in those prayer moments, like what you're supposed to be doing.

And so he was really clear and really loving in how he handled that moment.

And it was it was a positive thing.

It was really good.

That's so cool.

And we had a girl get saved.

And is that who got baptized on Sunday?

No, so Riley, she's gonna get uh baptized on the 21st.

She wasn't able to be here on Sunday.

That's so cool.

She got saved.

Um, and she's awesome.

She's a newer student.

Very cool.

So that's exciting.

Um, I'm trying to think of any uh any like iconic uh moments that are worth sharing.

I've I've seen a lot of the videos from uh I heard a new rule, which I liked your rule.

Okay, tell me you had a new rule this year uh that sniping was not allowed.

Only volunteers are allowed to snipe with the cameras.

Yeah.

How did that go and why did that come about?

I don't think that rule was fully uh followed.

Followed.

But what I did tell the students is like if it's like innocent fun and it's like just a close-up on your face.

The sniping is essentially just like you take a picture of someone super zoomed in.

Yeah, now like I on their cameras, you can get so far away.

And the more unflattering the picture is, the better the snipe was.

Yeah.

And so I just told them, like, hey, if there's a student who doesn't want to be sniped and they tell you not to take pictures of them, don't just stop.

Yeah.

And so I don't think there was anybody upset this year.

That's good.

I think that's always like a fun part, but it's always like, okay, I'm just gonna be.

There's usually a moment, like at lunch, I think is like the time where everyone starts to snipe because everyone's eating, and so you look super unflattering as you've got like yeah, big nachos.

Like, I think there's a photo.

I'll try to send it to Zach so he can show it.

There's probably like what I would consider is like the worst photo of me ever taken while I'm like trying to eat a hamburger while I'm at camp and you're just tired and you're not thinking about it, and people are taking pictures of it.

Yeah, you're like sweaty, yep, you're gross, you're eating your food way too fast.

Yes, yeah.

And so um, cool.

I'm trying to think if there's any other like uh any other things that are you know worth asking about.

What else?

Fork knife spoon was a tradition that we do every year.

Fork knife spoon, we can't even talk about it too much because it's one of those you have to be there, but there's a but it's also not on the internet, so you can't look it up.

It's a tr it's a his hands high school camp tradition.

It's a game that you play.

The whole point of the game is to try to figure out how it's played.

Yep.

That's really all we can say, and it drives the kids crazy.

Yep.

I had I had volunteers texting me the night that you played fork knife spoon with pictures of the situation.

Yeah, they're like, what is the secret code?

And I was like, I can't.

Yeah, last year we forgot fork, knives, and spoons, and it was like remember it was too late to get the plastic ones right like used a pin or something like that.

This year I was uh really intentional.

I bought golden fork knives and spoons.

Nice, and so it looked really fancy.

Did you guys have that dorm that was really far away and made you walk?

Did you enjoy that again?

Yes, it was great.

Okay, because the guys like have their own space.

So it's like the common space kind of area.

Yep.

So they get the common space, and then what we really enjoyed last year about being far away from campus is that when you decide to leave the dorms, you're kind of deciding for the day.

Yeah, I'm gonna go to the campus, main campus area where the cafeteria is, and I'll just hang out there because I don't want to have to walk all the way back to the thing.

So is it manageable like that again?

Yeah, it was actually uh again a huge blessing.

We would have like our church group gathering, which is like our his hands-only planned thing, like the karaoke night.

And then instead of like releasing everyone into the darkness, we're like, hey guys, we have a super awesome space to go back to at our dorms.

We're gonna go spend from 10 p.m.

to 11 p.m.

just play games playing games and hanging out.

And uh we had one night where we let people go play volleyball and stuff, but pretty much every other night we just went back and made the rest of the evening super fun just hanging out.

That's cool.

That's cool.

And I think that like brotherhood we brought this game called Lawn Lawn Dye.

Maybe you saw it.

I saw it looks like cornhole, but it has bouncy ball squares.

Yeah, so that's like it's essentially yeah, bouncy balls that are in the shape of a square, and so they bounce in random different places, and you throw it on the board, and if it bounces and the other team is able to catch it in the air before it hits the ground, they don't get the point.

Okay, gotcha.

Nice.

So that we played that every night.

And can you explain?

There's a new game called Samir Ball.

Yeah.

Where you stand in a circle and you hit a tennis ball to each other.

Yep, Samir Davis uh invented it, and it's essentially just spike ball, if you've ever heard of spike ball.

And Samir's a ninth grader?

Yeah.

Or no, no, I think he's rising tenth grader.

Rising tenth grader?

I believe.

I might be wrong on that.

Um, and it was funny because I I got to church on Sunday and there was a big giant circle drawn over there and it said Samir Ball in the middle, and I was like, you gotta explain Samir Ball.

Yeah, I'm pretty terrible at Samir Ball.

It's essentially you just like hit a tennis ball in a circle and keep it up in the air.

Yeah, but the that that was one of the games that Connor and the boys invented, and it was so much fun.

And all of this stuff, it's like I know that's like story after story, but all of these like inside jokes and bonding together, and you know, uh emotional moments and time away spent in scripture, listening and worshiping, all of that stuff.

It's like what's the what's the sum total benefit for the youth group?

Like it's an expensive trip, you know, it's not free, you can't just go.

I will like I guess sum it up all in this.

I I so I led the seniors and junior guys with with Josh Corley and all the guys uh during we would have like life group time, which is essentially just small groups, we do Bible study.

Uh, and a lot of them were telling me toward the end of the trip, like, man, I didn't realize how much it filled me up to sit underneath a tree and to read my Bible and to pray.

And my like challenge to them was like, we have trees here in Woodstock.

Uh and I just I think sometimes everyone's heard about like the camp pie.

We always talk about the camp pie.

And I just wanted to make sure the students know that the camp pie is real, but it's not about the location, it's about the intention.

And so, regardless of if we're in Woodstock or if we're at Lee, the reason that we feel so close to God at the end of camp isn't because we went somewhere, it's because we set apart two nights to worship and we set apart small group time to talk with our brothers and sisters, and we set apart quiet time to go sit under a tree and pray.

Um and so just making sure they knew that they can come home and they can go sit under a tree and do Bible study still.

Yeah.

They can hang out with their brothers and they can worship anywhere they are.

Um and so it's cool that the guys have been doing really good at quiet time.

We are still talking in our group chat.

Okay, cool.

And uh we're actually all as a group handwriting the book of Ephesians right now.

Nice.

So we're doing a chapter a day, handwriting it and then reading our own uh reading Ephesians in our own handwriting.

That's cool.

Um so just things like that to keep it going.

And I think that's like a cool takeaway, especially for someone who doesn't have a high school or isn't a high schooler, is never gonna volunteer in camp or whatever.

It's like the you know, formative moments aren't so far away.

It's not like you need someone to organize all of this for that to happen.

Yeah.

Access to to Christians that want to read the Bible together, that that is super available here.

Uh, spending time under the tree reading scripture, that's super available.

Yeah, uh, worshiping, super available.

It's like I like how you said that it's not about um being far away, it's about the intention that you bring to it.

Um and so yeah, if you do have a high school student, I would just encourage them to get involved with the youth stuff Sunday mornings.

Yeah.

Um I'm glad to hear camp went well.

Yeah, it was awesome.

It was a huge, huge blessing, not just to the students, but like like to the team and to me.

It's it was awesome to get to to go and to to lead them.

I was gonna say, how did it feel to be the the leader this time around?

You are a leader naturally, so like when I was leading it, yeah, like you still made a lot of decisions and people still came to you for a lot of stuff.

Yeah.

Was was it different being the one, being the guy that has to like keep the ship going?

Not just for me, but for any of us.

Like it's really hard to feel like you can lead something when you have someone else leading it.

Because you're not leading it.

Right.

And you're much more naturally outgoing and can like stand in front of people a bunch of people and be more comfortable than I can.

And I'm I'm a lot better at it than I used to be.

Um, but I think when you're the guy and you have to make the decisions and you have to be the one who sets the culture and sets the tone, uh, I think we all are able to just like step up in those moments.

Um, and it was really, it was really sweet getting to do that.

And like I said, Robertson was a huge help in everything that we did.

Yeah.

And so it went really well.

Well, cool.

Well, good job.

You guys made it back, and the tire the tire on the the van waited for the Guatemala team to expand popped the next day or two months later.

A better situation.

Yeah, missions trip teams are are more kind of uh flexible than teenagers are.

Yeah.

Um, but it might have been a fun story if you guys were on the side of the road as the it wouldn't have been.

It would have been a fun memory in hindsight, but it wouldn't have been Justin still talks about that college trip where the canoe fell off the the or he burned his hand on something and then a canoe is flying off the highway or whatever.

When we went to I think it was it wasn't LAJ, it was I think a Gatlinburg trip.

Yeah.

Uh Zach Nellenbach and I had a tire pop on one of our transit vans.

We had to change it.

And I just remember having to lay in an ant pile to change the tire because that's just where we So you've experienced the the highway.

It was like 100 degrees that day.

Yeah.

So definitely not worth it.

I don't want to do that again.

We're glad you guys made it back safe and uh good job leading it well.

Uh there's not really a call to action other than if you've got teenagers.

Yeah, get them get involved.

Just like try it out.

There's no pressure to, I mean, obviously we don't have any like there's no commitment or membership or anything like that.

Just like come talk to me, come talk to the team.

Yep.

Come see if it's your thing.

And over it's kind of like a I do feel like we have to, it's like tricking kids to eat their vegetables sometimes.

But um, if you can overcome the social stuff and just go like, hey, I'm willing to put myself out there as a teenager, yeah, it goes a long way.

And uh the team does a really good job at like helping negotiate that for some students who are like a little bit more shy.

Yeah.

And so if you've got someone who's uh an introvert in your family, they're like, I'm not gonna check out the youth stuff.

It's like have them come talk to Thomas and uh give it a try because it's definitely worth it.

My best friends that I still have today, I made here at his hands.

And so um it's a really great group, and you're doing a good job leading it.

Appreciate it.

All right, and I guess that's the camp roundup 2026.

Yep.