The Baptist Messenger recently interviewed evangelist Daniel Ritchie, camp preacher for Falls Creek week three. Ritchie recently was elected First Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), and he has spoken across the country sharing his testimony and the hope Jesus brings. The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Baptist Messenger: Welcome to Oklahoma from everybody here and thanks for spending time at Falls Creek. Are you having a good week?
Daniel Ritchie: So, full disclosure, I’ve never been to Falls Creek and had always heard a lot about it. It’s definitely been a learning experience for me, but I’ve been having a blast, man. It’s been neat just watching God move in the worship service and through the kids.
Messenger: What message did God put on your heart for the students as you share from God’s Word?
Ritchie: The theme for the week is James 4:10, “Humble yourselves under the hand of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” Night one with the kids, it was, “What do we have in the gift, the exaltation, that God gives us. And then last night, we took a minute and just looked at the treasure that the Gospel is. It is the most life changing truth in the created order. And for the kids to see the Gospel is good news and not just news. We’re also going to look at what it means for us to respond in humility to the gift of Christ and how we serve, looking at Philippians 2.
Messenger: So, you have a very unique story. Could you briefly share from that and then maybe some of what you’ve seen lately of people responding to where God has you?
Ritchie: So obviously, you can see there’s two empty sleeves. I was born without arms and it’s just a cool picture of the creative work of God that the physical has never been a struggle. I do everything with my feet that you guys do with your hands. And so that’s been simple for me in terms of overcoming that in my life.
I think one of my struggles was I just really struggle with value and worth, you know, just not feeling like I fit in. That invaded my understanding of God, especially as a teenager because I adopted this very false belief that, “Well, if God loved me, this wouldn’t be my story. If God loved me, He would have given me two arms.”
I really struggled with feeling like God didn’t love me for the longest time. When I was 15 years old a student pastor shared with me Romans 5 that says God shows His love for us in this and that while we were still sinners, Jesus dies for us and He lays out the love of God from His Gospel. That night, to get saved as a 15-year-old and to trust in Jesus as my Lord, it really began the process of changing my life. It wasn’t instant like, but it really did begin the process for me of finding peace, of finding joy, of finding contentment and identity in who Jesus was.
It was ten months later just looking in the mirror of my life and to see how much Jesus had changed my life in ten months. I was like, “Man, I want to spend the rest of my life doing this.” So, I stepped in the ministry at 16 and tuned into my church and started preaching at like youth camps, even as a teenager.
It’s hard to think that here we are, 25 years after God calling me into the ministry. It blows my mind. You just see what God can do when His people just trust Him and His Word I think is like that aspect of the ministry that God has given me and it just keeps standing out because it’s just like none of my story makes worldly sense, but very much in God’s Kingdom it makes a whole lot of sense because He lifts up the weak to show His true strength and grace.
Messenger: As you’re here at camp and speaking around the country, and now First Vice President of the SBC, how can we pray for you as Oklahoma Baptists?
Ritchie: Pray that God would call the lost unto Himself. We’re seeing it here in Falls Creek. You’re seeing it especially a lot in Gen Alpha. There’s a hunger for something more than what the world is giving them. I would encourage Oklahoma Baptist to please pray for me as I take the Gospel to them.
To realize that it’s like you guys have a golden opportunity here in the state of Oklahoma right in your backyard. Pray for the kids that need the Gospel, that are hungry for the Gospel and just to find ways to reach them.
For me, I keep up a pretty hectic pace. You know, lots of preaching and coming home for a day or two and then back out. Just pray for my family, my wife and kids. They get a lot of time away from dad. Pray that God would keep them and He would just encourage them. Also pray that God would keep me safe and keep me from being sick. I think just the pace, trying to figure out how to navigate that, I would definitely covet folks’ prayers in the midst of that.
