DAVIS — Summer at the Falls Creek Conference Center has started off strong with more than 20,000 registered attendees at Falls Creek. As of June 30, there have been a total of 2,447 decisions made. This includes 1,046 professions of faith, 76 salvation assurances, 644 recommitments, 208 calls to ministry and 473 other decisions made.
Falls Creek is structured into eight one-week sessions, with the fourth week having just concluded. The first session was held from June 2-6, with Garret Wagoner as the Camp Pastor; session two, from June 9-13, featured Jeff DeGiacomo as the Camp Pastor; session three, from June 16-20, featured Daniel Ritchie; and session four, from June 23-27, featured Garry McNeill. Each pastor has shown campers the gift that the Gospel brings and what it means to humbly submit to Christ.
“(The Gospel) is the most life changing truth in created order,” said Ritchie. “You 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.”
Themes operate on a three-year rotation for what the focus is. This year, the focus is spiritual disciplines. James 4 takes a different approach to spiritual decisions than what is usually taken. It focuses more on placing ourselves in attitudes, postures or perspectives that allow God to work. This leads to or feeds spiritual disciplines we can walk in.
The theme for Falls Creek 2025 is “Level Up,” based on James 4:10, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” This focuses campers on how growth in the Christian life is more dependent on God’s work than our own effort. This theme challenged campers to take the posture of sacrifice, submission, selflessness and surrender to God.
“Leveling up in our faith is a paradox,” said Falls Creek Program director Todd Sanders. “In order for us to grow to be more like Christ we need to humble ourselves in submission, sacrificing to find contentment in Jesus, seeking unity with others through selflessness and completely surrendering to the Lord.”
There are also numerous breakout sessions offered at Falls Creek so campers can enrich their faith. Staff also encourages campers to participate more in global missions, which has resulted in more than 6,500 mission conversations. One of the breakout sessions focuses on apologetics and is led by Oklahoma Baptists ministry partner Tarvoris “Coach Tee” Uzoigwe. Through this breakout, around 500 campers have been trained in apologetics.
During a recent breakout session, Coach Tee asked those in attendance “How confident are you, from zero percent to 100 percent, that you would be going to heaven?” Coach Tee ministered to two students who replied to that question that they “were somewhere in between.” He used an analogy of a judge forgiving those who killed his nephew by sending his own son to be executed in their place, with God being the Judge and Christ being the Son who was sent to die in the place of the killers. Through that interaction, Tee was able to lead the two students to Christ.
This is only one example of the work God is doing at Falls Creek, and with four more weeks, to go there are sure to be even more. For more information about the theme this year at Falls Creek, visit oklahomabaptists.org/youth/falls-creek.
