BOLIVAR – Super Summer week two at Southwest Baptist University, June 26-30, was filled with fresh faces and new works of God’s Spirit.
“Each week of Super Summer always has its own unique personality. Even though the theme, infrastructure, and plan is the same, week two is always night and day different. All of it is good, but different,” said Bob Caldwell, team leader.
In addition to new faces among students and youth leaders, camp pastor Brian Jump of Forest Park Church in Joplin, and The Jeff Polen Band of Nashville Tenn., provided fresh spiritual and music leadership.
“Week one (at HLGU) was so ‘of God’ that after we left our team knew we needed to try and not recreate what God did. Only He can bring an authentic move. He did just that. He did what He does best. It happened at a different point of the week, but by Wednesday God stirred in a fresh way. It was authentic worship from a great generation, getting ready to hit the scene,” he said.
There were over 40 salvations at Super Summer week 2, and over 100 of the 315 students present made recommitments.
“Today we prayed for over 200 of their lost friends, and they departed to their number one mission field, their hometowns,” Caldwell said.
While the number was lower than in the past, Caldwell said God did “big things.”
Super Summer is an evangelistic center camp for junior high and high school youth. The theme this year was Truth, in a study of how to know that the Bible is dependable. Afternoon recreation is included as are large group sessions and full group worship.
Part of the recreation at both camps was a video game tournament called “Smash Brothers.” It had a unique role in one person not affiliated with Super Summer coming to Christ.
“On Thursday night, my son was in the finals,” said Rusty Thomas, pastor of Lifepointe Church in Sedalia. “I was showing (the video game tournament) on Facebook live, so his mom could see it. One of my high school classmates, who I haven’t seen since 1995, watched it and called me on Facebook messenger. He told how he cried when he went by a church. He said ‘I know I need to get right with God.’ I told him you can do that right now.”
Thomas helped his friend accept Christ and planned to baptize him, July 9.
“It was amazing,” Thomas said.
Assistant leader Dan Gibson agreed both Super Summers are different.
“The Lord blesses both of them,” he said.
Gibson told of two boys from Pisgah Baptist in Excelsior Springs that talked with him several times in the week. As Gibson was turning in keys, June 30, the two wanted to talk again, saying they wanted to repent and give their lives to Christ. “It was outside the student center and it was great to be a part of it. The harvest was great at both camps. There was a lot of momentum and a lot of good things happened. It’s a win for MBC student ministries,” he said.