Experience → Shock → Big Change
[City Mission] New experiential gospel training ministry: "Life Impact Camp"
Photo courtesy/Huang Mingfa
We preach Him, using all wisdom, admonishing everyone, teaching everyone, so that we can lead everyone perfect in Christ to the presence of God. (Colossians 1:28)
Act out of shock
Participating in the "Life Shock Camp" came from a shock I received. At a joint prayer meeting for Chinese pastors and co-workers in New Jersey, a young man who came to the United States from Malaysia enthusiastically introduced LIFE Impact Ministry because he had participated in the ministry’s Life Impact Camp when he was a child. ” (LIFEgame) - A camp that uses simulation games to convey spiritual truths. I was so shocked that I was willing to devote myself to serving God full time in the future.
The concept of Life Impact Ministry is to help people experience and discover the truth personally, so as to achieve better growth. It uses specially designed experiential games as a bridge to lead participants to know Christ, enter the church, or commit themselves to service to fulfill Christ's Great Commandment and Great Commission.
Thinking of many young people in traditional churches being lost one by one, I cried out to the Lord: Lord! If this comes from You to revive our churches, we want it too! If a creative ministry can bring young people into the presence of God, we are willing to pay a huge price!
In this way, at the end of 2016, the Bethel Renewal Center (Bethel Renewal Center) to which I was committed, together with Rev. John Kwan, the founder of Life Impact Ministries in Malaysia, and his team, held the first U.S. event in the eastern United States. Life Shock Camp. The camp project is huge, pioneering is difficult, and is daunting; but thank the Lord, through earnest prayer every day, God has arranged the necessary people and things one by one.
In this camp, campers came from ten states across the United States, laying the foundation for the launch of Life Impact Ministry in the United States. It quickly expanded from the East Coast to Northern California, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and went to San Diego, Texas, Boston and Canada. development in Toronto and other places.
Although it has not been easy along the way, I am very grateful. God not only demonstrates His power in weak people, but countless lives have also been greatly changed.
▲In the Life Impact Camp held at Messenger in Pennsylvania, USA, from March 16 to 18, 2018, 12 of the 104 campers responded to God’s call and were willing to serve God full-time in the near future.
life shock camp
You can't repeat your life, but you can use the Sims game to examine what the outcome will be if you live the way you want. When you return to reality from the simulation game, you will turn the shock you get into a warning, reminding yourself from time to time to live a cautious and godly life.
Life Shock Camp is an experience camp that can transform lives, aiming to raise four different types of people:
1 Call seekers to return to God
2 Calling lukewarm believers home
3 Inspire believers to pursue more deeply
4 Calling disciples to devote themselves to service
It takes four days and three nights, or at least three days and two nights, and requires a venue about the size of two basketball courts. It is arranged as a city, allowing everyone to start their own life from the age of fifteen. Whether it is pursuit, gain, struggle, or setback, it may all be decided by you, or it may be caused by fate. Regardless, an individual's future is often heavily influenced by personal choices.
When I participated for the first time, I chose to pursue a new life dream in this virtual city that was completely different from my previous experience, so I gave up the opportunity to receive higher education and wanted to rely on my own efforts to work hard. As a result, in the virtual city Life is miserable. During my reflection, I deeply realized that I really need to be grateful for everything I have today.
This kind of camp will shock everyone differently, and it can help every camper experience and share different life education. I remember that the famous writer Henry David Thoreau wrote a book "Lakeside Notes". The author spent two years alone by the lake, living a simple life and exploring the meaning of life. Now we only spend a few days and nights camping. If you have time, you can go through life, experience the true meaning of life, and make sincere reflection: how to make life worthwhile.
Therefore, this is a camp that everyone should attend once in their lifetime. It may become one of the most important camps in your life, especially having a great and far-reaching impact on young people! But don't doubt your age to participate, the oldest participant currently is ninety-three. Anyone of any age should consider attending.
I often issue a challenge to young people: Imagine if you only have one year, one month, or one week left in your life, how will you seize every time and every opportunity? Will you ever again spend a lot of time on things that you can't take away? What other people, things, and things make you feel bad? If you plan your life from this aspect, there will definitely be a big breakthrough.
In the past period, due to serving in Life Impact Camp, many young people among us became enthusiastic and willing to serve outside the four walls of the church, and successfully promoted the camp to various cities. This is something we didn’t expect when we started hosting. Every time I see groups of volunteers being raised up one after another, they are willing to set aside their time, spend their own money to buy air tickets to participate in the service, and do what God wants them to do. After their lives are shaken and they start to rise up, I feel something indescribable in my heart. Joy.
This kind of life impact ministry now has 24 teams around the world, impacting 16 countries, including: Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Egypt, India, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, etc.
So far, more than 50,000 people around the world have participated in Life Impact Camp. Among them, generally 30% to 40% of unbelievers will accept Jesus Christ as the savior of their lives. After participating, approximately 85% Christian campers decided not to be lukewarm anymore, but determined to return to the church to be passionate about the Lord, to serve the Lord faithfully and kindly, to spread the gospel widely, and to save souls. Christians around 10% will devote themselves in the camp and decide to move step by step towards serving God full-time in the near future.
It’s hard to imagine a three-day and two-night experiential camp that is both like an evangelistic meeting, where people’s hearts are converted to the Lord, and like a spiritual training meeting, where people are inspired to devote themselves to serving God. The World Chinese Blessing Conference (CCCOWE) held in Taipei in 2016 strongly recommended similar experiential education ministries to help the church’s internal construction and gospel outreach, and quickly and effectively spread the gospel to the church through discipleship training methods that renew and change the mind. Unreached peoples across cultures.
this is just the beginning
In fact, Life Impact Ministry not only includes Life Impact Camp, but also includes Church Game, Mission Game, Gospel Game, Discipleship Game, etc. At present, we have introduced church shock camps to the United States. We hope that in the near future, various shock camps will play a role in different cities to help us experience the true and living God. May God lead us to work together to dream and serve for the Lord.
Note:
In addition to the last one, responses from participants in this article came from:
lifeimpactministries.com, lifeimpactministriesusa.org.
For more details about Life Impact Ministries, please see these two websites.
Life Impact Camp Echoes
→What exactly did my son experience at the camp? He changed as soon as he got home! I appreciate what you did at camp.(Mother of a student)
→This camp will teach me the meaning of life...(Lin Kwok)
→Very practical and realistic. The teachings were deeply rooted in my heart. It is a more practical and effective way than just listening to the sermons.(Lydia Lee)
→I made the decision to believe in the Lord on the day the Life Shock Camp ended. I am very grateful that the Life Shock Camp really impacted my life and allowed me to know more about God. It made me truly realize that the most important and precious thing in life is to establish an intimate relationship with God.
→This is not just a game, but like a magnifying glass, allowing me to see the sins in my heart, my debt to Jesus Christ, my sorrow, regret and fear. But fortunately, this is a game. There is a chance to return to reality and start over, and my heart is full of gratitude and hope.
→The me in the game is so similar to me in reality, planning accurately, pursuing efficiency, always running... However, all my hard work was in vain and I even lost my life.
→In this accelerated life process, I saw that I was bound by fame and fortune and unknowingly became a slave to the world.
→I no longer want to serve “mammon” and hope to serve Jehovah all my life.(Xiao Ding)
→This game allows me to experience what it is like to live a life without God, and to experience the feeling of "weeping and gnashing of teeth" and "unbearable regret".(Classmate Zhao)
→Do people have to go through suffering before they can repent? I came to learn with the attitude of giving it a try, but the harvest was enough to influence my decisions in the second half of my life.(Xiao Yang)
→The Game of Life made me understand the direction of life. Time flies by quickly, and if you don't hurry up, you'll lose the opportunity. I wish I could spend more time preaching the gospel.(Classmate Li)
→I feel like God is here, He has been waiting for me here...
→This camp was a heavy blow. It made me realize that my heart was so weak. I regretted and blamed myself. I was also grateful to God for mercifully choosing me, an unworthy sinner. Through the Life Shock Camp, I was able to examine myself and give me another chance.
→The end of the game is full of tears. Every chapter of the scriptures speaks to me, and every sentence touches my heart. If I were allowed to live again, I would try my best to tell the people around me that there is a free salvation here, please accept it. Fortunately, it's not too late to understand now.
→The camp is very special. It is fun and interesting, moving and shocking. It will make people cry and laugh. They will experience a real life for three days and two nights. In the end, they will spontaneously share the truths taught in the Bible. It changes lives, values, and Christian lives are readjusted.(Wu Limin)
Huang Mingfa, a native of Taipei City, currently lives in New Jersey and is the convener of the "Bethel Center". Love traveling, photography and learning.