The inaugural Combined B-P Youth Camp
15-18 December 2014
TESTIMONIES FOR THE COMBINED BP YOUTH CAMP 2014
From 15th to 18th December 2014, 138 youths attended the inaugural Combined BP Youth Camp. The camp was organized by six BP churches to bring together youths for a time of sweet fellowship around God’s word and to be challenged to consider the Lordship of Christ in every aspect of their lives, through the messages, discussions and activities. Below are testimonies from three of the campers.
Colin Chung – Galilee BPC
The Lordship of Christ
The lordship of Christ can be seen in His work of Creation (v.15-17). All things on earth, even the largest galaxy we can observe to the smallest atom we can view from a microscope are all created by God and for Him.
It can also be seen in His Headship over the Church. “First born from the dead” means that Christ is the first to overcome death by His own power.
Pastor also asked a good question: “You may know all about God, but do you actually know Him?” We may know a lot of the stuff in the Bible, but do we actually truly believe God and love Him?
The Lordship of Christ is a life-transforming relationship between us and God.
If we accept Christ as our Saviour, we ought to accept Him as our Lord as well. We also have no right with our lives. We are bought by the blood of Christ which means we belong to God and everything in our lives belong to Him as well. The pastor also said that salvation is free (we just have to believe in God), but following Christ will cost us our lives as we let Christ be the lord of our lives.
We should be whole labourers in Christ and not consumers, we should have an urgency to serve God. In conclusion, we should serve God wholeheartedly TODAY and NOT tomorrow and most importantly we should live our life for Christ!!!! 🙂
Liberty in Christ
Christ broke us away from the bondage of sin. We cannot continue to live in the world of sin. If we continue to feed our flesh, it will have control over us. Christ has made all things including ourselves. We are created by God and for God, and we have to change if we are to glorify God. Hence, what do we do with neutral activities? Ask yourself these questions:
1. What am I doing this thing for? What is the end motive?
2. If that thing is removed from you, what would your reaction be?
3. Do you spend more time on it than the Word of God?
4. Are you an expert on that thing or the Word of God?
5. How much money have you spent on that thing?
6. Have you skipped church before because of that thing?
We are free from sin but we are still enslaved to Christ. Hence, we should live our lives for Christ!
How to be after God’s heart?
1. We must have a converted heart. There should be a change in us, converted people: we should turn away from sin and delight in the Word of God.
2. We must have a Spirit-filled heart. Romans 8:9 says that we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit and if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.
3. We must have a devoted heart like David. David said before that God is his light and salvation. In Psalms 71:5, David also said that God is his hope. David spent time with God and has solitude with Christ.
David was a good shepherd who risked his life for a few sheep. The pastor then asked a question that led me to think: “If we are not faithful in the small things, how can God then entrust us with bigger things?” It is the faithfulness of us taking the small steps that leads us to the large things.
Is there not a cause to serve God? To commit to Church? To take up challenges in ministry? And to do what other people are afraid to do? Just like David was willing to battle Goliath, whom even the soldiers were afraid to fight?
David stood up for the cause and there is opposition: Goliath is standing in the way and Saul tells David that as good as his intention are, he is too young and he cannot win. Remember always that hard choices may not be the wrong ones. David became a king from nobody as he was faithful in the small things. The faith in David is what we need and I pray that God will make all of us faithful Christians.
Consecration of self
Isaiah 6:1 talked about how holy God is while Isaiah 6:5 shows it was during this time that Isaiah was at his lowest point in life. It is usually when we realize that we are sinners that we go to God. Isaiah’s response in verse 8, showed that he had confessed to God that he is bad but he offered himself to God. We should ask ourselves these questions:
1. Are you sure God is not calling you to serve Him full time?
2. Are you sure God has not given you the desire to preach the gospel?
We Christians are to consecrate ourselves to Christ. In Luke 2:20, the shepherds returned and praised God about what they heard and seen. To what will we return to? What attitude will we return with? And will we return praising God?
In conclusion, I feel that this camp really bonded our churches together. We see people of different characters, some a bit irritating, some very nice. I have many feelings about the camp that even words cannot explain. I really thank God for the messages as it really made me want to surrender my life to Christ and to live for Christ. I pray that all of us Christians can really live our lives for Christ. I thank God for the friends that I have made in the camp. Who knows one day they may be my good friends. I also thank God that this camp was successful and went on smoothly and I really enjoyed myself during the camp. It was really a new experience living in a room with funny (and interesting) roommates. I really cannot wait for the camps next year! Thank God once again that I could attend both camps and grow in my walk in Him.
Samuel Lim – Life BPC
I have been blessed with many godly friends and godly experiences during the camp. It is my first camp despite being with Life-BP church for more than half of my life. I realised that I have missed out on so many opportunities to foster the precious relationship I have with God as well as with Christian friends.
I had been asked several times to attend the previous YF camps, but only to reject the offer with the usual excuses I made. This time, it seems like God has spoken to me once again, when asked again if I would like to go for this camp. I asked myself this: have I been walking diligently with God? Have I really gone all out to do something out of my comfort zone? Therefore despite having exams and being close to the dateline of assignments to hand in, I decided to trust in God’s grace, that he will guide me along, that I will go for this church camp with a heart after God’s heart.
Indeed God has never failed me. He has given me comfort, away from the things of the world during this period. The event gave me a sense of serenity and rejuvenation. I feel really happy just to be part of it. The theme of the camp is “The Lordship of Christ”. I have learnt that accepting Jesus as your Saviour is not sufficient. To have Christ as Lord over our lives and salvation works both ways. It has served as a reminder to me that I not only have to believe in Jesus Christ as my Saviour but also to be the biggest influence in the things I decide and do.
God has placed me in many difficult times which I overcame by his grace and mercy. However, when faced with difficult trials of life, I tend to forget that God is with me all this time. Hence, during the process of doing, I am not able to find the peace, even though I have finished what I have started. I praised God for all the good things that happen to me, but not the bad ones. This camp has reminded me of the power of prayer (Matthew 7:7-8). God has never forsaken me, but it was I who have forsaken him when times are bad. I realised where I have gone wrong!
God is always faithful and unfailing. I have not been faithful, and have failed him many times. But this time, I will make an effort to live a godly life (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12) and to have faith (Hebrew 11:1) and praise him for the good times and the bad times. I truly benefited from this camp. God willing, may he use my gifts to serve him in ministries he placed me in.
Ong Zhong Liang – Life BPC
I thank God for granting me the opportunity to attend the inaugural Combined BP Youth Camp. While we have been blessed with combined youth conferences in previous years, there was a persistent shortage of fellowship time, hence this opportunity to bond with fellow youths of like-minded, precious faith at a combined camp was eagerly awaited. Together with the time of fellowship, I found the theme – the Lordship of Christ – to be a much needed challenge to the way I was living out my spiritual life.
Having grown up within the church, much of the doctrines from the Word of God was familiar to me. Yet the messages reminded me that God is not glorified by mere intellectual acknowledgement of his words but through effective Christian living. While I might have had reason to believe I was doing so by serving God diligently over the years, I was powerfully rebuked by the reminder that acts of service alone did not constitute submission to God as the Lord of my life. Indeed there were many areas of my life that I had compartmentalized instead of yielding to God’s control. In fact, through certain seasons, I had found myself serving with my own strength, and growing frustrated or waning in my area of service.
It was of God’s providence then, that some of the lessons in camp were a timely addressing of the issues in my life.
1. Re-energized through fellowship with God.
Instead of serving with his own strength, David cultivated a close walk with Christ by consistently spending much time in solitude with God from his youth, so that he was able to claim in Psalms 71:5, “thou art my hope, O Lord GOD: thou art my trust from my youth.” Seeing this example of how God was able to steadily mould a young David to accomplish great things for him caused me to re-examine my motives for serving God and resolve to serve him out of a fully surrendered heart. A noteworthy point in a later message shows how even lowly shepherds, when they met the infant Jesus, returned home transformed. Even as I looked to God as the source of strength to serve him, this was a reminder of the power of his word to transform lives and sustain ministries – as Rev. Isaac extended the point to show how pastors were able to repeatedly cover the same passages and come up with new points.
2. Seeking God for direction amidst major life decisions
In recent months, I have found myself seeking direction in various aspects of life in areas such as my career and professional development. However this camp reminded me of the even greater importance to seek God’s direction in my spiritual life and service. Hearing the illustration of Isaiah responding to God’s call of “whom shall I send” made me realize that I had not paid much attention to availing myself to be used of God for his glory, other than in lending technical expertise in areas such as website development and photography on an ad-hoc basis. Linked to this was the challenge to not settle for low expectations, as the Israelites did in cowering in the face of Goliath, but to accept the toughest causes for God in faith. Equally important was the need to prepare myself to meet the challenges as David did by being faithful in small things. This stood out to me, because I had fallen for the worldly interpretation of regarding seeking the things of the Lord, instead of a high-profile career, as a lowering of expectations.
While these observations highlighted are not new, the extended time of messages and discussion with youths at similar phases of life helped to flesh out the implications of our themes in our lives, and to unite the various sub-themes in a manner that encompassed what I needed to live a victorious, Christ-centered life for Christ. One especially common point was the need to be consistent in our spiritual walk and service and that’s something I resolve and pray to work towards to in 2015.