Maya Bradley from Baptist Youth Ministries (BYM) chats with Blue Bradley, Director of Northern Easter Camp, about how we can support Easter Camps—one of the most pivotal moments in the year for youth ministries.
Blue shares how things are shaping up for camp this year, the impact on young people, and the practical ways we can help. He encourages us to wrap our Easter Camps in prayer, trusting God will move powerfully in the lives of our youth.
Find out more about various Easter Camps here…
Watch the video of this chat – see the transcript below
Maya: Kia ora, I'm Maya from BYM, Baptist Youth Ministries, and I'm here with Blue Bradley. Blue, we know that camp is coming up real soon in just a few weeks. So, can you tell us how are things shaping up for camp this year?
Blue: I can only talk for Northern, but it's fantastic, Central Easter Camp are joining us again this year and things are going really well with registrations coming in good, the crew is working really hard planning a whole lot of things that are going to be really fun. But the thing about camp is that we can never really determine what's going to happen because we don't know what God's going to do. So, we're always looking forward to our humble offerings and seeing what God will do with that in the lives of young people.
Maya: That's awesome. And I know for Northern Easter Camp it's a big deal to organise. It's a beast, you could say. How can we help? How are your teams? How's everything going in that space?
Blue: Well, I think I could speak for any camps around. Easter is a time that lots of camps happen, whether it's in the South Island or the North Island. And these camps don't just happen because we're good at running camps. These camps happen at the generosity of so many volunteers. There are so many things to get done. And the more people that we have to actually help, the more we can provide an amazing space of welcome for kids. And so, if you've got nothing to do at Easter, or if you think that maybe you could help, you might be thinking, ‘I'm a builder or I can help in the kitchen, or I'm a doctor, I'm a nurse, I'm a councillor.’ We always need these people to help keep our kids safe and to give them a great time. Maybe you can consider joining one of the Easter camps in your region.
Maya: I know for myself, I’ve been in youth ministry for a few years now and I hear incredible stories that come out of Easter, Easter camps, but just Easter in general. Can you tell us what does Easter camp do for a young person? What's so important about Easter camp?
Blue: In New Zealand, it's kind of like a rite of passage in our faith sometimes we see it in the testimonies and baptisms. Often Easter camp is a massive event in the life of a young person to come to know Jesus in a deeper way or even to come to know Jesus at all. And it's not just the big Easter Camps that do this, it’s many Easter camps around the country. God is working powerfully in the lives of our young people. Encountering Jesus through the incredible story of Easter, well, that's why I do it. It's pretty incredible.
Maya: I'm gonna try to think a bit practically here. What are two things that we can do as the Baptist movement to support you and your crew at Easter Camp? What are two practical things?
Blue: I would say first and foremostly, get behind your youth group. Get behind your youth group’s camp. Help get kids to camp, and it's often financially difficult for families and kids to access camp, so get behind them. But more than just finances, get behind them in prayer, help support and encourage your youth pastors. They need it. It's really hard to get and organise a whole bunch of kids to get to a camp. So firstly, get behind your local camp, your local youth group.
Secondly, and in particular, if you're a Baptist, you know, you own these camps right? We do this on behalf of the family. Get along, get your church to support it. Maybe there's something that your church could contribute in terms of manpower or taking on an area of camp, but if there's a camp local near you, pray for them.
The biggest thing that I'm asking from this is to wrap our Easter camps in prayer. As your churches commit to it, it might mean downloading the programme, getting one from your youth group leaders, whatever the programme is for the camp that your kids are going to, pray for them, pray for what is happening, pray for the leadership. Pray for the Spirit of God to move in the lives of young people, drawing our young people closer to Him. Pray for safety. Engage with prayer for the whole of the camps in your region. That’s the biggest thing. We don't know what God's gonna do, but the power of prayer is vital to the success of Easter camps. So please pray for us.
Maya: Any final things that you want to say to our Baptist whānau?
Blue: I was at a church recently where an elderly gentleman got up on stage and he said, “I gave my life to Jesus at an Easter camp 70 years ago.” And I thought, wow, we have such a rich tradition of Easter camps in the Baptist movement. Let's honour that. Let's cherish that precious gift that we have as a denomination and get behind it. These camps don't just happen by themselves. They need all our support, all our encouragement and all our prayer.
Get behind it.
Maya: Yeah. That's awesome. And if you want to help in other ways, you can always get in touch with us at BYM or to Easter camps directly. Because we're here to really support what's going on at Easter with these young people. It's really important to our movement. So, we thank you for the work that you do Blue and for all those other Easter Camp leaders. We think of E-Camp, Southern Easter Camp, and all the smaller camps across the country. It's really special. So, keep in touch. We'll see you soon.
Image: screenshot from video interview
