By Shelby Peck | Copy Editor
After a successful first camping trip in October, Kamp Love at Baylor is seeking to expand its ministry by combining love for the gospel with love for the outdoors — all for the greater purpose of cultivating campus unity and lifting up the name of Jesus.
Kamp Love, a student-led ministry that seeks to reach college campuses through weekend camping trips, began five years ago at Grand Canyon University and has since spread to Auburn University, Point Loma Nazarene University, Cedarville University and Baylor.
“It started with a group of friends that went camping just for the purpose of building unity and friendship and getting closer to God,” San Diego junior Zach Shields said.
Shields said Austin Rockwell, a good friend who founded the original Kamp Love at Grand Canyon University, called him earlier this fall to see if Kamp Love was something from which Baylor could benefit.
“I prayed about it and just felt some clarity and confidence that this is meant to be, and so then said yes and just walked in obedience to see where God is leading,” Shields said.
In September, Shields began forming a team to carry out the mission of Kamp Love at Baylor. Saint Thomas, Penn., junior Meredith Iverson said when Shields reached out to her, she had no idea what Kamp Love was, and she had to wrestle with her “yes.”
“I was like, ‘OK, we’re just trying to work to put something that’s beneficial out, and so it definitely takes a lot of communication at meetings and also just trusting one another, that other teams are going to do what they’re saying they’re going to do,’” Iverson said. “It’s been a great and just a perfect picture of saying yes to the Lord.”
Kamp Love leadership planned for October’s camp by arranging games, speakers, food, small groups and times of connection, but Iverson said the overall simplicity of Kamp Love is what contributes to its ultimate success.
“The simplicity of Kamp Love is that it’s a 24-hour camping trip, and so everyone’s an adult and everyone can care for themselves, but we provided food and we provided the space,” Shields said. “We made sure everyone was fully taken care of, but at the same time, the planning that took place more was geared toward [finding] a camping location — which there was so much provision and God provided in just unbelievable ways.”
Shields said the purpose of October’s camp was to create deeper unity within the student body while activating people in their faith to live in “authentic Christianity.” There was a gospel presentation, commissioning and breakout groups in which students were able to reflect and “wrestle with the hard questions.”
“There’s been follow-up within each small group of regathering, but the follow-up really — and this is kind of the purpose of Kamp Love — is for students who are not serving the local body … [to] get plugged into the local church and let that be your vessel,” Shields said. “Kamp Love is simply just a one-time-a-semester camping trip, and the movement happens through the local church.”
Shields said Kamp Love plans to return next semester to help students grow deeper in community, create new connections and get closer to God.
“We are looking to have a spring camp, and we are going to be partnering with a local church, and that’s going to be an extra night,” Shields said. “Instead of tent camping, it will be more of a retreat style, just because of the weather and because it’s an extra night. We will have a greater depth of content. We’re going to have workshops and breakouts, but also the same camp feels.”
Iverson said at Baylor, it can be easy to assume that people know the gospel or that just because they know the gospel, they believe it. She said the hope of Kamp Love is to go deeper in conversations.
“The large majority of college students are plagued by anxiety and just burdens of school, and the simplicity of camping is that you truly do just get to step away and retreat and get to be renewed,” Iverson said. “Yes, there can be a fear in saying ‘yes’ to a camping trip when you don’t know who all is going to be there and you don’t know even what we’re doing, but it’s also letting go of that and that ‘I don’t have to be in control of everything.’”
As with anything else, Iverson said Kamp Love leadership is maintaining a focus on prayer and God’s Word.
“The best outcome of this is it’s not about who runs Kamp Love at all,” Iverson said. “We’re building the kingdom of heaven; we’re not building Baylor or the kingdom of self. We love Jesus so much, and we want people to experience that.”
