Ephesians 3:20-21 reminds us that “God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.” This doxology is a fitting conclusion to Paul’s prayer for strength and understanding for his Ephesian readers. The apostle lived his life with a keen awareness of God’s power, and in this prayer Paul is demonstrating “praying with power,” the theme of this month’s Western Recorder.
Rusty Ellison
Crossings is enjoying an unprecedented season of favor from God. Last year we had record attendance of 16,100 at Jonathan Creek and Cedarmore. Since we started Crossings 20 years ago, we’ve had 163,151 attend Crossings Camps. We’ve had 8,750 cross over from death to life And as I write this, we already have 19,540 pre-registered for summer of 2020!
Only a little more than 20 years ago, many believed that God was through changing lives at our camp and conference centers. Obviously, He wasn’t done! As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of Crossings, we marvel at the numbers. In addition to ever-increasing attendance, our campers have contributed $1,771,406 to global missions causes. Through your support, our camps and our Cooperative Program, we have made more than $19,000,000 in capital improvements at our properties.
So we offer this testimony to God’s power and His capacity to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. And while we celebrate our 20th anniversary with great joy, we are eagerly anticipating what the next 20 years will bring.
We’ve already announced plans for an all-new dedicated Crossings Kids Camp on the Cedar Crest property at Cedarmore. We believe that the challenge and opportunity to reach the young generation of your kids, grandchildren and great-grandchildren is worth the investment of around $10 million. This represents our largest capital project ever. We’d love to visit with any of you who wholeheartedly agree with our plans to do whatever we can to reach the young “Gen Z” as we know them.
In addition to our new Kids Camp which will be built at Cedarmore, we’ve also announced the launch of our new Crossings Kids Day Camp Experience that begins this summer. Our day camp ministry will allow us to take our love for kids and our experience to churches across the state from “Pikeville to Paducah.”
For all of this to continue to happen, I come back to the themeof this month’s edition, “praying with power.” Here’s the truth: some of you will come, and some of you can give to help make all this happen. But all who read this can “pray with power” through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit!
E.M. Bounds wrote that “prayer is a wonderful power placed by God in the hands of his saints, which may be used to accomplish great purposes and to achieve unusual results.”
Pray with this power that God will lead us as we seek to use all our available resources to reach this young generation with the gospel, that hundreds and hundreds will cross over from death to life in the coming months of camp.
I recently spent the morning at First Richmond where the entire morning was built around the need to more effectively reach the young kids. I presented our findings and research and preached the sermon as well. I’m available to come to your church and make the same presentation and I’d be happy to preach as well. As I say, “Have Bible, will travel.”
Thousands of you come to us every summer. Call or email us and we will come to you tomorrow!
Rusty Ellison is vice president of development for Crossings. He can be reached at rellison@gocrossings.org
Rusty Ellison