IMPACT provides out of this world experience for teens
Janel Shoun-Smith |
IMPACT campers bring joy and enthusiasm to campus in June
IMPACT 2015 was out of this world with a sci-fi space theme that highlighted the lessons of I Corinthians 13 for almost 3,000 teenagers who descended on the Lipscomb campus for this year’s spiritual summer camp.
Allen Arena was decorated from top to bottom with a downed space ship and a futuristic research lab, the setting for this year’s annual IMPACT skit titled “Abandoned.”
Coordinated by Lipscomb’s Office of Spiritual Outreach and a committee of local youth ministers, IMPACT is an annual spiritually focused summer camp for teens in sixth through 12th grade. The camp includes dynamic praise and worship along with special interactive Bible classes taught by youth ministers and national keynote speakers. Teens hear challenging messages and enjoy special times of worship, concerts and activities.
Activities include a talent show, karaoke, games and sports and Morning IMPACT, a high-spirited pep rally in the arena every morning combining crazy videos, popular music, outlandish games and the elaborate skit to get the camper’s blood pumping and their hearts open.
The goal is to provide teens with a four-day experience that will have a real impact on their spiritual lives.
Kara Deason, a University of Tennessee student from McMinnville, Tenn., was a longtime IMPACT camper and is serving as a counselor this year.
“I love how all the students come here with one another and are united,” she said. “They can all worship in one community.” The nightly worship sessions are her favorite part of IMPACT, she said. “Here, you give it your all and you don’t think twice about it. It’s just between you and God.”
IMPACT also includes a healthy dose of service. This year the camp continued its tradition of collecting money for Best Buddies and overseas missions, as well as coordinating a special experience for some local at-risk kids.
See a video and details of the RBI surprise flash mob here.
IMPACT teamed up with Nashville’s Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities to give two inner city youth baseball teams a big game experience they won’t soon forget. On June 25 the kids took the field at Draper Diamond on the Lipscomb campus to prepare for what they thought was merely an opportunity to play a game on a college field.
What they didn’t know was that IMPACT campers had been making signs, finding clothes in team colors and coming up with cheers for the game to flash mob Smith Stadium and give the baseball players the experience of playing in the big leagues.
Once the teams finished warm-ups, the stands began to fill with nearly 2,000 excited “fans” who entered the stadium cheering for the teams. The game had the complete ball park atmosphere with music, a scoreboard and an announcer.
“This is an amazing opportunity for these players that they rarely get to experience,” said Daryl Robertson, director of RBI, an initiative of Major League Baseball that provides inner city children the opportunity to play organized baseball. “This experience far exceeds what they expected today. It’s such a big surprise.”
IMPACT’s tradition of service began by providing a similar surprise fan mob for RBI in 2009. Since then the campers have provided money or service for Nashville flood victims, African humanitarian projects, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Exile International, Made in the Streets, Run4Water and more.