Jason Janz
May 11th, 2005, 10:13 PM
Jason Janz – On our Sharper Iron blog, I posted these results from the survey that we did of young fundamentalists. About eleven hundred people took the survey. And when I posted it several comments where made. And I’ll read one of the comments, and I’d like your response. This person said, “Of my camp experiences, I was generally satisfied with the full-time camp staff and their grasp of the Word. Looking back at those times I’m disappointed with the way some of the evangelists handled the Word. The model was largely decisionistic and sometimes manipulative.” How would you respond to that statement?
Matt Herbster – Well, I think first of all, it’s a pretty general statement. And I think – I don’t know who made that statement, but I think probably if I had a chance to talk to him individually, it would probably – it probably wouldn’t be as broad brushed as it sounds there. However – however, when a preacher stands before that many teenagers, teenagers who are deceived, teenagers who are distracted, and who are faced with all the – and I think Rand just said it – “sin is just not that big of a deal anymore.” Kids don’t get it. Our Christian culture right now, not just secular culture – our Christian culture tells them, “Sin is not that big of a deal.” And so the passion sometimes to convince these kids through Scripture and through illustration is “kids, you’ve got to understand what this is doing to you; you're not getting it.” And I think that can sometimes be misconstrued as manipulation. But can you find words in Scripture like “compel,” “convince,” “persuade.” And we want Christ-centered preaching. And it’s got to be God-centered.
JJ – You know – I mean based on this here – have you guys throughout – I mean Rand, you’ve been twenty five years. Have you ever seen, I’m not asking you to name names, speakers step over the line? Have you guys gotten together in your administrative council and talked through this? Do you guys see the concerns?
Rand Hummel – No question. And at my age now, for many of the speakers, I’ll just go to them in a very loving, kind way, and say, “Hey, let’s talk about this and this – what you did or what you said.” And the idea where if your heart is troubled, you know, we always share it. Now obviously I’m going to put up my protective umbrella – go to Ken Collier, go to Dr. Hay. And any issue that has ever come to light that I know of, I know Dr. Hay has confronted. Now sometimes, there’ll be individuals who as you’ll put it “agree to disagree agreeably.” And maybe don’t look at it the same way, but we do even have the right – there are some speakers or certain messages we’ve asked them not to preach at THE WILDS.
JJ – So the concerns that people addressed, they’re on your radar? And you guys do…
RH – Oh, yeah. Yeah.
MH – One of the funniest things too, Jason, is that – matter of fact we have a brain-burning time every year with our program staff. We lock up for a week and plan the next year’s activities, and this came up this year. It was very interesting even amongst the guys there – Rand and I were both there, Ken Collier, other guys who do the preaching – from different backgrounds. Things that bothered some of us, I mean, who are all on the same page – that bothered some of us and didn't bother others. And something if it bothered somebody else, we’d be like “Oh, now that didn’t…” I had a conversation with a guy recently that – he was concerned with what we're talking about here with the invitation. And then I heard him in another situation talking about an invitation practice that he uses that really bothers me. You know? And so I thought let’s keep balanced here. Let’s give some people some room for us to agree to disagree on some of these things. And that’s again – well Rand mentioned, we’ve got ten weeks – as a pastor, youth pastor you prepare your young people. You know what they best understand, and they can choose accordingly.
RH – Let me real quickly say one thing about decisions.
JJ – Yeah. I was going to ask you, what is meant by the phrase “making a decision”?
RH – Well that’s where I think there’s some of the problem. Because some say you make a decision and everything is over. Or I make a decision. I will never sin again. Yes you will – if it’s not in Christ’s strength and the power of His might. We’re gonna fall and fall. “Though a just man falls seven times, he will rise up again.” The concept is a decision means “now I’m ready to listen to God.” When a kid has been just obnoxious to a brother or sister and God convicts him about being kind, tenderhearted, a decision – I say this every Friday night – “You make a decision. That means when you go home, the next time you are tempted to be obnoxious, next time you’re tempted to be involved in reading, watching, thinking, saying, anything you know displeases God, you have already decided. ‘I want to follow Christ.’ And you’re going to depend on Him to do what is right. We close every fireside service talking about the fire. There’s only two ways you can put it out. You can smother it with a bucket of water or a blanket, or you can starve it. And I say if you go back to your same sinful habits, it’s like a bucket of water. You put that zeal in your heart, the fervancy to serve God – out quickly. But if you starve it – if you’re not in church, not in the Word of God – it’s not the decision. It’s just I forget the spiritual disciplines of life, and any of us are going to grow cold after that. And so a decision means “now I’m ready to listen to God.”
JJ – So mainly the time where you guys talk about making a decision is usually the invitation time. And we’ve touched on that. But in the survey, three-fourths of the guys who are in ministry mentioned that they have concerns with how camp invitations are handled. Do you guys have a philosophy of invitations? And why do you have a “come forward” invitation? Because you think of the – people reflect back to the revivalism era with Finney, and he’s become the whipping boy now. And now there’s a strong reaction against even using them at all.
MH – Right.
JJ – You guys are kinda caught in the crossfire here.
MH – I think that what your last statement there is very accurate. There’s a strong reaction against invitation at all whether it be camp or whether it be in a local church. I put – when I give an invitation as a preacher, I look at it as an opportunity for a young person to acknowledge their sin. Matter of fact I tell them, I say when you have them raise their hand – matter of fact this is one of the jokes on the blog, and I thought it was funny – “Raise your hand if you’ve ever beaten your wife. Raise your hand if…” And we joke about that one. I ask a teenager to raise their hand so that they are acknowledging, “Yep, that’s me.” It’s one thing to hear and go, “Okay, okay.” But now I’m at least saying, “Yep, that’s me.” I don’t do it to count. I don’t do it even necessarily to pray. Now I will pray for them, but...
JJ – You know, it always seemed to me like a bait and switch. “Raise your hand. I wanna pray for you.” And I…
MH – Right.
JJ – And maybe it was because I was a youngster wanting to be a preacher and I thought “Oh, he’s doing this just so he can see if his message hit home.”
MH – Yeah, yeah. And you know what? Sometimes there’s an element of that. But that’s just not why I do it. I do it – okay. Psalm 51:3, “I acknowledge my sin.” “Yep, that’s me.” Also it’s an opportunity for them to be renewed in their mind. It’s another opportunity for them to be renewed day by day. I love – our director has put together a whole thing on counseling and how you look at the fruit but we need to get to the root. What is the root problem? And the way we have the opportunity to get to that root problem at THE WILDS is they respond to an invitation, they meet the counselor, and they go now and are talking one on one with that counselor who has been trained very specifically at how to get to that root.
JJ – So how do you train your counselors? Regarding follow-ups and invitations?
MH – We – Ken Collier our director has developed a thing he’s called “The Tree.” And I’ll kinda just explain it here – that the fruit’s gonna be your music issue, fruit’s gonna be my anger, fruit’s gonna be an angry tongue, fruit’s gonna be bad television viewing habits –some general things. And now – okay – why are they doing that? Let’s go from the fruit up here and let’s get to the root of what the problem is. And we do case studies. How do you ask questions? Where do you go to? What Scriptures do you take them to? And asking them the penetrating questions – not just – okay, you struggle with TV, so don’t watch it any more. Well, you know, you’ve got a lust problem. You know, you’ve got a selfishness problem. What’s your time in the Word like? And pointing them back to the Word of God and back to their local church, and emphasizing you’ve got to be in God’s Word – that’s where the power comes.
RH – Also, in the invitations, and because, again, Matt and I do most of the speaking during the nine months – I’m not good at invitations. And I just set as a practice, partly because of the accusation of manipulation in this type ministry, I explain the invitation. I tell the teens, “I’m going to do two things for you. I’m going to pray for you. I really am. I’m going to talk to God and ask Him to get the courage in your heart. And then I’m going to ask you to talk to God.” And I explain that when the piano begins. I’ve never said one more word. I’ve never said, “More of you need to come. Okay, a few more now.” I’ve never done that personally. And then some will say, “Well, Rand, why do you have an invitation?” Well James says that straightway after you look into the perfect law of liberty, after you look into the Word of God, straightway he forgetteth what manner of man he is. And I know for a fourteen year old kid a distraction of a girl or a foosball table can literally stop him from thinking about that change that the Spirit of God is working in his heart. So if I can get him for just five or ten minutes with a counselor in a quiet place to retalk through that, give him a couple passages of Scripture – you need to talk to your mom or dad about this, get with your youth pastor – it solidifies the decision. For a teenager to kneel at their chair – and a lot of my invitations are “just turn around and kneel at your chair.” Why? It shows God that I’m not afraid of what my friends are gonna say. I’m serious about this decision. “Lord, I’m going to humble myself before You.” And we’d better be doing that in our personal study in the morning. Daily, we should humble ourselves before God. Why do we get on our knees to pray? That’s just a heart attitude, you know. And that’s part of the reason that I do – at the camp setting – when I’m in the churches, personally I’ll turn most over to the pastor. Because he wants – and some will say, “No, no, no, no, Rand. You do it.” But I’ll – that’s what I’ll normally do.
MH – One other thing. I just kinda put a statement together about what our purpose in the invitation is. I just said – put it this way – “The whole purpose of our invitation is not that the camper has some nebulous emotional experience, but that campers are put into contact with someone who can help them think these issues through biblically while they are contemplating life changes in those areas.” And so, it’s kinda exactly what Rand was saying with the immediate – God’s working in their heart. And, okay. Let’s now show you some solidification to this. Let’s show you how you can continue in this as you go home, and how you can make wise choices so that you’re not back in this trap tomorrow or next week.
JJ – Yeah. You would say too that – a while ago we were talking in the context of teenagers, but adults you would handle probably a lot differently.
MH – Right, right.
JJ – And I’ve been to the youth pastor’s conferences, and I never went and saw a counselor. I probably should have…
RH – Actually even the couples retreats we don’t, hardly ever do we do come forward invitations. We tell them, “If you need to talk to us, we’re here.” We hang out in the back, and we’re there for them.
JJ – Now, it seems like another hit you guys take is the whole camp decision type idea. And it may be unfair, but why don’t you address the camp decision. Why does it happen? What do you guys do to prevent that decision made at camp from falling away?
RH – I’ll share one thing with you, and then we’ll go to Matt. It’s always interesting. I get a lot of emails from a lot of teens. “While I was at camp, I was so close to the Lord. And I was doing so well.” And some are staff. Especially about the middle of September/October, they’ll email and say, “Rand, I lost it. I was so close to the Lord. What happened?” Well, a lot of it is focus. When you’re at camp, you’re focused on the preaching of the Word of God and on other people – especially the counselors. Hearing the preaching, focusing on the campers. Now I don’t mean this in a funny way, but there’s not time to sin. You know? You are so busy focusing on God and others – God and others. You get back to school, get back home, you’re total focus is back on self – my grades, my looks, does he like me, does she like me. And your focus goes off of God. Devotions start to die because I have too many other things that I need to do. And it’s not the camp decision; it’s the biblical focus of life. It is easier to walk with God when you are forced to focus on God and others then it is when you have the free time to focus on yourself. That takes a lot of spiritual discipline.
JJ – I always felt that, you know, it’s almost somewhat unfair. You know, there’s a kid that doesn’t read his Bible all year long. And then comes to camp and has five weeks of devotions, hears some great preaching – to think that he’s going to go back and automatically get this character fix. You know? It’s still a daily discipline of being in the Word of God and being surrendered. And that’s maybe where I’ve felt camp’s taken an unjust hit. That maybe guys expect too much of camp.
MH – Right. I had a youth pastor just this last week talk to me about this. And he just kind of unsolicited just said to me, “Matt, I just want you to know that if they’re struggling once they get back home, it’s not your fault. It’s my fault. I’ve got them fifty one weeks out of the year. They’re with us fifty one weeks out of the year. You guys have them for a week. So the hit needs to come back to us as the local church.” And the point is not where does the hit go…
JJ – Right. We’re all on the same team.
MH – Yeah. Exactly right. The point is we want to point them back to Christ. We want to point them to the Word, and we want to point them back to their church. And give the church the opportunity. Why do we have them fill out a decision slip? ‘Cause we hand the decision slips to the youth pastor as they leave, and say, “Here’s what God has dealt with your teenagers about this week. Here – so you can continue to be an encouragement to them.” Why does Rand write six week Bible study guides? So we can have tools for the youth pastor to put in the hands of his teenagers, so they can be in the Word of God. It’s a – camp is a tool. And we want to be a help to these youth pastors and pastors and their churches.
Matt Herbster – Well, I think first of all, it’s a pretty general statement. And I think – I don’t know who made that statement, but I think probably if I had a chance to talk to him individually, it would probably – it probably wouldn’t be as broad brushed as it sounds there. However – however, when a preacher stands before that many teenagers, teenagers who are deceived, teenagers who are distracted, and who are faced with all the – and I think Rand just said it – “sin is just not that big of a deal anymore.” Kids don’t get it. Our Christian culture right now, not just secular culture – our Christian culture tells them, “Sin is not that big of a deal.” And so the passion sometimes to convince these kids through Scripture and through illustration is “kids, you’ve got to understand what this is doing to you; you're not getting it.” And I think that can sometimes be misconstrued as manipulation. But can you find words in Scripture like “compel,” “convince,” “persuade.” And we want Christ-centered preaching. And it’s got to be God-centered.
JJ – You know – I mean based on this here – have you guys throughout – I mean Rand, you’ve been twenty five years. Have you ever seen, I’m not asking you to name names, speakers step over the line? Have you guys gotten together in your administrative council and talked through this? Do you guys see the concerns?
Rand Hummel – No question. And at my age now, for many of the speakers, I’ll just go to them in a very loving, kind way, and say, “Hey, let’s talk about this and this – what you did or what you said.” And the idea where if your heart is troubled, you know, we always share it. Now obviously I’m going to put up my protective umbrella – go to Ken Collier, go to Dr. Hay. And any issue that has ever come to light that I know of, I know Dr. Hay has confronted. Now sometimes, there’ll be individuals who as you’ll put it “agree to disagree agreeably.” And maybe don’t look at it the same way, but we do even have the right – there are some speakers or certain messages we’ve asked them not to preach at THE WILDS.
JJ – So the concerns that people addressed, they’re on your radar? And you guys do…
RH – Oh, yeah. Yeah.
MH – One of the funniest things too, Jason, is that – matter of fact we have a brain-burning time every year with our program staff. We lock up for a week and plan the next year’s activities, and this came up this year. It was very interesting even amongst the guys there – Rand and I were both there, Ken Collier, other guys who do the preaching – from different backgrounds. Things that bothered some of us, I mean, who are all on the same page – that bothered some of us and didn't bother others. And something if it bothered somebody else, we’d be like “Oh, now that didn’t…” I had a conversation with a guy recently that – he was concerned with what we're talking about here with the invitation. And then I heard him in another situation talking about an invitation practice that he uses that really bothers me. You know? And so I thought let’s keep balanced here. Let’s give some people some room for us to agree to disagree on some of these things. And that’s again – well Rand mentioned, we’ve got ten weeks – as a pastor, youth pastor you prepare your young people. You know what they best understand, and they can choose accordingly.
RH – Let me real quickly say one thing about decisions.
JJ – Yeah. I was going to ask you, what is meant by the phrase “making a decision”?
RH – Well that’s where I think there’s some of the problem. Because some say you make a decision and everything is over. Or I make a decision. I will never sin again. Yes you will – if it’s not in Christ’s strength and the power of His might. We’re gonna fall and fall. “Though a just man falls seven times, he will rise up again.” The concept is a decision means “now I’m ready to listen to God.” When a kid has been just obnoxious to a brother or sister and God convicts him about being kind, tenderhearted, a decision – I say this every Friday night – “You make a decision. That means when you go home, the next time you are tempted to be obnoxious, next time you’re tempted to be involved in reading, watching, thinking, saying, anything you know displeases God, you have already decided. ‘I want to follow Christ.’ And you’re going to depend on Him to do what is right. We close every fireside service talking about the fire. There’s only two ways you can put it out. You can smother it with a bucket of water or a blanket, or you can starve it. And I say if you go back to your same sinful habits, it’s like a bucket of water. You put that zeal in your heart, the fervancy to serve God – out quickly. But if you starve it – if you’re not in church, not in the Word of God – it’s not the decision. It’s just I forget the spiritual disciplines of life, and any of us are going to grow cold after that. And so a decision means “now I’m ready to listen to God.”
JJ – So mainly the time where you guys talk about making a decision is usually the invitation time. And we’ve touched on that. But in the survey, three-fourths of the guys who are in ministry mentioned that they have concerns with how camp invitations are handled. Do you guys have a philosophy of invitations? And why do you have a “come forward” invitation? Because you think of the – people reflect back to the revivalism era with Finney, and he’s become the whipping boy now. And now there’s a strong reaction against even using them at all.
MH – Right.
JJ – You guys are kinda caught in the crossfire here.
MH – I think that what your last statement there is very accurate. There’s a strong reaction against invitation at all whether it be camp or whether it be in a local church. I put – when I give an invitation as a preacher, I look at it as an opportunity for a young person to acknowledge their sin. Matter of fact I tell them, I say when you have them raise their hand – matter of fact this is one of the jokes on the blog, and I thought it was funny – “Raise your hand if you’ve ever beaten your wife. Raise your hand if…” And we joke about that one. I ask a teenager to raise their hand so that they are acknowledging, “Yep, that’s me.” It’s one thing to hear and go, “Okay, okay.” But now I’m at least saying, “Yep, that’s me.” I don’t do it to count. I don’t do it even necessarily to pray. Now I will pray for them, but...
JJ – You know, it always seemed to me like a bait and switch. “Raise your hand. I wanna pray for you.” And I…
MH – Right.
JJ – And maybe it was because I was a youngster wanting to be a preacher and I thought “Oh, he’s doing this just so he can see if his message hit home.”
MH – Yeah, yeah. And you know what? Sometimes there’s an element of that. But that’s just not why I do it. I do it – okay. Psalm 51:3, “I acknowledge my sin.” “Yep, that’s me.” Also it’s an opportunity for them to be renewed in their mind. It’s another opportunity for them to be renewed day by day. I love – our director has put together a whole thing on counseling and how you look at the fruit but we need to get to the root. What is the root problem? And the way we have the opportunity to get to that root problem at THE WILDS is they respond to an invitation, they meet the counselor, and they go now and are talking one on one with that counselor who has been trained very specifically at how to get to that root.
JJ – So how do you train your counselors? Regarding follow-ups and invitations?
MH – We – Ken Collier our director has developed a thing he’s called “The Tree.” And I’ll kinda just explain it here – that the fruit’s gonna be your music issue, fruit’s gonna be my anger, fruit’s gonna be an angry tongue, fruit’s gonna be bad television viewing habits –some general things. And now – okay – why are they doing that? Let’s go from the fruit up here and let’s get to the root of what the problem is. And we do case studies. How do you ask questions? Where do you go to? What Scriptures do you take them to? And asking them the penetrating questions – not just – okay, you struggle with TV, so don’t watch it any more. Well, you know, you’ve got a lust problem. You know, you’ve got a selfishness problem. What’s your time in the Word like? And pointing them back to the Word of God and back to their local church, and emphasizing you’ve got to be in God’s Word – that’s where the power comes.
RH – Also, in the invitations, and because, again, Matt and I do most of the speaking during the nine months – I’m not good at invitations. And I just set as a practice, partly because of the accusation of manipulation in this type ministry, I explain the invitation. I tell the teens, “I’m going to do two things for you. I’m going to pray for you. I really am. I’m going to talk to God and ask Him to get the courage in your heart. And then I’m going to ask you to talk to God.” And I explain that when the piano begins. I’ve never said one more word. I’ve never said, “More of you need to come. Okay, a few more now.” I’ve never done that personally. And then some will say, “Well, Rand, why do you have an invitation?” Well James says that straightway after you look into the perfect law of liberty, after you look into the Word of God, straightway he forgetteth what manner of man he is. And I know for a fourteen year old kid a distraction of a girl or a foosball table can literally stop him from thinking about that change that the Spirit of God is working in his heart. So if I can get him for just five or ten minutes with a counselor in a quiet place to retalk through that, give him a couple passages of Scripture – you need to talk to your mom or dad about this, get with your youth pastor – it solidifies the decision. For a teenager to kneel at their chair – and a lot of my invitations are “just turn around and kneel at your chair.” Why? It shows God that I’m not afraid of what my friends are gonna say. I’m serious about this decision. “Lord, I’m going to humble myself before You.” And we’d better be doing that in our personal study in the morning. Daily, we should humble ourselves before God. Why do we get on our knees to pray? That’s just a heart attitude, you know. And that’s part of the reason that I do – at the camp setting – when I’m in the churches, personally I’ll turn most over to the pastor. Because he wants – and some will say, “No, no, no, no, Rand. You do it.” But I’ll – that’s what I’ll normally do.
MH – One other thing. I just kinda put a statement together about what our purpose in the invitation is. I just said – put it this way – “The whole purpose of our invitation is not that the camper has some nebulous emotional experience, but that campers are put into contact with someone who can help them think these issues through biblically while they are contemplating life changes in those areas.” And so, it’s kinda exactly what Rand was saying with the immediate – God’s working in their heart. And, okay. Let’s now show you some solidification to this. Let’s show you how you can continue in this as you go home, and how you can make wise choices so that you’re not back in this trap tomorrow or next week.
JJ – Yeah. You would say too that – a while ago we were talking in the context of teenagers, but adults you would handle probably a lot differently.
MH – Right, right.
JJ – And I’ve been to the youth pastor’s conferences, and I never went and saw a counselor. I probably should have…
RH – Actually even the couples retreats we don’t, hardly ever do we do come forward invitations. We tell them, “If you need to talk to us, we’re here.” We hang out in the back, and we’re there for them.
JJ – Now, it seems like another hit you guys take is the whole camp decision type idea. And it may be unfair, but why don’t you address the camp decision. Why does it happen? What do you guys do to prevent that decision made at camp from falling away?
RH – I’ll share one thing with you, and then we’ll go to Matt. It’s always interesting. I get a lot of emails from a lot of teens. “While I was at camp, I was so close to the Lord. And I was doing so well.” And some are staff. Especially about the middle of September/October, they’ll email and say, “Rand, I lost it. I was so close to the Lord. What happened?” Well, a lot of it is focus. When you’re at camp, you’re focused on the preaching of the Word of God and on other people – especially the counselors. Hearing the preaching, focusing on the campers. Now I don’t mean this in a funny way, but there’s not time to sin. You know? You are so busy focusing on God and others – God and others. You get back to school, get back home, you’re total focus is back on self – my grades, my looks, does he like me, does she like me. And your focus goes off of God. Devotions start to die because I have too many other things that I need to do. And it’s not the camp decision; it’s the biblical focus of life. It is easier to walk with God when you are forced to focus on God and others then it is when you have the free time to focus on yourself. That takes a lot of spiritual discipline.
JJ – I always felt that, you know, it’s almost somewhat unfair. You know, there’s a kid that doesn’t read his Bible all year long. And then comes to camp and has five weeks of devotions, hears some great preaching – to think that he’s going to go back and automatically get this character fix. You know? It’s still a daily discipline of being in the Word of God and being surrendered. And that’s maybe where I’ve felt camp’s taken an unjust hit. That maybe guys expect too much of camp.
MH – Right. I had a youth pastor just this last week talk to me about this. And he just kind of unsolicited just said to me, “Matt, I just want you to know that if they’re struggling once they get back home, it’s not your fault. It’s my fault. I’ve got them fifty one weeks out of the year. They’re with us fifty one weeks out of the year. You guys have them for a week. So the hit needs to come back to us as the local church.” And the point is not where does the hit go…
JJ – Right. We’re all on the same team.
MH – Yeah. Exactly right. The point is we want to point them back to Christ. We want to point them to the Word, and we want to point them back to their church. And give the church the opportunity. Why do we have them fill out a decision slip? ‘Cause we hand the decision slips to the youth pastor as they leave, and say, “Here’s what God has dealt with your teenagers about this week. Here – so you can continue to be an encouragement to them.” Why does Rand write six week Bible study guides? So we can have tools for the youth pastor to put in the hands of his teenagers, so they can be in the Word of God. It’s a – camp is a tool. And we want to be a help to these youth pastors and pastors and their churches.