June 27, 2014
For Immediate Release

 

About 550 students with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes State Leadership Camp met in Ransdell Chapel for worship. (Campbellsville University Photo by Bethany Thomaston)

By Joan C. McKinney, news and publications coordinator

CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. - Fifty-three Bibles have been handled out this summer to campers at Campbellsville University. Rusty Watkins is proud of that.

Watkins, who's worked with summer camps at CU for 13 years, said each young person who is saved while at camp gets a Bible with a camp worker's name in it. Fifty-three students have received the Bibles in the first three and a half weeks of camp, with 3,600 campers, out of approximately 7,000 who will be on campus this summer.

Rusty Watkins, left, coordinator of summer camps and conferences, talks with Steve Wigginton, director of Fellowship of Christian Athletes Louisville area, at Campbellsville University's Ransdell Chapel. (Campbellsville University Photo by Bethany Thomaston)

Campbellsville University hosts several different summer camps that range from basketball, wrestling, softball and football to CentriKids, Kids College, the Kentucky Police Academy, Kentucky Deaf Conference, Fellowship of Christian Athletes Leadership Camp and Kentucky Baptist All-State Youth Choir and Orchestra.

“I really enjoy the ministry aspect of the camps,” Watkins said. “I love to meet new people and provide a way for churches to share ideas and communicate with other churches.”

He said he loves communicating with different churches and seeing how they reach out to the children.

“We are creating an atmosphere on campus and changing the lives of the kids who come,” he said.

Watkins said CentriKid is the biggest camp on campus. CentriKid is a sports ministry camp for students who have completed third grade through sixth grade. CentriKid is run by LifeWay Christian Resources affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

About 4,500 students with LifeWay's CentriKid camps will be on the Campbellsville University campus this summer. This is a recent group. (Campbellsville University Photo by Bethany Thomaston)

There are eight different sessions of CentriKid with several states sending about 4,500 students to camp at CU.

“CentriKid has been coming to this campus for around eight summers to spread their love of Christ through the lives of young children,” he said.

Organizations will often recruit students to be a part of their camp and then they will bring them to CU to actually be at the camp and spend some time outdoors having fun with new people.

Watkins said CU uses this as a recruiting method “because no matter how young the children are, they will always remember how much fun they had at camp and if they liked it or not. This will make the kids want to come back and possibly come to CU as a student in college.”

Watkins said many of the people who participate in these camps on the Campbellsville University campus have a lot of positive feedback about the university itself.

He said, “They like the location and the close proximity of all the buildings, they love how beautiful all the landscaping is and all of the options that are provided in the dining hall.”

Campbellsville University is a widely acclaimed Kentucky-based Christian university with more than 3,600 students offering 63 undergraduate options, 17 master's degrees, five postgraduate areas and eight pre-professional programs. The website for complete information is campbellsville.edu.

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