Anderson University hosted more than a hundred middle and high school students and 20 staff members for Worldview Academy July 2-7.
This is the first time that Anderson University has hosted Worldview Academy’s weeklong camp experience where students learn from faculty from a variety of denominational backgrounds, engage in discussions on cultural topics and practice sharing their faith among people of differing worldviews. Worldview Academy hosts summer camps all across the U.S.
“We travel to different college campuses hosting camps for a week at a time, Sunday to Friday, engaging students in these tough ideas to engage the culture well,” said Camp Director Micah Jordan. “We’re not giving them all the answers of ‘here’s how to have this conversation with this type of belief system or this type of belief system,’ we’re training them to get to the root, the basis of someone’s worldview and then challenge it through the fundamentals of scripture that they’re actually learning about throughout the week.”
During the middle of the week, camp participants traveled to downtown Greenville to share their faith in public.
“That happens on Wednesdays and we notice a big change by Wednesday night because the things they’ve been hearing on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning that can become head knowledge, then sink into their heart, because they’ve looked into the eyes of somebody who they can tell is truly lost and it becomes real and it becomes personal,” said Worldview Academy Ambassador Coordinator Beth Boyum. “Our hope is that through the lectures, through the small groups, through the one-on-one, through being able to sit down if they want with a faculty member and ask the hard questions over a meal that by the time they leave, they’re stronger in their faith, they are owning their faith more, and they’re more ready to go out and engage folks in their sphere of influence with the hope of Christ.”
Having watched his father, Paul Jordan, serving as a Worldview Academy faculty member, Micah Jordan has spent most of his life seeing lives impacted by the camp, which focuses on evangelism, as well as apologetics and leadership.
“I got to travel along and see the staff pour into students intentionally and really live out their faith. I saw students who were hungry for learning and for growth and it was just all around the ministry of living out your faith that I had never really seen before, so I was a ‘professing believer’ as a kid as far back as I can remember,” he said.
After graduating from college, Jordan started out working as a packaging engineer, but he felt his heart was always oriented towards ministry, so he came into Worldview Academy full time as a camp director and content coordinator.
“I get to wear a lot of hats now, but I get to use some of those strengths and some of my familiarity with Worldview since I grew up here; that challenged my faith and it challenged my heart,” Jordan said. “That difference it’s made in so many people’s lives is why I’m willing to sacrifice to go and do this, and that’s the most encouraging thing that I can do over the summer, is to see those lives changed and see students and see staff engaged in these ideas because it’s so important to today’s culture.”
“The week has been fantastic. We’ve been warmly welcomed by Anderson, even down to the details of the welcome signs and people helping us get settled in,” Boyum said.