The Young Adult Warehouse: A Camp Meeting To Remember
Updated: Aug 31
When young adults meet, ready to know, encounter, and experience the goodness of God, transformation is inevitable. This year, the Young Adult Warehouse at Camp Meeting was truly holy ground. Centered around our main theme, “Rooted,” we spent our time exploring three vital areas of our walk: being rooted in faith, rooted in Holy identity, and rooted in resilient relationships.
Beyond all the incredible memories, God answered so many prayers and worked miracles right before our eyes. Most of all, God made us witnesses that He is deeply at work in the lives of young adults, against all odds, young adults want to Know Him and make Him Known.
Discipleship was a key focus for the young adult ministry at Camp Meeting. We want to offer a special thank you to our amazing young adult volunteer team, a true family, that poured their hearts out in passion, zeal, creativity, service, and humility. It is your hearts that made all the difference. What started as a team of 12 young adults quickly grew to over 30 plus young adults passionate about service, ministry, and bringing others into the spark of service. From leading morning united prayer, making breakfast, leading icebreakers, planning our programs, to running our open gym, this team made the warehouse a home.
Fellowship also thrived around the table. We shared morning brunches every day before our devotionals, along with special Friday evening meals where we could slow down, break bread, and welcome the Sabbath together.
We were so blessed to hear powerful, timely messages from dynamic speakers like Nathan Renner, David Asscherick, David Dean, Anil Kanda, and Lisa Topete as they unpacked what it means to be rooted in faith, Holy identity, and resilient relationships. But something special we did this year was making dedicated space at the end of every morning service to answer questions with each speaker. We saw that so many young adults were tuning in and engaged, but we wanted those messages to be truly internalized.
We saw several honest questions come in about Sabbath, discerning the Holy Spirit, how to re-engage in church after years of absence, and how to find real spiritual community. These conversations allowed scripture to move from just listening to deep, personal conviction.
Spiritual growth happened in intimate spaces, too. During our dedicated women’s night, women came together to worship, fellowship, pray, and talk through relevant issues with a powerful Q&A session, while our young men got to spend the evening in their own dedicated men’s time to talk about the importance of Godly friendships, and what it means to be a man of God.
We also really desired to give young families a space where they could still join our worship services. We dedicated our back lounge to become an inviting area with comfortable couches and coloring pages so young adults with their own kids could stay fully engaged in our community and worship together.
Our faith wasn't contained inside the warehouse walls. On Monday, we took outreach to Capitola Beach, playing volleyball with the local community, handing out Glow tracks, and passing out snacks. We also had amazing opportunities for connection during an outing to Natural Bridges State Park where we went tide pooling together, and a worship service at Monterey Bay Academy on Thursday.
For the first time ever, our team hosted an "Open House" following a joint intergenerational worship service in the main auditorium. We prayed and talked among our team about the needs on campus to make our space an inviting part of the larger body of Campmeeting. We invited everyone to come do a "house tour" of the young adult space and offered treats such as hot chocolate and popcorn, it was such a highlight to see the larger body of Camp Meeting join us, and our team loved fellowshipping with and praying over everyone who walked through the doors.
With that taking place, God blew our expectations out of the water with our attendance this year. Durng morning services we had 70 to 100 young adults attend each morning, about 30 to 50% more than our past years. Then, we had a full house on both Sabbaths, reaching a peak of 420 young adults packed inside at once.
The ultimate high point came on our final Saturday when 3 young adults responded to the appeal for baptism. We were able to hold a special baptism service right inside our warehouse for 2 of those young adults, including Laura Flores and Elias Majano.
Most of all, we saw strangers become friends, communities be sparked, and spiritual families begin to form that will go far beyond the 10 day experience of what happened inside the warehouse.
Kurt Osena shared, "I was very impressed by the Young Adult team. At this year’s Young Adult side of the camp meeting, we experienced young adults truly taking ownership of their space, giving us yet again a glimpse of what this age demographic can offer when they are seen, valued, and empowered to serve. Their service was powerful, intentional, and loving toward their peers. It goes without saying that I was thankful to see so many young adults making decisions for God and visiting our space, finding reasons to stay, connect, and hang around."
"This year was really a year of connection, collaboration, and growth," Kwame Sarpong summarized, "The YA Warehouse created space for young adults to come together, build relationships, share ideas, and be encouraged in their faith and leadership.There was a stronger sense of partnership between the pastors and YA leadership, which helped us better support and engage young adults throughout the year."
Written by Kendra Miranda, Young Adult Tent Director
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