The Impact Blog

For years I have reflected, dissected and analyzed just about every aspect of Impact. That's what I do, who I am.  Call me crazy, I say passionate.  This is the camp that helped bolster  my spiritual  awakening back in 1995, it means enough to me, to do everything in my power to try and make it better every single year. I know God ultimately controls that, but I'm gonna do my "small" part. For years the most common question I am asked post Impact is "How did you rank this year?" I always say..."Not sure, I'll have to think about it."  The fact is, we all have different taste and the years you love may just be off years for me or the great years for me, may have not been stand out's for you. So what I tried to do in this blog is really dig deep into my analysis. Not because I have an unhealthy addiction to evaluation, although I do. But because I simply like remembering, writing, and ranking.  I have always simply ba...

For years I have reflected, dissected and analyzed just about every aspect of Impact. That's what I do, who I am.  Call me crazy, I say passionate.  This is the camp that helped bolster  my spiritual  awakening back in 1995, it means enough to me, to do everything in my power to try and make it better every single year. I know God ultimately controls that, but I'm gonna do my "small" part. For years the most common question I am asked post Impact is "How did you rank this year?" I always say..."Not sure, I'll have to think about it."  The fact is, we all have different taste and the years you love may just be off years for me or the great years for me, may have not been stand out's for you. So what I tried to do in this blog is really dig deep into my analysis. Not because I have an unhealthy addiction to evaluation, although I do. But because I simply like remembering, writing, and ranking.  I have always simply ba...

Impact 2012 "Stranger Than Fiction" June 25, 2012 at 10:54pm Public Friends Friends except Acquaintances Only Me Custom Close Friends Columbia, Tennessee Area See all lists... David Lipscomb High School Lipscomb University Family Acquaintances Go Back I walked out of Alumni auditorium not realizing that it would be our last hurrah. The last great Impact in that sea foam green building. It was June 2006 and Impact was about to change. No one saw it coming. When it was decided that Impact would be moving to Allen, I was a little depressed. I am certain that today's Impact campers cannot possibly understand just how attached we all were to that old building. The one thought that I had was..."I sure am glad we ended with a good one." But what I did not know was that we were far from done with “The Story”. Fast forward to a hot June Friday night at Impact 2012..... Jeremy Swindle is belting out "Stronger", 2,000 people are singing at the to...

Impact 2013 "Honor" June 24, 2013 at 11:46pm Public Friends Friends except Acquaintances Only Me Custom Close Friends Columbia, Tennessee Area See all lists... David Lipscomb High School Lipscomb University Family Acquaintances Go Back                 I sat in a room with 250 campers back in 1992. We were all emotionally charged and on the verge of total exhaustion. It was the last night of camp. Even as a 19 year old counselor, I remember wishing that week could go on forever. It was ironically the very first, “last night” of Impact. I stood in front of a cave, quarter in hand.  Fast forward 21 years later and on a night very much like that one 2,000 Impact people were singing ”1,000 Reasons” at the top of their lungs, but not daring to wish that camp would last forever. Camp, the word alone inspires so many different thoughts. The word alone wakes sleeping memories from my consciousness.  ...

Impact 2014: RPG June 24, 2014 at 12:14am Public Friends Friends except Acquaintances Only Me Custom Close Friends Columbia, Tennessee Area See all lists... David Lipscomb High School Lipscomb University Family Acquaintances Go Back The reality that Impact was over came thundering down around 1:30 pm on Saturday. I rolled down Granny White Pike and actually teared up, seriously I was a tad bit upset. I guess the fact that I was so tired, mixed with the realization that one solid year had flown by got the best of me. I can count on one hand the number of times I have teared up in the last decade, but last Saturday, well that was one of them. Just like that, 350 days of planning, dreaming, praying, and writing came to a close. But it was not just that. It was that, well honestly I miss you guys. I miss the 3,000 campers who worship with no restraint, I miss the counselors, who did a great job, I miss the adult chaperons including the youth ministers. I miss the roadies a whol...

Let me first start off with a bit of history about camps.... Within the world of church camps, there were certain things that were at one time accepted blindly. Thankfully we (or at least most of us) have moved on. Growing up going to camp and visiting camps all over the country, I noticed that most camps just do the same kind of thing every year. They basically have an old formula and they stick to it. The idea of a theme that permeated the entire week was not on anyone's mind, and camp pretty much ran itself. You did the same things every year with little imagination or spark, and a theme which seems just so natural now, was an afterthought. When Impact finally started using it's drama to help the theme, well it seemed like we finally discovered that a theme could mean something. A drama could make the theme real, unite a camp, and develop a real sense of community. A theme that enveloped everything about the camp, the games, set, skits, shirts, well it could give the campe...