Phil Thompson greets Joshua Grisham, a camper from Bentonville, Ark., at the closing banquet. PHOTO BY JEFF MONTGOMERYThirty high school students — from Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and the Central American nation of Belize — forsook bonfires and canoes to hone their ministry skills at
Harding University’s first-ever preacher training camp on its Searcy, Ark., campus.
“We talk about how kids are the church of tomorrow, but they’re really the church of today,” said Phil Thompson, director of Harding’s Center for Preaching. “We want to serve the church by teaching young people and sending them home more prepared to lead.”
The campers gather for a prayer after hearing a presentation by Noel Whitlock, preaching minister for the College Church of Christ in Searcy, Ark. PHOTO BY ZACH LOUDON