In the dark ages, people longed to have the freedom to study the Bible for themselves. They longed to be free to meet and publicly pray. As a result of the Reformation they finally had this privilege. However, many in Christianity and our church today have taken this freedom for granted and have grown passive spiritually. ARME Bible Camp was founded to help rekindle this lost passion for God’s Word and for prayer.

In the beginning…

It all began with a dream that God planted in Pastor Myers’ heart…a dream that began to take seed with one man’s fervent plea for personal mentoring in Bible study. This young man came to the Myers and asked if he could be allowed to come live in their home for a summer, only a summer, so that he could learn how Pastor Myers studied the Bible. Well, this wasn’t feasible or practical at the time…but it planted a seed…a seed that grew into a greater desire within Myers heart to start a Bible Study Training program or school.

Not long after this man had approached Pastor Myers asking for mentoring, Pastor Myers shared his dream with another ministry minded professional. God was already at work, orchestrating events. During GYC 2008, with the help of this enthusiastic new friend, a team of ministry-minded young professionals were brought together. They excitedly adopted Pastor Myers’ dream and vision and began developing just such a program: A short training program that would make Bible study even more practical and take people even deeper into the Word of God.

There’s an old Chinese proverb that says: “Give a man a fish; feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish; feed him for lifetime.” We now have a new ARME proverb. It goes like this: “Give a man a sermon; Feed him for a day. Teach a man to study; Feed him for a lifetime.” While we believe in the need for powerful preaching, in addition to giving people inspiration from the Bible, we wanted to really focus on teaching people how to find the inspiration for themselves in the Bible! ARME comes from the words ARM-ME, and this signifies how the mission will be accomplished: by “arming” and “equipping” each individual with practical tools necessary for deep Bible study and a powerful devotional life.

 

While, in the beginning, the team was completely novice at hosting large events, God has blessed and each camp seems to get more powerful and impacting. As we’ve watched people fall more in love with Jesus through His Word and prayer…we’ve been almost speechless at the beautiful ways we’ve seen God working in the lives of thousands of people, both young and old. Time and time again we’ve seen success when we worried there would be failure. We’ve seen miracles when we just expected ordinary. God has been growing our faith, and we’ve been humbled, as we’ve been reminded that this isn’t about us, it’s about what the Holy Spirit is doing with all those that are truly seeking Him…and all those that are digging deep into His Word. As those that attend ARME have realized (and you really have to EXPERIENCE it for yourself to believe it), united prayer has been the power behind the effectiveness of this training program. (Read more about this on our Prayer Ministry page!)

The Growing ARME Family

We know Jesus is coming back soon, and we are asking for rain…the Latter Rain of the Holy Spirit, to enable us to finish the work! With this goal in mind, our prayer is to see God’s people unified, and united. And the key is unity with Christ. As inspiration writes:

“The cause of division and discord in families and in the church [and it’s ministries] is separation from Christ. To come near to Christ is to come near to one another. The secret of true unity in the church and in the family is not diplomacy, not management, not a superhuman effort to overcome difficulties—though there will be much of this to do—but union with Christ.”

As we have sought unity in Christ, our ARME staff (mostly volunteer) have become an inseparable family. This is the spirit that we try to incorporate into every ARME Bible Camp. Since we are going to be “family” for eternity, we believe that we might as well start living like it now. One of the comments we frequently hear at camp is “This is a taste of heaven!

We invite you to join us in praying for the Latter Rain, and if you can, join us as family for one of our future events as we press forward together, Forward on our Knees, Bible in Hand!

THE ARME Family