Youth for Christ is holding its first-ever national camping event, August 1-7, in a first-time partnership with Young Life, setting a precedent for future partnership events between the two organizations.

The Youth for Christ Camp (YFCamp), which will be held at Young Life’s Crooked Creek Ranch in Winter Park, Co., will focus on reaching out to high school and middle school students participating in YFC Campus Life, which has 200 chapters nationwide.

Molly Gretzinger, the Director of the YFCamp, who joined the staff at YFC’s national office in Denver last August, said the camp will have an “evangelistic focus” and reach out to kids who have not yet come to know Christ.

Although local YFC have hosted camping activities within their regions, this will be the first unified and organized national camping effort, according to Gretzinger. She said she is expecting over 300 people from 10 different states to attend the event next week.

The difference between YFCamp and other camps is the relationships youth leaders have with the kids before, during, and after the experience, said Gretzinger.

The hope is that the staff would be building relationships with these students throughout the year and then they would then bring these students to camp and walk beside them during the week their eyes are being open to Christ then help them walk it out, explained Gretzinger.

At the camp, students will get to engage in a variety of fun activities and spend the evenings listening to Christian speaker Luther Witfield.

She said God has envisioned her with three goals for the camp:

1. Kids that don’t know Christ would come to know Christ in a real way.

2. The body of YFC would experience hope and healing.

3. The unity of Young Life and YFC coming together would impact the Kingdom.

Gretzinger also hopes the camp will be a time of renewal for YFC and the kids. “I have a vision for things that have been dead that they would come alive,” she said.