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Pitch and Praise – a Cutting Edge Event for Teens (6/4/2008)

About 1900 people participated in Pitch & Praise this year at Braeside Camp near Paris, Ontario. This was the 34th year for Pitch & Praise, and some say it was the best one yet. Who comes to Pitch & Praise? Well, high school students and their leaders from Windsor to North Bay to Montreal. Thirty-one EMC churches were represented as well as 13 other denominations. Our guests came from as far as Vancouver, B.C. and Chichester, England. Andy Harrington of Greater Vancouver YFC spoke in our morning sessions and Storm Moore, a member of the pastoral team at Centre Street Church in Calgary, spoke in our evening sessions. Doug Ross brought their messages back to the theme as the MC and also hosted our club each evening as DJ Kubiks.

This year’s theme was “The Conspiracy: Finding your way through the confusion.” Part of the intent was to reveal how much of the wisdom of this age keeps us from understanding the truth about God and about who we are in relation to Him. We also wanted to consider some of the ways in which following Jesus runs counter to the culture and in some ways subverts it.

We were fortunate to have the Glenn Kaiser band back to minister each evening in our “House of Blues.” The Pillar concert on Saturday night was a big hit, drawing in an additional 125-150 people. Manafest, Amanda Falk, Hello Kelly, Bob Cates and several other guests added much to the weekend as well.

A few days later we caught up with Andy Harrington back in British Columbia who was more than willing to share his impressions of Pitch and Praise. “Nobody else is doing what you do”, he said. He was struck by the way the organizers of P&P have integrated different styles to result in an event with strong appeal for Christians and non-Christians alike. A speaker at many youth events he commented that many do a good job of either/or, but not both. He felt the night club worship was superb and showed a recognition by youth leaders that the young people of today are spiritual; they want to know how to worship but do not benefit from a cookie cutter approach. Of his time spent speaking with the youth leaders he said he came away feeling confident that they possess a real desire to grapple with what needs to change to speak to today’s youth, a real desire to go towards the future and a penchant for “outside the box” thinking. “The event had a ‘rawness’, and an atmosphere that made you think, ‘anything can happen here’.”

Through it all we saw the hand of God at work. A few examples: Matt from Kitchener, on heavy medication for rheumatoid arthritis, had a leader pray for him and hasn’t experienced any symptoms of the arthritis since. Cameron from Mt. Albert sensed a calling to be a missionary to youth. A few leaders spoke of students who committed their lives to following Jesus during our communion time on Sunday evening. Many of the stories of life transformation surface in the weeks and months following Pitch & Praise. I look forward to hearing more about what God is doing in the lives of students who attended this year.

Was it cold? Well, I never heard any complaints, but we sold all of our blankets and sweatshirts. We have lots of t-shirts left!

Special thanks to all who helped with everything from parking to officiating in our sports tournaments and other events, and particularly to all who prayed for this ministry. God is still using Pitch & Praise to draw young people to himself. Now we’re ramping up for JR Pitch - the junior-high counterpart, September 19-21 at Stayner Camp. (See www.jrpitch.com for details.)

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