SWBCA NEWSLETTER
GPBA & WOBA FEBRUARY 2021 SWBCA NEWSLETTER
SOUTHWEST BAPTIST CHURCHES ASSEMBLY
visit our website or call for more information and group pricing.
Telephone: 580-846-5784
email: office@swbcassembly.com
14730 Hwy 44 Lone Wolf, Oklahoma 73655
WHO WE ARE
Southwest Baptist Churches Assembly is a Christian campground facility owned by two Baptist Associations of local churches. Our mission is to have a safe environment to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and give believers an opportunity to grow in their relationship with Him.
We accomplish our mission by providing a facility for large and small groups to meet for weeklong camp events, as well as for shorter retreats or meetings. The entire campground may be rented or a single cabin with sleeping and cooking accommodations may be rented for church, group, and family events.
In keeping with our mission all groups must agree with our Statement of Faith and code of conduct.
The camp is owned by the churches of Great Plains Baptist Association and Western Oklahoma Baptist Association
HISTORY OF SWBCA
The immediate purpose was to provide a camp for that summer. The far-reaching purpose, however, was to give Southwestern Oklahoma a Baptist encampment that could serve the district. The first two years (1945-1946) recorded over 500 in attendance each year.
From 1945 to1951, they rented property for camp from Quartz Mountain State Park. Then in 1952, the camp was incorporated and began a long-term lease on the current property, which was purchased in 1984.
Currently approximately 2,000 campers are on the property annually.
ADOPT A CABIN OR PROJECT AT CAMP
Altus Reformed Baptist Church adopted the staff cabins and have been working hard on the remodel
FBC Sayre sent a group to help paint the dining hall
Father's Day Offering
The SWBCA Board of Directors voted to ask our churches to receive a Fathers’ Day Offering for the operational support of the campground. Each church is encouraged to participate by providing the special offering
envelopes and promoting this time of giving. If every church member would contribute just $5, our operational budget for the entire year would be met!
Thank you for planning ahead to participate this year. Envelopes and posters will be sent to your church in early May. Please let us know if you have any questions or suggestions.
Director of Missions for GPBA
Welcome to the first Southwest Baptist Churches Assembly (SWBCA) newsletter. We are starting this newsletter to better communicate with you the owner of this camp in southwest Oklahoma. The camp is owned by Great Plains Baptist Association (GPBA) and Western Oklahoma Baptist Association (WOBA). GPBA and WOBA is an association and cooperation of Southern Baptist Churches in western and southwestern Oklahoma.
The more you learn about this camp tucked into the quartz mountains south of Lone Wolf, the more you can understand the importance of its existence. Thousands of children and youth have made significant decisions for Jesus Christ at this camp over the past seventy-five years.
We are asking you to PRAY for the camp. Add the camp to your prayer list. Pray for the SWBCA Board of Directors (Made up of members of GPBA and WOBA). Pray for our camp missionaries Clayton and Christie Carlisle. Pray for future campers at the camp. Pray for the Holy Spirit to continue to move through this camp. Pray for the cost of attending camp to stay at a reasonable amount for children and students. Pray for your church to participate and support its own camp.
We are asking you to PARTICIPATE in the camp. Be a sponsor for your children and student campers. We are asking you to volunteer your time to come and work on the camp. We know that many of you have incredible talents the Lord’s blessed you with and you can use them at this camp.
We are asking you to encourage your church to actively participate in the camp it owns. We must be good stewards of what God has given to us.
PLAN to encourage your church to give monthly through your church budget for the camp. PLAN to participate in a special offering each Father’s Day for the camp.
PLAN to help us raise funds to build new activities, dormitories, dining and kitchen facilities.
We are grateful for your church and you as members of GPBA and WOBA to fulfill God’s plan for our camp SWBCA.
Grateful,
Danny Ringer
Director of Missions
Great Plains Baptist Association
580.243.9023 Cell
DIRECTOR OF MISSIONS FOR WOBA
I cannot tell you how excited we are about the things that God is doing at Southwest Baptist Assembly. We have always known that we have a gold mine in this camp! For well over a half century young people have attended this camp and so many have given their hearts and lives to Jesus Christ. Two of them now serve on our Camp Board, and they have terrific testimonies of coming to faith at Southwest Baptist Assembly. We want to see many, many more lives touched with the power of the gospel. We want to witness God moving in lives, transforming them into the Christ followers this world needs. We pray that young people respond to God’s calling on their lives; some will surrender to Christian ministry and serve as pastors and missionaries. That is why we are so passionate about developing this camp into a state-of-the-art Christian camp and conference facility.
We envision a camp with incredible facilities, awesome programs, and activities that are enjoyable and are a great learning experience for our students. We want to have the kind of conference facilities and accommodations that will attract church groups to come for retreats or training. Imagine men’s or women’s conferences, youth conferences, deacon retreats, staff retreats, senior adult conferences, and worship events like Nights of Praise or concerts. We hope other groups will enjoy our tremendous facilities as well – maybe your next family reunion will be at Southwest Baptist Assembly! With better facilities, we can do more things with our program. We can bring in the finest speakers and worship leaders and host the most amazing events that we cannot do presently. We are upping our game when it comes to the activities. We have already secured pedal cars for the students to race, we are upgrading our swimming pool, and we are looking at adding a ropes course and zip line!
Here is a little of what’s going on behind the scenes…We have established a Capital Fund Raising Team comprised of members from Great Plains and Western Oklahoma Baptist Associations and have already met to begin mapping out our strategy for developing our camp. We must update our swimming pool to meet existing public pool codes, and while we are doing that, we will update the pool facilities and install a new slide. We decided that we needed to replace a couple of our older and rundown dorms with new, larger ones. We would like to replace our dining hall and kitchen facilities, possibly replacing it with a cafetorium that we could use year-around with a huge glass wall overlooking the lake. We know that improvements need to be made to the Tabernacle and to the infrastructure of the camp (roads, drainage, utilities, and reserve water supply for fire suppression). You will hear more about this Campaign in the near future.
In the interim, we are getting estimates on construction and gathering information from the various contractors, governmental officials, and such. We have already asked our churches to Adopt-a-Cabin, which allows us to make some needed updates to our facilities. Maybe your church could adopt a cabin and replace the flooring or paint or replace some furnishings. Our Camp Caretaker has a long list of needs that your church can tackle on a mission project down at the camp. We have also asked our churches to receive a Father’s Day Offering that will fund the operations of the camp.
We know that aesthetics are important, so we are thinking about how our camp should look and what its appearance says about the Lord and the churches in our Associations. We want the camp to be beautiful and fit the natural splendor of the mountains that surround our camp. We need to install new signage on the highway because our old sign has long been taken down. Those who pass by our camp on the highway have no way of knowing that is our camp. We have received a generous donation already toward the new sign, which may be up on the mountain! We haven’t decided.
Danny Ringer and I want to encourage each church and each member to get involved and to help us make Southwest Baptist Assembly into a camp whose ministry brings souls into God’s kingdom and gives glory to the wondrous name of Jesus. Pray for the ongoing ministry of the camp, our Caretakers, our leaders, and for the Lord’s will to be done. I’m so excited! Can’t you tell?! Be blessed and I hope to see you at the Camp soon!
Dr. Terry Rials
Director of Missions of Western Oklahoma Baptist Association
(405) 570-1542