Falls Creek encampment cancels Texas Week after 2006

Posted: 12/02/05

Falls Creek encampment
cancels Texas Week after 2006

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

The 2006 Texas Week at Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center marks the end of a tradition spanning more than four decades.

The May 29-June 3 camp will be the final Texas Week at the Oklahoma Baptist encampment, said Dale Berry, pastor of First Baptist Church in Jacksboro and a member of annual event's steering team.

“We kind of knew deep down this was coming, and every year we've asked, 'Will we be able to have Texas Week next year?'” Berry said.

Increased demand by Oklahoma Baptist churches compelled the conference center's leaders to add to the summer schedule an eighth “Oklahoma Week” for youth and move a children's camp into the Texas Week slot, said Falls Creek Manager Gary Fielding.

Last summer, more than 45,500 young people attended one of the seven Oklahoma Week events at Falls Creek, Fielding noted. Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center–a rustic facility in the Arbuckle Mountains that bills itself as the world's largest youth assembly–is owned and operated by the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.

Since the first Texas Week at Falls Creek in 1963, more than 85,000 Texas Baptist teenagers have participated in the camp.

Although the numbers participating in Texas Week have declined somewhat in recent years as school schedules have cut into the summer, Berry hopes the final Texas Week will draw churches eager to participate in the landmark event.

The 2006 Texas Week will feature preacher Clayton King and worship leader Carl Cartee, both with Crossroads Worldwide ministry in North Carolina, he noted.

Beyond next year, Texas churches still will be able to participate at Falls Creek youth camps–just not in a week designated specifically for Texas Baptists, Berry explained.

“Texas churches already participate with us, and we hope to have more in the future that blend right into our (Oklahoma) weeks,” Fielding said.

Guidelines posted on the Falls Creek page of the Oklahoma Baptist convention's website say churches not affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma may register for any week of camp by reserving a cabin after Oct. 20. First preference will be given to Oklahoma Baptist churches, and other congregations that wish to participate in the camps must be either “a cooperating Southern Baptist church from another state or an evangelical church that agrees to the basic beliefs of Southern Bap-tists.”

The basic Southern Baptist beliefs are outlined in an abridged version of the Baptist Faith & Message posted on the web page. The article on family, for instance, does not include a controversial statement included in the 2000 version of the document: “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.”

Full information about registration, fees and the process for securing a cabin is available at www.skopos.org.