Super Summer - History

History

Super Summer of Texas began in 1974 as a training course for Christian young people intended to advance their personal spiritual growth and teach them about how to share Christ with others.

Dr. George Worrell began training young people through the Super Summer program. Originally begun as a cooperative effort for several churches in Texas, groups met for school sessions in church buildings in the Dallas area. Students were housed in the homes of volunteer church members, and bused to their school locations each day. They met in their separate locations for schools until evening, when they were transported to a central location for an evening worship service, which came to be known as Rainbow Celebration. As the Super Summer spread to other Southern Baptist State Conventions, several other Southern Baptist Youth Evangelism leaders and speakers including Phillip Hunter, Emory Gadd, Barry St. Clair, and Knox Talbert joined.

Since that early beginning the Super Summer has extended to include the Evangelism Division of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Baylor University campus, where all students could stay in the dorms, participate in recreational activities together, and join again each evening for Rainbow Celebration.

Super Summer is now hosted by other Texas Baptist University campuses, offering a choice of locations for youth groups from Texas and neighboring states. Thousands of young people have attended Super Summer over the years.

During a week at Super Summer, students spend approximately twenty-four hours in evangelism and discipleship training sessions taught by youth leaders and pastors. Youth are challenged and equipped to become effective and innovative “missionaries” of God’s love on their school campuses and in their communities.

The dedication of hundreds of volunteer staff people (many of whom have been to Super Summer as students and/or leaders) and the generous contributions of Texas Baptist Churches through the Cooperative Program make Super Summer possible.

Super Summer Oklahoma, one of the smaller super summer camps, is led by Director Zane Newton with Evan Dare as Assistant Director. An executive staff made up of pastors and youth pastors from all over the state. It is hosted at Oklahoma Baptist University (OBU) and consists of 3 weeks, usually the first 3 full weeks in June, known as Weeks One,Two, and Three. Super Summer Oklahoma is divided by grade based on color schools. Red means the student is going into 8th grade, Blue-9th, Orange-10th, Yellow-11th, Green-12th, Silver-Post grad year. There is also a Purple school, which is specifically for those called into ministry, and students can attend Purple school anytime after Yellow school if they've been called to ministry. The average cost to students of attending Super Summer varies from church to church as each church usually supplements the cost by various amounts.

Walter Nusbaum has spoken many time at Super Summer Oklahoma and has extensive knowledge of the Bible. He is known for his open question time with the students.

The Missouri Baptist Convention has conducted Super Summer Youth Evangelism and Discipleship schools since the early 1980s. The Missouri Super Summer sessions have annually occurred on the campus of Southwest Baptist University and have taken place many years at William Jewell College and Hannibal Lagrange College. For many summers, the 2-3 sessions of Super Summer schools in Missouri culminated with a Celebration that included contemporary Christian artists and speakers at the outdoor amphi-theater at the Worlds of Fun Theme Park in Kansas City. The mid-1990s saw the Worlds of Fun Celebration replaced with a mission trip for those receiving the proper training at the Super Summer week-long session.

Super Summer has always claimed to serve churches in the following manner, "Give us your best youth for a week and we will give them back even better for God's glory." The main emphasis of the schools has been training students to return to their schools, communities and churches to serve as Christian leaders and witnessses for Christ. Many young people claim to have experienced a call from God into vocational Christian ministry through Super Summer over the years.