Camp Regen

Camp Regeneration is a Christian High School Summer Camp hosted by John MacArthur and Grace Community Church for high school ministries from churches all over America to join. For many years, it has found it's home on the campus of Glorieta, New Mexico, though for a brief stint, it was hosted in Southern California on the Campus of Point Loma Nazarene University in Point Loma, San Diego.
The primary activities which students participate in are expository preaching, worship music, intense team games, various outdoor activities, small-group discipleship, and purposeful fellowship.
History
Camp Regen began as the dream-child of Eric Bancroft and Bryan Payne. Eric Bancroft was then High School Pastor at Grace Community Church, and Payne was his Assistant. Payne had attended a camp in Glorieta, New Mexico as a child and always dreamed of creating a High School Summer Camp there.
In 2006, which is typically considered the first year of Regen, Grace Community Church hosted the camp in cooperation with Lakeside Bible Church, from Montgomery, Texas. The Senior Pastor at Lakeside, Ken Ramey, is a former pastor from Grace Community Church, and Bryan Payne, the High School intern responsible for Summer Camp at Grace Church, was a former member at Lakeside. This first year was a cooperation, and somewhat of a "pilot run" in Glorieta, New Mexico, to see if there was potential for a future ongoing camp of this nature. At the time, Glorieta was then by the Southern Baptist Convention and Lifeway.
While Regen is now considered a High School camp, the first year was unique in that it included both Junior High and High School students combined. It was called Transformations Camp 2006, and was led by Eric Bancroft and Bryan Payne from Grace Community Church. The partnership with Lakeside Bible Church was a critical element for financially pulling off the camp, but no one was aware of how critical it would become. The next 3 Camp Directors for Regen would all come from Lakeside after moving to be students of The Master's Seminary and work at Grace Community Church. That first year, Regen was attended by both Jeremiah Kirberg and Jason Drumm as staff from Lakeside in Texas. Both Kirberg and Drumm would go on to become future Directors of Regen.
That first year, Pastor Chris Mueller was the Keynote Speaker to the High School students and Carl Hargrove taught the Junior High students in a small classroom down the hall. Though the event was then hosted by MacArthur's church, he would not join Regen as a Keynote for a few more years.
The first year was such a success that the very next year (2007), they chose to exclude Junior High students in order to allow for more space for additional High School youth groups to join from other churches.
In 2008, Grace Church decided to do their own summer camp for their High School students in Northern California and did not include any other churches. People familiar with Camp Regen often refer to this as "the dark year."
In 2009, Camp Regen was back at Glorieta again with Grace Community Church and Lakeside Bible Church joining together again, along with several other churches from Texas going with Lakeside, and now additional churches from Arizona and New Mexico. Bryan Payne had graduated Seminary and was going to begin Harvest Bible Chapel in Austin, Texas. Former Lakeside member Jeremiah Kirberg had now moved to Los Angeles to attend the same seminary, and due to their friendship, was able to take the role as Regen Director. Eric Bancroft had also left Grace Church, with Austin Duncan taking his place as the new High School Pastor, putting him at the center of Camp Regen's planning process. Duncan brought fresh ideas and years of youth ministry experience, and with the brilliant administrative gifts of Kirberg, Regen took off. 2009 was also the year that mainstream Christian rapper LaCrae was invited to do a private performance for the students and staff at Regen, now totalling over 700 people from over 20 churches.
In 2010, Jason Drumm moved to Los Angeles to attend The Master's Seminary and to serve at Grace Community Church. His friendship with both Bryan Payne and Jeremiah Kirberg, as well as his love for student ministry and Camp Regen, drew him to OneEighty High School Ministry at Grace Church, where he began to serve as an intern under Austin Duncan, learning the ropes of Camp Regen now from the inside. That year, Kirberg graduated and moved to be a youth pastor at a church in Kansas. 2010 was also the first year Camp Regen had enough people attending to use Holcombe Chapel, the larger and more prominent facility on Campus.
In 2011, Jason Drumm led Regen back to Glorieta, adding additional content, increasing the centrality of the week-long team games, and streamlining the focus and mission of Regen. With his background in Graphic Design, Drumm recreated the "look and feel" of Regen from the ground up, rebranding and redesigning nearly everything. Rather than inviting a mainline Christian artist again, this surprise-event was recreated as an outdoor night festival, which would eventually be dubbed "Regen Outdoor Party."
In 2012, Rick Holland left Grace Church to be a Senior Pastor in Kansas, and Austin Duncan was promoted to College Pastor at Grace Church. This moved him out of a more active role in the planning process, but allowed him to retain his slot as a Keynote Speaker. Replacing Duncan was Andrew Guitierrez as the new High School Pastor, who inherited Jason Drumm as his assistant. This was the first year Regen offered additional breakout sessions for the students to chose from, and Camp was in excess of 900 people in attendance.
However, that year, Glorieta was in a difficult place. The facility, owned and operated by SBC's Lifeway, had filed for bankruptcy and it was unclear if Lifeway's Glorieta would even exist in 2013, making it impossible for Grace Church to plan to host Regen in Glorieta the next year. As a result, Drumm and Gutierrez were given the task of moving Regen to Southern California. This would allow Regen to be closer to it's host church in Sun Valley, and would also allow the expansive network of SoCal churches connected with Grace Community Church and The Master's Seminary to have more ready access to Camp Regen for their youth ministries to be involved. In the past, the long drive to New Mexico was a deterrent for many of the smaller SoCal churches.
Jason Drumm and Andrew Gutierrez began scouring SoCal for other venues that would be able to host Camp Regen. After talking with many and touring several campuses, they decided on Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California.
2013 was Regen's first year in SoCal, and a palm tree was added to the logo to reflect this change.
In 2014, Drumm was graduating from Seminary and beginning as an Associate Pastor at Calvary Bible Church in Burbank, CA. Being right down the street from Grace Church (and thus Camp Regen's offices) allowed Drumm to continue to play a key role in the planning he had begun for Regen 2014. He handed the reigns off to Will Peterson, a former member of Eric Bancroft's church in Indianapolis. Drumm was Camp Director that year until his departure in May, when he handed the reigns to Peterson. Since Drumm was nearby in Burbank, they continued having normal camp meetings to plan and strategize for that summer.
Purchasing a runners baton as a gift for Peterson and a symbol of the leadership hand-off, Drumm wrote, "2014 was the year I realized what a legacy Regen is, and the reason I bought the baton. I had attended camp as a volunteer high school staff member from Texas, watched my younger brother get saved at Regen, helped plan camp as a volunteer high school staff at GCC, become the Camp Director to sit at the helm and watch the whole thing happen, and now moved on to be a Youth Pastor bringing my own students and staff to Camp Regen. I now have students in my college ministry who were saved at Regen they were in high school. I have high school ministry staff volunteers who were saved at Regen when they were in high school, and they are now returning to Regen to disciple their students. Camp Regen is so much more than a camp. For those who get to serve in a leadership capacity, it is a legacy of faithfulness."
2015 was Regen's third and final year at Point Loma. While the complicating factors of hosting a High School summer camp of hundreds of people on a college campus certainly played a role in the decision, there was another major game changer: Glorieta was back on the map.
Keynote Speakers
While John MacArthur has consistently been a keynote speaker at Regen for years, many other pastors have also played a significant role in the teaching responsibilities.
*needs list added of year by year keynote speakers.
2006 - Chris Mueller and Carl Hargrove
Games
Regen has probably been most well known for two things. First, for being the only High School Summer Camp with Famous Evangelical Pastor John MacArthur as the Keynote Speaker. But second, for the games. The intense nature of the games at Regen has not only been highly celebrated, but often criticized.

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