Don’t Miss the Meaning of the Mountaintop

You likely have heard someone speak of having a “mountaintop experience” in life. In most cases, they are speaking of amazing moments where things felt right and good. In Christian circles, people are most likely referring to moments when they felt most spiritually focused and connected. These are great moments and not to be ignored or pushed aside. However, there is wisdom in understanding the purpose and the reasoning why God often provides such “mountaintop experiences” in the lives of his children.

Last week our teenagers attended Generate Camp at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. For those who have been to Covenant, or maybe have driven from Chattanooga to Nashville, you recognize the names “Rock City” and “Lookout Mountain.” This college is located near Rock City and is literally on a mountaintop. In a very real sense, our students had a mountaintop experience last week.

However, this was not just a weekend away or a family vacation to a mountain cabin. Our week together with over 800 students from numerous states was specifically designed and set apart so that students could be with other students, Christians, and leaders who love them and seek to help them in their walk with Christ. Everything at Generate was strategically designed for the benefit of the participants and that God would be glorified. Once more, I had the joy of being with our students this week along with a few other adults from our church. Some of the students who attended with us are not believers, some are new believers, and others have been Christians for a bit, but are continually maturing in their faith.

The theme of the week was “Total Surrender” and all the music, small group gatherings, church group gatherings, and sermons were centered upon this theme. Our focal passage was Galatians 2:20. Many of our students took viable steps of faith. Some surrendered their lives to Christ and entered into a real relationship with God. Others were certainly dealing with personal sin and the call to surrender fully to Christ in all areas (relationships, family, personal identity, etc.) Still others are wrestling with a surrender to God’s call into full-time Gospel ministry.

I told all our students, “This is camp. It’s real, but not real. This is a Christian bubble on a mountaintop.” While here the focus is clear. Teenagers come together unashamedly to talk about their relationship with Christ, to confess their sin and struggles one to another and hopefully not be judged, to sing loudly songs that proclaim God’s goodness, and more.

But after just five days, the bus ride home begins and shortly thereafter the realization that they are no longer on the mountain hits. In other words, it is easier to be bold for Jesus when everyone around you is cheering you on, but much more difficult back in school or with the friend group (or even family) that views Christianity much differently. Suddenly the mountaintop experience is just a memory.

But…maybe not.

During one of the minister’s meetings the camp leaders asked the youth ministers, student pastors, and pastors in the room what their desires were for the camp. The responses were not unlike ones I gave decades ago at camps. These were expected responses from youth ministers. Things like “We need unity in our group,” “We need high schoolers to step up and lead,” “We need some of these troubled students with terrible home lives to experience God’s grace,” and more.

When it was my turn to share, I said something that truly never came to mind when I was serving as student pastor. I said, “I pray for all that (the things shared by others) to happen in our group, but I am praying for the parents, the older church members, the widows, the senior adults, and others back home in our church to be impacted greatly by what occurs here.”

I had to explain and even later that evening, I shared this with our students.

Sometimes the Mountaintop Is For Those Who Didn’t Get To Climb

Mountaintop experiences are incredible, but not everyone gets to go up to the top. You see this in Scripture. Moses had a mountaintop experience. He saw God and was given the Ten Commandments. The people did not climb up the mountain with him. In the New Testament you see Jesus take just a few of his twelve disciples to the top of the mountain where the Transfiguration occurred. These disciples there wanted to build shelters and stay, but the rest were still down below. Even on Mount Calvary, while there were two unnamed thieves hanging nearby, Jesus truly hung on his cross alone. There was no cross built for a crowd. The cross could only hold one. It held Jesus. Alone.

The mountaintop experiences of some Christians are not only for their benefit, but for the many who never get to climb up. Why? Because the work done in the valleys, at the foothills, and in the everyday lives outside the Christian bubble is so vital. While some are invited to a moment on a mountain, it is the entire church family who benefits and is blessed.

Just a a couple of years ago I heard some grumbling from church members that “Our church is dying,” or “We don’t have any young people here anymore,” and a variety of other…well, less than optimistic statements. While these statements were not true, they felt true to those saying them. The level of worry and anxiety began to grow.

I had numerous conversations about this. I prayed God would lead us to fully surrender to him so that our focus would not be some artificial, church growth metric, but that the body who is our local church would begin to see how God continues to work.

We have parents in our church who long for a healthy, family-equipping ministry that will not only be engaging to their children and teenagers, but helpful to them as parents and guardians.

We have those who no longer have children or teenagers in their respective homes, but are still hopeful the next generation would be faithful. 

We also have many who have their own prodigal children and grandchildren. They pray diligently but as yet have not seen any movement toward faithfulness. Some are hoping for some version of Christian osmosis to help those they love dearly to come to Christ. Others are hearing so very often, whether on talk radio or politically-fueled 24-hour news channels, that the next generation is godless, doesn’t care about faith, has abandoned tradition, and classifies as “none” when it comes to religion. This leads them to wonder if this is the beginning of the end. The adversary uses all these negative voices to discourage and ultimately destroy the faith of the individual and the family.

Some Get to the Mountain

But, some get to go to the mountain. That’s what I believe is happening. The teenagers very presence at this camp, upon this literal mountaintop, praying for a spiritual mountaintop is a way of God saying to the doubters and the “giver-uppers” that there remains a generation of young people who are broken by sin, seeking purpose and life, desiring to serve the Lord, wanting to be known as those who totally surrender to God’s call, and not wanting to be a statistical addition to the “lost generation.”

Some are Transformed

A few went on top of a mountain last week. Not all came down changed. We know that. Yet, some did. Some. How great is that!?!

The mountaintop experience reminds us that God has not abandoned us. These students can look back at this very week for the remainder of their lives and be encouraged and challenged. We as the church family can look back at this week while looking forward knowing that God has not abandoned his church. He still saves. He still calls. He still doing miracles. Maybe this small group of students were invited on top of the mountain this past week, but it was not just for themselves, but for the entire church. It truly is when we come down off the mountain that much is done.

Mountaintops Cannot Be Manipulated Into Existence

We cannot simply put something on a schedule and say “That’s when and where God is going to work.” Just reading that statement reveals how wrong that is, right? God is not managed by his people. Yet, we know that God is sovereign over all, even our calendars.

As these students continue to think back to camp, we are already planning next year’s, with many other opportunities at home and within our church family in the meantime. I would ask parents of those who are currently in sixth through twelfth grades to block off June 2-6, 2025 on your respective calendars.

Send your student to camp next year.

If there’s a travel ball tournament that week, skip it. Go to youth camp.

If there’s an event in Orlando at a theme park, reschedule it. Send your student to camp.

If your student is not one-hundred percent desiring to go…send them to camp. It will be to the benefit of your teenager. It will be to the benefit of you as parents. I believe it will be to the benefit of the church.

As was stated over and over this past week, “Don’t miss this.”