Campcraft Bible College

Today, I'm writing to inform you about a side of our school that's been somewhat dormant for several years. But first, a bit of background. In June of 2001, before I finished my first degree in ministry, I was handed the leadership position of a "college" by one of the largest martial arts organizations. A few years into my ministry career, I was very involved in martial arts ministry; I was a young leader with a head full of ideas for this organization.

They had long been struggling to receive any accreditation for the school. During the committee meeting, I suggested not conforming to the traditional approach to education because the way they were trying to do it would never work. Instead, they relied upon a more esoteric system. They organized as a religious school of training, allowing for the many philosophies represented in the type of training they provided. Accreditation, or circumvention of such, was permitted for religious institutions. With that nugget, the steering committee elected me to serve as President of this college. That first year was a nightmare. The school was a diploma mill- it was being managed by too many conflicting people, each of which issued "qualifications" as they saw fit based on martial arts prowess and not academic qualification. It took me an entire year to get that under control, and I did it by making it a Christian college, which was not overly popular at the time.

Our first church school campus circa 2003. My uncle Jerry was the Pastor.

Still, I took classes in college, read books on being a higher education administrator, and did all I could to become competent. I graduated in 2003 with my Bachelor's and immediately jumped back in for my Master's, which I completed in only one horrendous year. It took me a few years to learn enough to function as a college, but by late 2004, we had grown to have a couple of hundred students studying Christian Martial Arts Ministry and Church Ministry. I had a lot of help from local pastors and friends who were more educated than I was, and I spent many hours talking to the higher education authorities in my state (Indiana at the time). I wanted to ensure everything we did was legal and legitimate and met the baseline requirements for a degree or diploma.

In early 2005, we had a breakthrough. I partnered with a missions organization and contributed to a new ministry curriculum. This partnership enabled us to provide our training curriculum as a school. This curriculum was also incredibly affordable for the end student. We jumped from a couple of hundred students in 2004 to having twelve satellite campuses (many in foreign nations) and over one thousand total students in 2005. By 2006, we had reached two thousand students and twenty satellite branches. I made very little income from this venture, but it was ministry, and many people were being trained, so it was worthwhile. At this time in my life, God asked me an important question.

Our second church campus circa 2006.

Do you want to be a millionaire? Yep, that's what God asked me. I responded that I would affect a million souls instead of having a million dollars. Within a day or two of this question, two influential organizations approached me to buy out my bible college. It was the same week that our lives dramatically shifted to a wilderness season (a time of great suffering) because I refused their offers, albeit for the right reasons. I detail this in my book, The Gospel of Survival, so I'll forgo more here. Suffice to say. It was a rough and educational period.

Within months, I legally reorganized the school, then renamed it to block greedy people from running it into the ground pursuing their secret agenda. When money is involved, church people get very mean. This hidden agenda is one of the many factors that led us into the wilderness and outdoor ministry as the school's focus henceforth. Within a year of this change, we became one of only a handful of schools offering training in wilderness ministry and the only school specializing in outdoor skills.

New minister ordained at a Pathfinder Gathering

I had to shut down ministry-based operations in 2015 when I took over as the Lead Instructor at The Pathfinder School. The workload was too much to do it all, and that's saying something considering what I'd done in the past. In 2018, we reopened with Bethlehem Outdoor College (which existed since 2011). Since our trademark registrations passed and have all been granted, we've renamed BOC to the Campcraft Bible College, and we are finally under one umbrella. Robyn and I are the leaders. Learning from the past twenty years- this is the way forward for us as a specialized school of ministry.

So, what do we do? We specialize in ministry-based outdoor training and offer Certificate, Diploma, Associate, and Bachelor degree programs. We train instructors and ministers and endeavor to raise apostolic hubs in wild spaces where our graduates can build training camps in their regions. Training is offered through hybrid programs that include online and onsite learning. We also host Bushcraft Revival events to assemble in fellowship to seek the presence of Christ together.

Aaron Branch when he graduated from his Instructor's Diploma program

You can learn more by visiting www.bushcraftrevival.com