When TMU alumnus Jonny Ardavanis returned to his alma mater to serve as dean of campus life last year, it was in pursuit of his passion for showing young people the Jesus of Scripture.

This passion is also why, instead of vacationing this summer, he’ll be at Hume Lake Christian Camps for three months, serving a constant stream of churches and their students. It will be familiar work, because he has been serving at their camps since 2017. He also knows from experience that the summer will be intense, but he is motivated by the joy of showing Jesus to those who desperately need Him.

Hume is a ministry that hosts various youth camps and adult retreats throughout the year, but Ardavanis provides leadership for their high school summer camp in particular.

“Every week, a couple thousand students come to the camp, and they’re here Sunday to Saturday,” Ardavanis says. “And then, after about 24 hours, another group comes.”

In order to serve such a large volume of campers, Ardavanis helped hire about 350 summer staff members. And while they provide counseling and recreation support for the students, Ardavanis focuses on serving the pastors and church volunteers who accompany their students each week.

“Throughout the summer there are probably 300 to 500 different churches that come, and I’ll meet with their pastors and counselors. That’s the main focus of my ministry, because there’s a greater ripple effect for them when they go home than what I can do in only a week with a student during camp.”

Every morning, Ardavanis meets with roughly 250 counselors and youth pastors from all over the West Coast, explaining what their students will be hearing from Scripture that day and discussing the difficult questions they might be asked.

“I’ll be like, ‘Hey, we’re talking about the gospel tonight. So if a student asks you what it looks like to give your life to Christ, how do we respond in a way that’s biblically accurate?’ Not every person serving in youth ministry has been clearly taught these things. And that’s part of the blessing of being there, because I have a burden for the church to know the truth and to know the biblical version of Jesus Christ.”


This summer’s theme is the character of God through the lens of Moses. So as Ardavanis and guest speakers preach to the students each week, they will be unpacking themes like holiness – subjects some high school students have never been exposed to before.

“It’s so different from the environment at Master’s,” says Ardavanis, who graduated from TMU in 2013. “When a student comes to TMU, they sign a doctrinal statement and write a testimony. But for a student at Hume, the camp could be the first interaction with evangelical Christianity they’ve ever had.”

But after a pandemic that’s lasted more than a year, even students who attend church are starving for truth and relationship.

“A lot of them have missed multiple seasons of their sports,” says Ardavanis. “Some of them haven’t been able to go to a classroom. Statistically, many of them are on a phone for six hours a day.”

Meanwhile, Ardavanis spent the past year enjoying the deep, Christ-centered relationships that form at TMU as he helped plan chapel, provided leadership for student life staff, and represented the school on the road. These relationships have made him even more determined to help students at Hume taste that same joy. And he isn’t alone in this effort; he hired a number of TMU students to be part of the summer camp team.

“It’s a really big blessing because one of the most important pieces of what I do is hiring the right staff to interact with the students who come,” Ardavanis says. “I can trust TMU students to bring joy and to have deep-seated convictions themselves, and those are two necessities at camp. We need agents of fun and agents for Christ, and I’m thankful to have our students do that.”

Ardavanis will return to TMU the second week of August, just in time to meet with the school’s student leadership team in preparation for the fall semester. It will be a whirlwind summer – but because his heart and goals are the same regardless of context, it will be a natural transition. “I want people to know Christ,” Ardavanis says. “I want them to dedicate their lives to the Word of God. That’s my heart in chapel at TMU and that’s my heart in chapel at Hume Lake.”

In fact, TMU campus pastor Harry Walls believes that Ardavanis’s work with churches and students who desperately need conviction within a compromising world sharpens him for serving TMU students. Walls says, “He’s got a heart for the gospel. He’s got a heart of discipleship for this current generation that we serve.”

Passing along this heart for truth and for reaching unbelievers is what Ardavanis wants to accomplish at TMU.

He says, “I’m pumped about creating a culture of men and women who love God, love His Word and have a deep and profound burden for the lost. So that whether they go into law, nursing, business, teaching or missions, they’re equipped with the biblical acumen that’s necessary to engage the world and to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ. I love getting to be a part of that.”

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