Church Reaches Out to Disappointed Camping Followers

In t

he wake of Family Radio founder Harold Camping’s failed rapture
predictions, unbelievers are mocking and evangelicals are distancing
themselves from the sect whose followers traveled around the world
renting billboards and motor homes with signs proclaiming the end of the
world on May 21. One billboard playfully reproving Camping—a photo of which quickly went viral—was unveiled on
May 22, reading, “That was awkward. ‘No one knows the day or the hour …’”

But
one church,
Calvary Bible Church of Milpitas, Calif., was among the first to extend its hand of support and offer counseling to Camping’s followers. Jacob
Denys, Calvary’s pastor, led a group to
Family Radio headquarters in Oakland, Calif., on May 21 at around 4
p.m., “to reach out to those people who might have bought the lie.”
Members held up signs reading “Don’t despair,” “Calvary Bible Church
wants to help you” and “Come see us May 22, Sunday, 10 a.m.”

“We are not here to condemn anyone,” Denys said. “We are just here to talk to
(them), to let (them) know that false teaching and deception have always
been in the church, and even it says it rises within the church. And so
we want to help those people who are going to wake up tomorrow,
realizing this was a bad dream for them.”

— International Business Times