A Place Apart News

Atlantic Northeast Sr. High Youth Winter Retreat

Each January, youth from the Atlantic Northeast District gather at Camp Swatara in Bethel, PA for their Senior High Winter Retreat. This year's event, which included headliners Paul Grout (A Place Apart) and Seth Hendricks (NYC music leader), brought over 200 youth and advisors together.

The theme for the retreat was "Deep Roots, Stand Strong, Branch Out," the image of a tree. Paul Grout connected these images to those of the "Warrior, Mystic, Monk" that A Place Apart regularly uses to imagine the way that Jesus calls each to be in the world. Through discussion of movie clips, books, and music, personal stories, and scripture verses, Paul introduced these already known but not named parts of being. The youth instantly connected with Paul's message. Their comments reflected their hunger to be understood by the church: "Paul relates Godly things to real life." "He brought 'being spiritual' back into the worship experience without it being sappy." "He put a lot of things into perspective." "It all made sense."

The youth were challenged to experience the monastic hours as intentional times of worship. Seth Hendricks and Marie Rhoades, along with the ANE District Youth Cabinet, led these services in the style of Lectio Divina. Praying with their youth groups, chimes were heard by each as individual words were shared connecting the many groups as one. Many responded, "It feels like all we do is worship," in both exhaustion and awe.

Insight sessions were designed to engage youth in current issues and ancient practices of the church. They included a discussion of war and peace (David Sollenberger), next steps: from youth to young adult (Ethan Gibbel), disaster relief (Breanna Kreider and Bob Wolgemuth), a nature walk (Bob Etzweiler), art (Laina Hendricks), and prayer (Ryan Braught).

"The weekend continues to come up in conversations among youth and adult advisors," observed Tim Tanner, the youth and young adult coordinator for the Atlantic Northeast District. "It definitely made an impact."