Our annual middle school fall retreat is a wrap! It was a doozy of a weekend with storms hitting the coast. While we didn’t get as much rain as other parts of our region, we still got a lot! We made some pivots on our schedule to take advantage of when it wasn’t raining to let the kids still get time on the zip line and canoes and other outside activities, and honestly, even when it was raining it didn’t seem to stop them. We had kids playing soccer in the rain, taking on the blob and water slide in the rain, running all over the place … they had a blast! We also added archery tag in the gym, moved our 9 Square in the Air tournament to the afternoon when the worst of the rain was supposed to be happening, and cancelled the bonfire in favor of a movie night or time in the game room and gym.
One of the highlights was our Sunday baptisms, When we started our worship service in the chapel it was pouring … but thankfully it let up before we all went down to the lake and our thirteen middle school students getting baptized were able to do so without everyone getting rained on. It was so good hearing their testimonies and seeing the excitement on their faces as they took this step!
Our theme this year was Surrender. We looked at the life of the apostle Paul, from who he was before he met Jesus, to his encounter on the Damascus road, to being sent out afterward. Our connecting thread through all three messages was Galatians 2:20, where Paul writes that his old self was crucified with Christ and Christ now lives in him.
Friday night Ben Cura talked about surrendering the life we build for ourselves, including the good plans we make without ever asking God about them. Saturday night we looked at surrender as a trade, not a loss, and what Paul actually received when he gave up everything he’d been. Sunday morning Melissa Stein brought it home to being sent, and we closed the weekend with student baptisms. Here are some follow up questions you could ask your student(s):
- Which did you hear that stood out to you the most this weekend? Why?
- Sunday’s message was that Jesus doesn’t just save people, He sends them. Where do you think you’re already sent?
- What was it like to hear and watch the testimonies and baptisms? What can you learn from them?
You can watch the messages below, or you can listen to them on our podcast feed: