We are leaving today for our High School Retreat. This afternoon we will take the juniors and seniors to Roanoke and then to Thomas Road Outpost. 7th – 10th grade will meet us at TRO tomorrow. The kids are going to have a lot of fun, and that’s strategic, but it isn’t the primary purpose of taking students on a retreat. We tell the students that the primary purpose of the retreat is to grow closer with each other, with the staff, and with their Heavenly Father. The last one is the key to it all (no surprise).
I love camps and retreats. I have attended them since I was a little kid when my dad was a pastor in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, and Virginia. There is nothing special about the location of a retreat or a camp. We’re going to Thomas Road Outpost this week. That ground is not any more sacred than our campus and your backyard. But there is something about taking students away from the normal distractions of life and focusing them on God. It’s not that God speaks louder in the woods on the side of a mountain, it’s that the other noises in their life are turned down. That’s why cell phones are not allowed on the retreat.
Would you join me in praying for the students at the retreat this week? Pray that the Lord will help them lay aside the distractions that can’t be left at home; the distractions of the heart. Pray that God will convict students of sin that needs to be repented of. Pray that God would heal wounds that students are carrying. Pray for our speaker, Steven Thomas, and that God will speak through His Word.