By Amy Jayne – Emerge Retreat Planning Team | Associate Pastor at Newport Covenant
This past weekend, 39 young adults from around the PacNW Conference gathered at Cascades Camp for a relaxing, life-giving retreat. Some came in groups from their churches and others ventured out alone, hoping to find connection with others in the same stage of life. Nearly every person shuffled in with a sense of relief that they had finally arrived to a comfortable space (with no cell service). Everyone settled into board games, coloring books, puzzles, napping and hiking for the weekend. There were workshops, activities and freedom and space to rest and refuel throughout the day on Saturday. A non-anxious calm pervaded our time together. There was much laugher, too much candy and of course, barely enough coffee.
On Friday evening in our opening session, we shared with one another ‘why’ we were there and a few comments stuck out to me in my cluster… “I need to unplug.” – “I feel alone in my church, and I want to connect with people my age.” – “I am longing to spend focused time in conversation with God.” – “I have some questions for God, and I want to ask them in a safe place.” From the onset, I knew God was at work, responding to these voices. With young adults being increasingly disconnected from and actually quite neglected in the church, I was grateful to see each of them pursuing Christ and community with such hope and courage. Through this retreat, God was providing for them beyond their expectations and fueling them to return to their churches anchored to a bigger vision. Speaker and blogger, Ali Hormann, joined us from Minneapolis with story-filled perspective and biblical teaching on identity. She drew us into a refreshing narrative in which our identities are written by Christ, and we are equipped to choose the voices that get a say in who we are. Together, we talked through some hard issues in this identity conversation. We worshipped God to the sound of the ukulele and the simplicity of each other’s voices. We ended our time together by speaking goodness and truth to one another and celebrating around the Table. God is faithful to all generations and the Emerge retreat was certainly a testament to that.
