Good evening,

As I type this it’s late into the evening the night before a youth retreat and this is one of my favorite nights of the year! There’s great anticipation and our group of leaders met this afternoon for a time of training as well as buttoning up the final details preparing for your teens tomorrow morning. It was like Christmas morning seeing all of the details coming together and the things that worked… or didn’t, so much fun together as a team of leaders!

In the midst of all of that business I wanted to take a moment to communicate a few final details to you all… here goes, the 5 things you need to know heading into this week!

1 – Registration

Onsite registration will begin at 10:15am tomorrow morning in the lobby of the church, please use the front entrance doors closest to the church offices due to our setup. Our first main session begins at 11a (more on the schedule below) so please make sure you’re on time.

2 – On Site

Once on-site we are having the teens stay at the building unless the leaving is specific to an event. The main thing this means is… no mid-day trips to Walgreens (I know, they’re so much fun though!). Please have them bring a few extra dollars for a snack stand we’ll have here at the building raising funds for the Alive Youth Group. We’ll have all of the other items they’ll need for a great week onsite as well.

3 – Packing List

Each day looks a bit different this week as we seek to combine the fun and study that happens at a youth camp with a local missions trip… that means you’ll want to pay special attention to the packing list we’ve put together for you. Let me give you a head’s up on some of the items to bring… Bible and notepad, I’ll let the list take care of the rest… click here for that information >>

4 – Schedule

Our week is packed with a ton of different experiences, team building fun and time in God’s Word. Like I said earlier, each day looks a bit different as we shift the teaching schedule and serving schedule each day to serve our broader mission of doing projects in our church building, for members of our church and finally for an organization in our community. You can check out the full schedule here >>

5 – Parent’s are welcome!

We realize that you, as parents, are the primary faith influencers in a young person’s life. The best disciple making takes place when a student’s parents take the lead. We want you to be involved in your teen’s life! That’s why we’ve given you the full schedule and I wanted to highlight Tuesday and Thursday night’s as great times to join us for worship and The Word. Thursday night will include an extended time of worship and ministry as well… join us in all that God is doing in us and through us this week!

Bonus: be praying!

Even if you’re not able to attend, we welcome your prayers. There are close to 70 people (leaders and teens) participating in our retreat this year and our heart is that we would all be able to live out what we’re told to do in Mark 12:30

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

That about does it… I’m off to make sure that things are locked down here at the building and that the Legos are freezing properly (more about that later…).