by Scott Gronholz

Weekend retreats with Middle School students tend to get a little out of hand and this year’s Middle School spring retreat to Black Lake Bible camp was no exception. There were epic games of capture the flag in the dark with glow sticks, our intern Mike Lucero lead us in a game of “Lord of the Rings” where kids had to get “rings” to “Mount Doom” without getting caught by “Ring Wraiths” (leaders with flashlights), students totally overdosed on coffee creamer that they kept sneaking from the kitchen (surprise, surprise), and the boys’ cabins got silly stringed by the girls. Aside from that the weekend was filled with leisurely games of carpet ball, quality conversations by the lake, dodge ball, and a spontaneous moment where everybody ended up dancing in the rain and getting completely soaked.

As always, the best part of the trip were the opportunities we had to worship together and listen to someone talk about God’s word. This particular weekend we had Jessica Lee join us to talk about the story of the prodigal son. Jessica was aleader in the Middle School youth group for 3 years before she moved on this year to help out with the college ministry. She will be heading off to Princeton Seminary next year, but we were all blessed to have her as our guest teacher.

The prodigal son is such a rich story and Jessica spent the weekend focusing each of her talks on a different character in the story. As the students heard about the forgiveness the prodigal receives, the jealousy of the older brother, and the love of the father it was obvious that God was moving in their hearts and teaching them about what it means to be loved by God and then wanting to share that love with others.

Youth Group leaders never really know what is going to happen on a spring retreat and we can only hope and pray that the students will have fun and that they will grow in their relationship with God. That definitely happened on this particular retreat. I am always struck by the fact that the best moments on a retreat, whether it’s a spontaneous rain dance or God’s spirit moving in the hearts of the students to teach them something new, the best times seem to be when things get a little out of hand.