Teen Retreat 2025!
70 teen, tweens, and volunteers piled out of cars and into Pilgrim Pines at Swanzey Lake, New Hampshire under a threatening sky last Friday night. The rains actually held off (but the puddles caught us by surprise in the dark!) Hosted by the Anglican Diocese in New England, and run by yours truly, we gathered from New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire to hear from Jesus. We expected a weekend of energy, silliness, and mud. We did not expect the Lord to go quite so deep… or to laugh quite so hard!
We walked through the Lord’s prayer over the weekend. Jesus’ friends asked him how to pray—God can feel far away, prayer can feel hard to start, we can feel distracted and stuck. Jesus knows this. So he gave us his words, his promises, as an anchor for our soul. He wanted us to say his promises back to him when we are going through the opposite of them. In the midst of loneliness, he says to call on His Father as “Our Father” (John 14:6,7) When we are hungry for friends, for peace, for acceptance, and we are trying to fill that hunger in all the wrong ways, Jesus leads us to say, “Give us our daily bread… forgive me… help me forgive them.” His grace is the real food we need (John 6:35). He is the source of life. In the third talk, we talked about the Holy Spirit. Jesus and God the Father give us the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is always praying for us and through us in ways too deep for words (Romans 8:26-28). We painted, we listened to music, we considered all the things that speak to us deeper than words. That creativity is a gift from the Lord, to help us release the buried things inside us to give them to Jesus. It is also a way for God to speak to us, deep in our soul. In Jesus, God promises to carry us through evil and even death itself. Say my words back to me, I will keep all my promises to you.
As we looked at all the ways we try to get our needs met on our own, without Jesus as the source, we were led to say sorry. Jesus leads us to repent by the context surrounding the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6. He is holding up a mirror to hypocrites, to people pleasers, to those of us stuck in resentment; he is leading us to realize we need him… he is getting us ready to cry out this prayer. In the center of this prayer, Jesus assures us of his forgiveness.
We used paint (of course) to make our Spirit-led confession.
“Save me, us, them” we prayed as we laid our hands in paint and set them on the wood.
Jesus’ reply is “already done.”
The huge, white thumbprint represents Christ’s hands leaning in to touch ours, healing, forgiving, reassuring us by his death and resurrection.
you can see the huge thumbprint (as in Jesus’) surrounded by the personal promise portraits in the back
We all took one of God’s promises and made it our own. We painted something about ourselves and what it meant to us. (What the kids didn’t realize is that they painted in fluorescent paint!)
That night, we hit the black lights and - surprise! The huge thumbprint and the kids’ “promise portraits” glowed! They did not expect that. The art showed that Jesus exceeds our expectations. He satisfies our hunger to overflowing and answers our cries. We talked about the Holy Spirit, and showed how he is always interceding for us, deeper than words, in ways art can show. We locked it in with personal testimonies from Piper and Bp. Drew, and me. Kids came up for prayer. One met Jesus for the first time. Others, asked for help. Our souls rested - knowing Jesus loved us and was with us.
And then we went crazy! During the retreat, our special guests, Linda from Long Island, Jimmy from Queens, and Lewis from Australia were on a hunt to find the queen of all swans at SWANzey Lake… they found her!
The kids UN-talent show ended with a glow-in-the-dark global dance party bouncing around a giant pool toy! It made sense.
When we asked the kids, “What was their favorite part of the retreat?” They answered:
“Epic swan dance party”
“Ropes’ course”
“the food!” (and a cookie tray every night!)
“archery”
“beating Ben in basketball”
“painting”
“worship”
“making new friends and hanging out with good ones”
“the lake”
Join us next year! Jesus’ promise stands for you today and every day: cry out to me, I will answer you.
…for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done,on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen
(Matthew 6:8-13)
Recommended Reading
