by Roger Alcaraz
Long drives, late nights, early mornings, fun games, adventurous days, and plenty of time in God’s word. That sounds like the perfect ingredients to our latest youth retreat. To anyone wondering where all our teenagers were a few Sundays ago, no, there wasn’t a Justin Beiber concert. We had much greater plans.
Our destination was UC Santa Barbara which ended up being a 5 hour drive…one way. Why so far away? It was to reveal our big surprise. When we all arrived, everyone went into one of the rooms for a “meeting” when suddenly, out popped the LBCSJ youth ministry! Everyone was super excited to see each other and after all the commotion, everyone was ready for the first of four messages from JR and myself.
The theme of the retreat was “Set Apart.” To be set apart is what it literally means to be holy. Our studies took us from how Christians are set apart to why they’re set apart, and for what they’re set part—going from theology to practice. The first message was titled, “Set Apart by God, For God, and Because of God,” and it focused on how without God, there is no reason or motivation to be holy because he is the one who chooses people to be holy, Christians are to be holy for God’s glory and because he is holy himself.
The rest of the messages spoke on what ways the Christians is to be set apart in, namely evangelizing, good works, and suffering. It’s safe to say that the call to be holy is a high calling that every Christian has received and yet continues to falls short, but we were encouraged to see examples in Scripture of people seeking to live as the shining lights to the world.
Aside from the messages and small groups, the weekend had its share of play time. We learned a fun game called Spool that involves a lot of running back and forth across a pool table. We also played a new version of volleyball involving huge water balloons and a blanket as teams try to fling the balloon over the net while the other tries to catch it with their blanket. We had extra water balloons so, naturally, we started a water balloon fight! Sopping wet, we walked 50 yards to the beach and split into two teams for a new game, “Build a Pastor.” Each team would build a sand body of either JR or me and were judged according to creativity, accuracy, and presentation.
The winning team and their life-like sand body, complete with dry seaweed for hair.
We also enjoyed plenty of time fellowshipping in the dorms, eating at the all-you-can-eat UCSB dining hall, singing songs, and touring the beautiful UCSB campus. Our last night there, we stayed up doing some memorable improvisational acting and performing in an “Untalent Show.” Actual talent was optional as we got to witness amazing, singing, choreography, clapping, gleeking, and knuckle walking. Who knew we had such a talented youth group?
All this is to say we had a great youth retreat, drawing closer to God and to one another. How much greater can it get?