The Middle School Retreat

Before I talk a little about the Middle School Retreat. I have to hold true to my word and update all of you on our 'Office' Fantasy Football League. I lost again this week. Dixie Hazelbaker beat me which is bad enough, but her team name is the Tinkerbells. Yeah that makes it hurt even worse. Anyways she has 2 wide recievers combine for 60 points. That makes it kind of difficult. Now I have gone from 2nd place all the way down to 5th. Yeah not a good week in Fantasy Football for me. Oh Well.

Now to talk about something I am really excited about. This year's Middle School Retreat is going to be special. We are going to Butler Springs Camp with 3 other Youth Groups October 23-25. This is the last week to register for it too. I am not trying to make a blog advertisement about the Retreat. I just want to communicate the passion all of the churches have put into it and our hopes for the impact it will have.

The focus of the retreat is pretty simple. The idea is that your direction determines your destination. We kind of stole the idea from Andy Stanley and a book he wrote recently. In Middle School identity and autonomy are a big deal for students. They are really deciding who they are, and what groups of people they feel connected to. That is a stressful and turbulent process. As we planned the retreat we felt like the circumstances of Daniel were a great example of that truth. Daniel and his friends were taken captive by the Babylonians as youths. Their circumstances determined where they lived, their jobs, and they were even given new names. The thing that was exceptional about Daniel and his friends, was the way they didn't allow those circumstances to seperate them from their faith or from God. They stayed focused, kept their faith in God.

Besides digging into some awesome Biblical truth we have some awesome things planned for the students. The late night games we will be playing on Friday night will be memorable. Saturday promises to bring even more fun during the afternoon sessions. The closing session on Saturday night will be an awesome time where each student gets to take all the knowledge and truth they have heard and get involved. I am pretty excited to see what that will look like.

I am going to go try and make my fantasy football team better so we don't lose to a Disney Character again. If you have any thoughts or questions about the Middle School Retreat let me know. Don't forget to be praying about the retreat too. We need to spend a lot of time praying that it will be relevant to our guys and gals.