Retreats, both longer (like RYM) and shorter (like ROOTs), are really useful in the lives of students. I’ll confess that as a young youth director, I was deeply skeptical of both varieties. In my experience, they frequently played on emotions and created unsustainable expectations about the content of the Christian life once a student was back in their house, school, and otherwise ordinary life. 

As time has gone on, retreats have become one of those aspects of youth ministry for which I have a lot of affection, and here’s why: retreats provide a ready-made, safe environment into which students can get away for a period of time. The lives of modern teens are fraught with high expectations (both internal and external), anxiety, and a frenetic pace of life. In general, teens tend to find themselves living and moving and having their being in a milieu (sometimes internally more than externally) that mirrors a very challenging shame/honor dynamic: Perfection is mere success, and any blemish signals a fundamental failure.

Retreats allow students to exit that social situation for a season, either short or long, and simply be themselves. They get unstructured time without commitments to attend to or expectations to meet. Instead of producing in the form of taking tests or doing homework, they get to simply receive the Gospel from God’s Word. ROOTs 2024 gave our students a chance to rest and to simply be with God and His people without the distractions of social media, school, and the like.

– Tucker