A Beautiful Collision

By Matt Acton

It was a weekend of dynamic worship, powerful messages, quiet Places, riveting dramas, and an afternoon of mud sliding. Here is one student's response from the Student Ministries Retreat:

On November 10th, around 100 middle and high school students boarded two buses headed for Jumonville, Pennsylvania. As a high school student, I can say that we didn't know what to expect or what God had in plan for us that weekend. Between worships and our speaker, God collided with the students and leaders in quiet whispers at times and sometimes in situations that left us "wrecked." God spoke to me in whispers this weekend. In our lodge there was a room called "The Place" and it was where I had some of the most intimate moments with Him. It was "the perfect getaway" and escape from all the noise; a chance to quietly sit before our Savior. The atmosphere of this retreat was very surreal and eye-opening. Several students gave testimonies of what God is doing in their lives and how this weekend helped them let go of stress, anger, frustration, and sadness. When we collide with our Father and Creator, nothing but big things can come out of it, and our youth group is a testimony to that. I know that this weekend did not end when we pulled into the church parking lot, and I pray that everything holy about this retreat will stick with us forever.
-Rachel H.

The focus of our retreat this fall was on the theophany of Jacob. (One of the many benefits of spending time with our speaker, Jim Paul, is the new vocabulary words.) A theophany is when the Divine appears. As Jim describes it, in a theophany, God shows up. In Genesis, before he goes to meet his brother Esau, Jacob has this theophany with God and physically wrestles with Him. Last weekend, we had our own theophany. God was clearly present on our retreat and many of us wrestled with Him.

We called our retreat Collide, an idea taken from a quote by David Crowder, "When our depravity meets His divinity it is a beautiful collision." Often when we encounter God, we are moving in one direction and He is moving in another; the inevitable result is a collision. Sometimes this collision wrecks us, challenging what we once thought to be true and leaving us with more, but ultimately leading us closer to God than we previously imagined.

On Saturday night, we had a worship service in which we sang David Crowder Band's Come and Listen. The lyrics are: Come and listen, Come and listen to what He's done. Praise our God for He is good. He has done for me. He has done for you. He has done for us. Between choruses, students came and shared what God had been doing in their lives. It was amazing.

I believe each student on the retreat had a unique collision with God last weekend. I urge you to find a student and ask them what God has done in their lives and listen to what they share.