2007 Fall Campus Retreat

Title: Fall 2007 Campus Retreat “Lost Ones”
Marcus Wallace (South Sound Church of Christ Intern)

This year’s fall campus was one to remember. Although we were once again in Vashon Island aka the Island City with No Street Lights (named by me and other students), we were in a new and improved part of the Camp Sealth campground (which for some of us was hard to find). However once we got there, we had a great time. We started off the night by eating some of Alex Whitaker’s famous New York chili and then had our first lesson entitled “Lost Leadership” in society today. The speaker for this class, Marcus Wallace (yes it was me—it is always strange writing about yourself), strove to highlight the lost leadership that exists in America by reporting some disparaging stats about society. A few included:

- Pornography industry makes about $10 billion dollars a year which is more than ABC + CBS + NBC (about 6.2 billion)

- Porn revenue is larger than all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.

- Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

- Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce

- About 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an affair at some point in some marriage

In addition to these statistics, he also discussed how in many circles of Christianity today, the topic of sin has been replaced by a feel good message that leaves people feeling good but unchanged in many areas of their lives spiritually. In closing, Marcus challenged all the students to redefine leadership by knowing their bibles and letting it be the standard of how they should live their lives.

The retreat only got better as two disciples a part of the UW ministry (boyfriend and girlfriend) got a chance to share openly and candidly from their lives in the class entitled, “Lost Values.” Both of them shared how before they became true disciples of Jesus Christ, their value system for life was usually led by preserving self and seeking acceptance from others. As a result, their lives were plagued with frequent episodes of underage drinking and sexually immoral behavior with those they dated. They encouraged many of the college students to get open with the sin in their lives.

After lunch and a break for some sports, the men and women had separate classes as we looked at the topic of “Lost Souls.” For the men, Ryan Flynn led a convicting class that challenged many men to admit that as a result of the sin in their lives, they were separated from God. It was Amazing! For the women, a myriad of women shared about how their religious pride towards God led them into sin either before/and they became Christians. The night closed as people talked about the lessons, played board games like Risk and Scrabble and Mafia, or just fellowshipped with one another until they were ready for bed.

The crescendo of the Retreat came during the Sunday Worship Service as Alex Whitaker (Campus Minister at the University of Washington) preached a lesson that proved that in order to be found by God, one must first be Lost and then in order to have our sins forgiven by God, we must follow the plan of salvation outlined in the Bible (a path that many involved in Christianity have left). Immediately following the lesson, many of the visiting students set up bibles studies for later on that day and during the following week in order for them to repent and get baptized and get right with God. If you were Lost (Spiritually) before you came and if you wanted to truly change your life, you were definitely given the way to be Found (Spiritually).