The Great Retreat Debate Revisited
By Adam McLane Posted on January 14 2010
In May 2006, Jason Raitz and I published an article series called “The Great Retreat Debate.” When the series was published it generated a fair amount of discussion as youth workers discussed the validity of retreats in their youth groups. We were both pleased with the debate and satisfied that the dialogue had gone as far as it needed to go.
Flash-forward to Christmas 2006. As I was finishing my Christmas shopping I started to receiving e-mails about the article I had written back in May. I quickly discovered that the Christian Camp and Conference Associationhad mentioned my article in their weekly newsletter that is mailed to camp ministry professionals with the headline “Anti-Camping Opinions Emerging.”
Around the office I started joking about the “hate mail” I was receiving about the article. While I always like getting feedback to what I’ve written, this wasn’t the type of feedback I anticipated.
In the preceding weeks I’ve received lots of feedback about the article, Why I Kissed Retreats Goodbye. Some responses were polite and inquisitive, some requested clarifications, some requested a phone call, and some were productive articulating what they learned from what I wrote. In early January, I contacted the 3CA. I asked them to issue a challenge to their members to respond to my article. “Whether it’s a 50-word or 1,000-word response, we at Youth Ministry Exchange would like to give the other side a chance to respond.”
So this is what we are doing. We have committed to publishing responses to the original article for the purpose of moving the discussion to something truly profitable for both youth ministry and camp ministry professionals. They will be linked here as well in a side story. For all responses, all I ask is fair and open discussion.
