So, given that I am leaving on yet another trip this coming weekend, it behooves me to catch up on the failure I've been at keeping this correspondence up to date. It's been two months since the weekend I'm describing here, and that's just tragic. All of you who were snickering about how I would quit this blog once I start working, well, I'll never quit! But I am behind. I've been staying far more current on Facebook, so if you've never friended me, go for it! I don't bite, and I don't post annoying gaming stuff on other people's walls.
The C3 Retreat at Camp Cedar Falls was for all the young adults in the Southern California Conference to get together and accomplish what the C3 stands for: Connect. Cultivate. Carry. In other words, to make friends, develop skills to enrich their spiritual lives, and hopefully learn something that they can take back home with them. The theme of the weekend was, "The Main Thing is that Jesus is the Main Thing," a simple yet difficult concept to communicate.
I promoted this retreat for months, both at my own church and in other places. I sent emails. I distributed fliers. I texted people. Some even gave me a hint that they wanted to go. But when I got there, no one from my church showed.
As I helped my fellow pastors on the Pheron committee (which puts all of these young adult events together) set up the ridiculously huge screen (20 feet tall! We barely got it under the rafters), for the first day, I was awfully quiet about the lack of attendance from my church. I was ashamed that, after being the promotions powerhouse that got a large number from the Hispanic Region to show, none of my actual local young adults had come. I focused on building up my friendships with my fellow pastors instead. I got to know the men better as I helped haul A/V equipment, and the women as I helped set up the prayer room.
The prayer room looked amazing; Pastor Cherise had done an incredible job conceptualizing it and doing all the research to pull it off. It had 12 stations that involved different kinds of prayer activities. One involved planting a marigold, another praying for someone abroad and marking it on a map, still another meditating in front of a mirror on how God sees you. The people who went through it really got something out of it, and it was beautiful, both visually interesting and offering options for kinesthetic thinkers to experience God. So much of Adventist worship is auditory, which I love--but not every person is auditory, and the appeal to the other senses was really valuable.
Friday night's opening meeting was a bit chaotic because we had never assigned someone to oversee the order of service, and there were some technology glitches, but it was still powerful. In an impromptu move, Iki Taimi lead them in singing acapella without the (really excellent, but really loud) band we'd brought along, and the voices were incredibly strong. These young adults weren't used to the joy of being with other believers their own age, and later on, we would receive correspondence about how the music brought them together so powerfully. Glenn Gibson's messages throughout the weekend, just re-teaching the very basic but very important connection to Jesus really hit home for those listening.
On Sabbath, between the meetings we had break-out sessions, and I was teaching one on the spiritual discipline of writing. Because of the personality types attracted to writing, I hadn't expected many to sign up for it, and was afraid there would be no one. After all, who would want to come to a break out session on writing when Iki Taimi is teaching one on relationships, "Girl. Guy. God." at the same time? I didn't even know where my break-out session was going to meet until the one token task-structured organizer of our group, Tony, told me where to walk. I had a respectable sized group, and we started to walk.
And we walked. I wasn't sure if we'd really find the place we were supposed to meet, or if Tony was playing a trick on me in passive-aggressive revenge for me not bringing anyone from my church. I used the walk, which offered stunning vistas and snow, to teach my group observational skills, and we even threw snowballs at each other on the way. Then, we found it, and it was perfect: an outdoor space with a fort, luscious trees, and the sound of a river. I gave the group time to write before teaching them the content, but as I wrote as well, I think it did me as much good as it did them. The evening version of it was indoors, and the people who went to it seemed to enjoy it, but it wasn't quite as magical.
There was also a break in which we could all do whatever we wanted, and I enjoyed walking out to the swinging bridge with my fellow pastors. It was a great out-of-office, no-business, just getting-to-know-each-other little hike. These moments are rare among such driven people.
At the mealtimes, I met some pretty awesome students, but concealed my age as I realized that many of them were older than me. I felt awkward--I was a pastor, and therefore not one of the campers, but I am also 4 years younger than the youngest of my colleagues. After the evening's meeting and games, there was an impromptu raucous karaoke night. The band, without using any music, played to each of the songs requested. I joined in the fun, reveled in listening to the voices and talents of the campers, and suddenly realized, "I need not be ashamed. I did bring along a young adult who needs this retreat. I brought myself." From that point on, I gave myself permission to enjoy the retreat. Pity it took me so long.
At breakfast on Sunday, I confessed my true age and profession to the people I'd met, and though they were a little shocked ("A 22-year-old pastor? I didn't know that was possible!"), they still accepted me. I refused to feel weird about the age gap with my colleagues as I wrangled communion cups with them. The final communion seemed to bond the whole group that had been there that weekend in a special way. I am still in contact with some of the people I met there, and I feel like it really re-energized me to go back to my church and rebuild the young adult program that had fallen apart in the weeks leading up to the retreat. (Yeah; the previous weekend I lost my lay leader and two members. The two members seem to be interested in coming back, though, so things are looking positive.)
I did not go straight home from the retreat, though; I drove out to the desert for a long overdue visit to my relatives there. Grandma Spencer was delighted to see me, and we went out with my aunt, uncle, and cousins to the Spaghetti Factory to celebrate my uncle's many years of working at Rose Mortuary. My favorite part of the whole thing was reconnecting with my cousin, Tommy, and putting faces to names I had heard for years. It was hard to leave the desert the next day; Grandma and I had plenty to chat about. But I had a young adult program to rebuild, and avoiding it would do no good.
The young adult program seems to be doing better now, and I've gotten a bit better about that delicate balance between work and play, and I'm finally developing a social life outside of work. (No easy task.) I am thrilled to announce that I've been picked up for a second year at Alhambra, which will give me more time to fix the young adult program, and to make the things I have been successful at sustainable so that they don't collapse when I eventually leave for Andrews. Speaking of Andrews, it will be featured heavily in the next episode of Jillian's Journeys, which hopefully I will have the discipline to write tomorrow. That would be awesome, as it is really hard to write about a trip like this when you took no notes and it happened two months ago, and the Women's Clergy Conference was really incredible.
I hope that life has been treating all of you well, and I'm so sorry for falling off the grid like this. For some reason, whenever I've gotten to "Write Jillian's Journeys" on my to-do list, I've found it a convenient time to stop working. Today, I made NO to-do list, and thus, you got an episode. I love you all, and wish you the best
