#137. Holding retreats at locations that could double as horror movies.
Apr 11th by JonIt’s possible that all your church retreats were held in lovely fields of flowers. After making friendship bracelets with your best friends you had a big tickle fight with baby deer and bunny rabbits before eating smores around the amber glow of a bonfire.
My retreats were different.
Especially the ones that were held at Cape Cod Sea Camps. During the fall this otherwise full camp, pressed hard against the ocean, was empty. And we must have received a good deal on it, because for a few years running that was where my youth group went. Until the whole “demon possession” thing.
Walt Mueller was the guest speaker and in typical Saturday night retreat fashion, he had told us to go off alone to think about what we had heard that night. I wasn’t thrilled. Cape Cod Sea Camps is a series of concrete bunker type buildings hidden in the dunes and sea scrubbed forests of New England. Steps from any door you are swallowed by darkness and ocean air and sand.
After a few minutes in solitary thought, we were supposed to return to the basement entrance of the building we were meeting in. When I came back there was a single candle lit in the middle of a circle of chairs. (I need to post about youth group “special effects.”) When we all finally came back we realized that someone was missing. That’s when we started hearing the screaming. It got louder and louder and louder, slowly circling the building. Youth leaders scattered like my grandma at the opening scene of the movie American Beauty.
In the only window in the basement I saw Karen, a dog groomer by day, lean back and slap a girl in the forehead. She passed out. They drove her home. We all went and had ice cream and pretended nothing had happened.
Turns out it was a nervous breakdown. She was fine. We talk about it to this day. And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you had the field of flowers experience, but I have to believe that somewhere down the road your youth minister saved the church some money by booking your retreat in the most terrifying place in your state.
Comments
I think you’re absolutely right on this post, and it doesn’t just apply to youth retreats…it can apply to offsite staff meetings as well! Our church staff did a planning meeting at a retreat in New York that was primarily a summer tourist season place. We were there the weekend before the season opened, and we were the ONLY PEOPLE THERE. They put us rooms at the end of a dark hall lit by motion-sensing fluorescent lights that were dim and made a loud humming noise as they warmed up. Then, there was the guy who wandered around the common areas where we were planning and kept offering to help us with the computers if we needed. I could go on and on…
To this day, the campground my home church group currently uses – and owns – also houses the local cemetary. Yep, the view from the window’s of the girls cabins overlooked a huge, old cemetary. I never really thought about how odd that was until reading this post.
I love your blog, and have added it to my favorites. I was refered to it by another blog that I was refered to by another blog. Favorites so far…the Elisha bit involving wall murals, youth retreats, and by the way, Dave Ramsey is as big here as he is there (I’m in Utah, and not a Mormon)and I will be going to see him on May 17th. Keep up the entertaining writing. It feels good to laugh out loud from time to time.
When I was in college my InterVarsity chapter had a retreat in a cabin half a mile from all roads and signs of civilization. In February. In Minnesota. We had to hike through half a mile of snow up to our thighs to get to a creepy one room cabin with no running water. There’s nothing quite like outdoor toilets in February in Minnesota.
ours all seemed pretty normal until they told us “the boundries” of where we could go and when we could go. Then it seemed a little like “the village.”
I take it from this post you grew up in New England. Where abouts? I am in Central MA.
Oh and Dave Ramsey is popular here but it seems only with people to poor to by his book. (I work for a “christian” book store.)
Billy
Billy -
I grew up in Ipswich and Hudson. I went to school in Shrewsbury, St. John’s and then lived in Arlington with my wife.
Where are you from?
Jon
Since you’re living in Georgia now, I’m sure you can attest to this – every time you take a retreat into the mountains of north Georgia, without fail, you are, at least once, going to get the feeling that you’ve just stumbled upon Camp Crystal Lake. Heck, I’m in college now, and mountain retreats still have those “OHMYGOD – WHATVEWEDONE!” moments.
Actually, our retreats were always all-nighter lock-ins… and they were in a mall. One of our youth leaders was head security guard at a nearby mall, and got permission every year for us to basically run rampant in the main areas (all the stores were closed). It was AWESOME. Who else can say they played Capture the Flag in a mall, or accidentally drove their brother’s remote controlled car into the fountain in the middle?!
kimana83… If I had a Quarter for every time I drove my little brother’s remote controlled car into the fountain in the center of a mall…
Anyway, The Easter Seals Camp near Clarksville, TN is the scariest place on the planet. I asked Jesus to come into my heart 137 times at that place.
i once led worship at a youth retreat that was held at a camp at the top of a mountain in November. that’s not so bad, except that the camp ran out of room, and worship was held in a open-air gymnasium. ever tried to play guitar when you can’t feel your fingers and the microphone is freezing to your lips?
another camp i led worship for was at a lake retreat center where all the kids and adults lived on houseboats for the weekend. worship was also outside, this time under picnic shelters… sounds nice, right? it rained the entire weekend…
HAHAHA I am absolutely rolling around on the floor in laughter!
Our youth group camp was somewhere in Wisconsin. The cabins were falling apart (some even had outhouses instead of plumbing). Activities included sending me, my cousin and 4 other 8th grade girls ALONE and all with ZERO rafting experience down a river complete with Leeches! Oh yea…. We had a blast. IT WAS A NIGHTMARE! I never prayed harder in all my life.
(I type this as I begin to shudder and rock back and forth muttering the chant ROW, ROW, ROW, Oh please ROW!!)
Jon – I remember this like it was yesterday! Was the camp really that horrible and cheesy???? I think you must have been sitting right next to me in that basement room because we had the same view out that window. The screaming was horrifying. I think I may have wet my pants just a little bit. It was like sitting in a dark room with a small screen TV tuned in to a bad horror movie. . . with the volume turned all the way up. That was one crazy night. Did we really not say anything about what happened???? I remember deferring to your youth pastor as he knew the girl. . . was it an act, a sugar-high caused by too much of that camp punch, a breakdown, a demon????
Ahh yes the creepy retreats… Only at my private Christian school we were required/forced to call them “advances” because “Christians do not retreat… we advance.” Our “camp” was held out somewhere in the woods about 2 hours away from civilization. It was always cold and damp and every single time I went out there I got sick… cold, flu, pneumonia… whatever. There were the strange haunting noises and the ominous howling that we all agreed was some kind of coyote… However, I don’t think there are many coyote’s in Oklahoma. Oh and I don’t know if you’re church was like this- but mine demanded separate busses for boys and girls. Every time. We could be driving to the youth building 2 minutes away or to Camp 2 hours away in broad daylight… Separate busses.
Prodigal Jon-
I was born and raised in Worcester… still live here. Wife grew up in Randolph.
I wouldn’t say I am a typical New England-er though… I actually drive more than 15 minutes away from home for things other than work.
Love your blog and am using #127 at an upcoming meeting I’m a part of this week! Thanks for your humor and honesty.
Camp – gosh, this is funny. Grew up in Oklahoma, Church of Christ, so “mixed bathing” was unheard of as was even showing skin, so we couldn’t wear shorts (until my senior year). So, here we are in July/August, 99 degrees with 100% humidity, or more if that’s even possible, and we all wore jeans or sweats. It was the 80’s we didn’t have many choices. Our camp was in Norman, Oklahoma, set in the woods, only a few miles from the Norman Mental Health center – which of course, need I go on…that lent itself to many, MANY scary nights and numerous rumors of some escapee…always timely with when we were there. And how did the networks know to show Friday the 13th episodes the Saturday night before we left for church camp?? Was that a coincidence or the enemy…? Good times…wouldn’t have missed it for the world. :>)
Our youth group had a scavenger hunt one year that involved getting a clue from a man dressed like a demon in a cemetery. Granted, we didn’t know he was there until he JUMPED OUT AT US. Then we followed that clue to the old abandoned children’s hospital in town that was falling in and so full of pigeon poo we’re probably all secretly suffering from histoplasmosis. We then watched a funeral (held by people dressed as demons) over a child’s coffin– A real child’s coffin that was borrowed from the local funeral home. Then we got 200 points or so for reaching into one of the demon’s buckets and pulling out a pig organ.
No joke.
Our minister cancelled the scavenger hunt/lock-ins after that.
True! And the locations were made all the worse for those kids who went to an “Encounter” pentecostal church, where a large part of the weekend’s activities would involve casting out demons and dealing with repressed memories. Yeesh!
Thanks so much for your blog-what a laugh! One of my high-school youth camps was held at the only 2 year private Baptist college in TN (can’t remember the name). All the girls stayed on one floor of the dorm with 3 showers and 2 stalls for roughly 60 teenage girls. We called one shower the “laser shower” because it shot out 1 superfast stream of water. There was one air conditioning unit on the whole floor at one end of the hall, so the girls in that room had to sleep with 18 layers of clothing on, while everyone else on the hall burned up. Ahhh, good times….
I led worship at Camp Rutledge which is an offshoot from Hard Labor Creek State Park east of Atlanta. It was in 2000 or so, and it was for Johnsons Ferry or some church like that. The camp was where they had filmed the first Friday the 13th.
I’d like to tell you that was the scariest part of the camp…
Ellebelle-
Now I’m trying to think of a campsite near the Mental Health facility in Norman…do you remember the name of it? Was it near Lake Thunderbird (”Dirtybird” as we like to call it)? But yeah, it’s a creepy looking building, and I never wanted to be by it for too long.
In North Carolina our favorite spot is Camp Caswell. It is a lovely place on the coast south of Wilmington whose central landmark is an old, decrepit Civil War fort. Yeah.
The phrase ‘pressed hard against the ocean’ is so lovely and evocative…
am especially recognising the getting ice cream part: they used it like a drug to sugarcoat the really really awkward moments we laugh about so hard today… or do we only laugh about it because my brain now associates all those weird memories with ice-cream?
I get more annoyed that some refuse to use the word “retreat” – because Christians shouldn’t retreat, we should advance [the Kingdom]. Therefore? We have “advances.” Dumb, du-dum-dum DUMB.
Wait…soo….you don't really know why that candle was in the middle of the room and there was screaming?
Or are you saying that the youth pastor planned it all?
What in the world.
I wanna know too, Anicia! Makes our Saturday Night Love Circle (you always knew what was ahead when "Get Together" was popped onto the burlap-covered record player, who's got the Kleenex?) look like kid stuff, yeah, what was going on there? I am posting way too much on this site…this is so very fun!
Hee Hee! Huge rambling complexes of rundown buildings filled with fascinating junk and pre WWI canned goods, Melmac tableware, and ample time between planned activities to explore and find even weirder outbuildings that looked like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family had just stepped out for a sec. Primitive latrines cluttered with Bonne Bell and Aquanet containers and the one kid whose mother made sure he had his very own stash of Archway Cookies who would be urged to share once the rest of us saw him walking around horking down Dutch Cocoa's (right out of the package-not smart) and how he then looked like he wanted to cry a little. Watching a movie about a plucky armless woman in the dark, cavernous lodge the afternoon it was raining, knowing those canned goods lurked nearby…
Ha ha ha!! My retreats have always been fields of flowers. The first time I went to one in 7th grade, I discovered a cute little abandoned farmhouse with an apple tree and meadow-like lawn, complete with the usual daisies and buttercups. It was during free time; I was on a God high…
The closest thing we've ever had was the time we were playing our scary night games where the counselors hunt you down through the woods. This girl didn't see the ping pong table and slammed into it. She had to be airlifted. Ouch.
We never had such thrilling night games after that…