Love & Relationships at Winter Retreat

108 students from Bethel and Northwestern attended our Winter Retreat hosted in North Branch, MN. The retreat included snow tubing on Wild Mountain, hot tub and pool at the hotel, group games, and key note speak Marshall Segal, writer for DesiringGod and author of Not Yet Married.

The goal of the retreat was to gather students around fun activities and introduce the gospel through a topic that is usually fascinating to the college age student. Students were engaged over the topics and the retreat seemed to serve to foster like minded community and new friendships. Several mentioned a big takeaway being how God loves them perfectly and specifically and has a plan for their lives in relationships.

Marshall spoke three times on the topic of relationships encompassing dating, friendship, and relationship with the Lord. He started the weekend painting the picture that “Love is looking for you,” that relationship with God is the point of our existence and where we are headed for eternity. Further, all of what we believe about this affects how we date and marry. Marshall challenged the students that no one can love someone well if they do not love God more than that person. He also highlighted the importance of community and having people who know you to be present in your dating relationship. 

In following up with students after the retreat, it was encouraging to hear about the Lord has used the retreat in clearer understanding of what it means that God really loves them and that our relationships here on earth are imagery of God and his character. Our student leaders were also very inclusive and engaging with new students which was a definite blessing on top of an impactful 20 hours away!

Elli Van Zee
Campus Outreach Northwestern Staff

Bethel Spring Break Trip and STP!

It’s that wonderful time of the year when students get a week off from classes and they can do whatever they want. Naturally, people want to do something with other people and go somewhere warm. That’s where we come in! We ask students to come down for two reasons:

1. To have fun with a community of believers who lean in
2. To come to treasure Jesus more

The fact that the price of the trip is cheap and that we were going somewhere warm is helpful, but I really think people come on these trips because they long for community. This year Bethel had 27 students come on our spring break trip. That is a lot more students than we had last year. I think it was because we had a lot of leaders who were coming and they brought others with them.

Part of what we are trying to build here at Bethel is a body of believers who lean into each other's life. We love to have fun and enjoy one another. I think that environment was definitely created on our spring break trip. Even though the weather wasn’t great, we all had such a great time. A lot of people still got burnt too. We did activities such as: playing volleyball, soaking in the sun on the beach, going to alligator adventure, going bowling, going to see a movie and playing a lot of games at our hotel (Mafia). If you ever go to Myrtle Beach you should visit Alligator Adventure, they have a crocodile named UTAN who weighs over 2,000 pounds!

To help students treasure Jesus more, each day we had a bible study. Our theme this year was “We are the problem”. As a staff team, we hear students use language as if all their problems are outside of them. “Only if this guy didn’t yell at me like that then I wouldn’t have reacted like that.” We really wanted to help students see that we are the problem. We read through passages like Romans 3 and Ephesians 2 which say that no one is righteous and that we were all once children of wrath. We have a heart and sin problem. Understanding this important aspect of our lives makes the news of Jesus so sweet. Along with talking about how we are the problem, we read and learned about how Jesus is the solution and hero of the story. Understanding our sinful hearts makes what Jesus did for us on the cross so beautiful. For some students, this was a sweet and familiar theme and for others, it was something new. Our theme created a lot of good conversations where Jesus was glorified!

Lastly, our spring break trip created a lot of excitement for Bethel students to attend our Summer Training Project. A handful of the students who came on our spring break trip signed up to come to STP. We were praying that God would bring 25 Bethel students and he has exceeded our prayer by bringing 33 students, which is double last year! Our Bethel staff team is praying that these students would treasure Jesus more not only this summer but for a lifetime.

Lucas Cecka
Campus Outreach Minneapolis
Bethel Campus Staff