Youth Contemplative Retreat
9:30am-3:30pm, June 16, 2025 // The Hermitage, Three Rivers, MI
After sharing my personal testimony of how contemplative Christian practices enlivened my faith I shared with 10 high school students about how to understand their spiritual appetite. We sang together, breathed together, and considered how God might be inviting us into rest. The pattern for our time was teaching by me, experimentation by them, and reflection with each other. Here are the contemplative practices we covered:
Silence
Journaling
RAIN Self-compassion meditation
Visio Divina
Embodied Prayer
Blessings
Some resources we used at the retreat are listed below
Annette, Retreat Coordinator:
“Since our students come from a more ‘intellectual’ approach to faith, students were understandably wary about what they would be asked to do. But Amy’s obvious enthusiasm for spiritual practices, her listening ear, and her gentle invitation quickly put our students at ease.
After creating space for our students to implement some of the practices she taught them, she invited students to come back and share their experiences with each other. Students were thoughtful and vulnerable and freely shared about what they experienced—and I attribute their willingness to share to Amy, who cultivated a space where students felt comfortable and safe even as they were trying new and perhaps uncomfortable things.”