Three nights at Table Rock Lake for 9th through 12th graders. November 5, 2026.
Covers three nights of lodging, every meal from Friday breakfast through Sunday breakfast, and transportation. Students bring $20 cash for dinner on the drive down.
Register →Every fall we take our high school students four hours south to a pair of cabins on Table Rock Lake and stay for three nights. It is the first of the five high school milestones, and for most freshmen it is the first real look at what high school ministry at Redemption is.
We have made this trip most years since 2018. It is the largest thing the youth ministry does all year.
The retreat is not a camp and it is not a conference. There is no stage and no band. There are two cabins, a lake, a kitchen we cook in together, and a small group of adults your student already knows from Wednesday nights.
“A weekend away for students to step out of their routines, deepen friendships, and explore their faith in a focused, intentional way.”The U18 MilestonesSee all the milestones →
The word we use for this milestone is displacement. Students spend the school year inside a routine that runs them: class, practice, work, a phone that never quite turns off. A retreat pulls them out of that routine on purpose, for long enough that they can actually see it.
That is uncomfortable at first. Most students spend Thursday night and part of Friday missing their bed and their phone signal. By Saturday most of them have stopped asking about it, and without the usual noise they start to notice their own life and to hear each other.
Henri Nouwen wrote about this in a book called Compassion. His argument is that the moments when we feel out of place are where community and compassion actually begin, if we are willing to stay in them instead of covering them up.
1932 to 1996“It is through the recognition of our displacement and the willingness to hear in it the first whispers of God's voice that we start forming community and living compassionate lives. Once we begin to experience our actual physical, mental, and emotional displacements as forms of discipleship and start to accept them in obedience we become less defensive and no longer need to hide our pains and frustrations. Then what seemed a reason for shame and embarrassment becomes instead the basis of community, and what seemed to separate us from others becomes the basis of compassion.”Henri Nouwen, Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life
We are not trying to manufacture a spiritual high. We want a few days where a student is out of place enough to be honest with God and with the people in the room.
Thursday is the drive down and dinner on the way. Sunday is breakfast and the drive home. Friday and Saturday look like this.
Thursday, November 5 through Sunday, November 8, 2026. We leave Redemption after school on Thursday, stop for dinner on the way, and arrive at the cabins around 8:00 pm. Cabin check-out is 10:00 am Sunday, and we are back in Olathe Sunday afternoon.
Chalets on Table Rock Lake, 112 Cove Ln Ct, Lampe, MO 65681.
High school students, 9th through 12th grade. Your student does not need to be a regular at youth group to come.
$350 per student. That covers all three nights of lodging, every meal from Friday breakfast through Sunday breakfast, and transportation. Students need to bring $20 cash for dinner on the way down Thursday.
Church vans and leader vehicles. Every driver is an adult leader.
The adults on this trip are our high school small group leaders, the same people your student sees on Wednesday nights.
A medical release and permission form is required for every student. We will collect those in October, well before departure.
It comes in the final parent email the week of the retreat, with departure times and a contact number for the weekend.
Adult leaders sleep in each cabin, drive every vehicle, and are with students at every meal and session. Two leaders stay in each cabin, and adults never share a bed with a student. Redemption Church has a child protection policy, and Cole is glad to walk any family through what that involves.
No. Phones are collected at the church before we leave and handed back when we return. You can reach your student through Cole McGee at 913-314-8238.
Less than you would think. Most freshmen show up knowing one or two people, and sharing a cabin, a kitchen, and a four-hour van ride takes care of a lot of that.
Talk to Cole. We would rather have your student on the trip.
It is the first of five for high school. The others are Wilderness Story during Lent, the Spring Break Civil Rights Trip, Senior Internship Induction, and Church Baptism, which sits across all ages.
Registration is open now on Church Center.
Cole brings more than fifteen years of pastoral experience across family, youth, and children’s ministry. He holds a Master’s in Theological Studies from Nazarene Theological Seminary and a B.A. in Family Ministry from Manhattan Christian College. He loves building community and thinking carefully about theology, philosophy, and the life of faith.