Faith Conquers Fear at the Southwest Family’s “Rise” Retreat

Tiffany Ardron, Lifeway Church, California

Every year the Southwest family of churches comes together to have a large Campus Ministry Fall Retreat, which we call the "RISE" Retreat. Last year's "Rise '22" Retreat was held in Los Angeles on the last weekend of October. Students from Arizona, San Diego, and Central California all drove in for this incredible time of fellowship, worship, and inspiration. To God's glory, we saw over 500 students in attendance, and 100 of them were our friends who came to enjoy the retreat with us.  

The spirit and energy throughout the three-day retreat was high, especially during the times of worship led by a local church group, Grace LA, and of course, during the costume party . This brief recap video of the retreat will show a glimpse of the energy. 

https://youtu.be/lYGY730EZ6Q

For the lessons, the theme was "Faith > Fear" and throughout the weekend we studied Hebrews 11 and focused on our heroes from the "Hall of Faith". Powerful sermons were given on Abraham, Sarah, Rahab, Moses, and Daniel. The retreat concluded on Sunday with the spotlight on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. All the lessons were given by local campus ministers in the Southwest, aside from Sunday, which was given by Ameer Burton, an evangelist from the Turning Point Region in LA.  

Ameer's lesson was a crowd favorite, preached with conviction! He was perfect for the final speech of the retreat.  All the lessons were recorded and can be viewed here.  

http://www.laicc.net/index.php/media-links/rise-campus-retreat

On Sunday, the retreat ended with 3 baptisms! Several more baptisms occurred in the following weeks -- students whose lives were changed from the impact of that retreat. We want to highlight one woman who falls in that category, Madison Adams. She is a senior at Cal State LA. Her story shows the power of our fellowship of churches. 

Madison was dating a young man who grew up in the San Diego Church of Christ. He was baptized in the high school ministry but stopped attending church after his graduation. He eventually came into connection with the Lifeway Region of LA when he started to attend East Los Angeles College to play basketball. He put in some initial effort to reconnect with our churches and started to spend time with the campus ministry in Lifeway. It was during this time that he told the campus minister, Jacob Ardron, that he had a girlfriend (Madison). The Ardron's invited him and Madison over for dinner.  

During that meal, Madison and the women's campus minister, Tiffany, exchanged numbers but no consistent connection was made outside of that dinner; it wasn't Madison's time. Shortly after this, the boyfriend stopped coming around. This might've been the end of the story, but six months later God put it on Madison's heart to reach back out to Tiffany and asked to come to church.  

She was going through a rough time and wanted to build a relationship with God, so for the first time, Madison started to come out to church, campus ministry events, and began studying the Bible. By this time, her relationship with her boyfriend had ended; she was making all these decisions of faith on her own. Once the time came along for the Pacific Southwest Rise retreat, her experience at that event only added fuel to that fire, as she met people from her home town area that she’d once had ties with from San Diego, people she’d grown up with. After the retreat, she continued studying the Bible and was baptized on December 14, 2022.

Madison's story shows the power of community, hospitality, love, and the Holy Spirit working to bring all things together to God's glory. There are many more young people just like Madison that are searching for a spiritual home. We hope we can shine a bright light so they can find their way to God. 

We want to thank Steven and Shannon Morales for planning such an incredible retreat; we look forward to the 2023 retreat! Please pray for the ongoing work in the campus ministries in the Pacific Southwest! 

Tiffany Ardron

Tiffany serves as a Women’s Ministry Leader in the Lifeway region of the Los Angeles Church in their local College
Ministry. She was born and raised in New York, where she met her husband Jacob. Tiffany loves baking, all things
DIY (do it yourself), visiting coffee shops and spending time with family and their son Philip