Our theme for the month of March is “light.”

Going to a Christian college is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, if you came into freshman year in the midst of a crisis of faith like I did, you’ll be surrounded by faith mentors you don’t even need to look for. On the other hand, spending four years on a campus full of grown-up church kids, you hear everything about church life, positive, negative and really negative. Seeing how going away to college is the first time a lot of people are able to get away from their home and church environments and analyze them critically, I was at ground zero for a lot of church trauma rearing its ugly head.

One night, during a Student Activities Office meeting, we got on the topic of church camps and youth events. A couple of people in the conversation called such events manipulative, and I could see where they came from. Youth events are tailored to get kids feeling some kind of way: they take place far from the kids’ normal home and church lives, sometimes in isolated places like camps in the countryside or a church they barely leave; the music, colored lights, and smoke machines act like emotional amplifiers; and, surrounded by other Christians, when altar calls happen at the end of services, anyone who commits themselves to Christ might do so out of peer pressure rather than genuine faith.

I thought about this as I headed down to Columbus, Ohio, with my youth group for my first youth conference as a leader rather than a student.

I had a three hour drive and several nights to think about whether I was being exploited. I thought back to my own days as a student, going to a church camp in rural Michigan once a year. At camp, I’d cried, prayed, and reaffirmed my faith in ways I never did during normal church services.

And…that happened again.

During one worship service, emotion overcame me. I stepped out of sight from my students, fell to my knees, and let the tears flow. I don’t think it was because of slow music or smoke machines. I had a lot of things on my plate–depression that I had only recently started to deal with, a job I disliked and was desperately trying to get out of, trying to be a role model in faith to my students when my own faith felt shaky, and a good old-fashioned mid-twenties mini-identity crisis. Maybe the setting amplified my emotions, but unlike how it was sometimes when I was a student, these emotions didn’t come burbling up from nowhere.

The real test came at the end of services. For as long as I can remember, prayer hasn’t come naturally to me. At camp, at youth events, in church services, any circumstance that called for me to pray aloud, I’d bluster my way through it, if I said anything at all. But, there’s no faking your way through a kid walking up to you and asking you to pray for them. And kids did come to me. As the first kid, a girl from one of the local churches, approached me, the stage lights felt like one of those lights cops shine in a suspect’s face during an interrogation in the movies. The girl wanted prayer for a better relationship with her father. I asked if I could put a hand on her shoulder, and I started to pray.

“Give me words to speak” is both a popular CCM song and a phrase spoken throughout the Bible. It’s a phrase I’ve said before. But praying for that girl was the first time it happened. A prayer came rolling out of my mouth, prayer for her and her father to be on the same page, that the love they had for each other could come to the surface. I brought the prayer to a close, and the girl thanked me and left.

The worship music kept playing, leaders kept praying with students all around me, and I stood on my own. With no students coming to me, I continued praying, prayers of thanks this time.

Maybe the event was manipulative. Maybe the games and the meals and the slow music keyed everyone there towards a supposed spiritual awakening. Maybe.

But under the stage lights, a burden I’d been carrying for years finally fell from me and disintegrated.

Noah Keene

Noah Keene graduated from Calvin University in December 2021 with a major in creative writing and a minor in Spanish. He currently resides in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. He spends his free time reading and putting his major to good use by working on his first novel. See what he’s reading by following him on Instagram @peachykeenebooks and read his other personal writing by going to thekeenechronicles.com.