{"id":9617,"date":"2023-06-02T12:31:36","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T17:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/?p=9617"},"modified":"2023-06-02T12:31:36","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T17:31:36","slug":"searching-for-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/?p=9617","title":{"rendered":"Searching for Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An event shrouded in mystery is taking place this summer at the St. John&#8217;s Center in Little Rock. No attendees have known what adventures they were about to embark on. No one knew that this event would change their lives forever.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This event is Search, a retreat that is entirely peer-led. Search #152 is the next opportunity to attend and will be on the weekend of June 23-25, 2023. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This event has been going for 54 years, with 151 sessions. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many students here have attended Search in the past and will serve as Search team members.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sophomore Zach Ellis attended Search #151 and applied to be on Search team for Search #152. Ellis\u2019s family introduced him to Search. He said, \u201cIt was something that all of my siblings went to, and they came back with fire for Christ. They came back and were not allowed to tell me anything about it. [My parents] wanted me to go and experience it for myself. I saw how much it affected the people around me, so I knew I had to go.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Junior Luke Parker had a different experience, however. He never thought about Search until his youth minister mentioned it one day. Parker said, \u201cI just thought \u2018You know what? I\u2019ll go.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ellis received a lot from going to Search, but his biggest takeaway was prayer. \u201cI think the power of prayer [stayed with me],\u201d Ellis said. \u201cDuring a time of reverence, a lot of people started crying. I didn\u2019t really know what to do, but I went over and started praying over them. That power of prayer really sticks with you. It gives you more of a reverence for prayer. It makes you want to pray more. That connection with God and the people around you through that medium of prayer was huge.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Parker attended Search #150. His biggest impression came from the discussions. \u201cI really liked listening to the talks,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat they had to say really helped me look into myself. The discussions afterward were really nice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ellis also enjoyed being away from society. He said, \u201cThe people that go to Search are mostly on fire for Christ. Being able to be in that space is unworldly. It is supernatural. You don\u2019t have those worries. You don\u2019t think of anything outside of Search or that moment. It is just you and the Lord, and I search for those moments a lot.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ellis thinks that anyone on the fence about going to Search should go. \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s one weekend, one weekend that could change your life. You&#8217;d be choosing to give up one weekend that you&#8217;d probably end up just wasting goofing anyways. It&#8217;s an amazing opportunity that you should seize while you can. No one that I have ever talked to about Search has regretted it; every single one loved it. Even people who were forced to go loved it and were glad that they went. So take the opportunity if you can because you won&#8217;t regret it.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<div data-opinionstage-embed-url=\"https:\/\/www.opinionstage.com\/api\/v1\/placements\/3498975\/code.json\" style=\"display: none; visibility: hidden;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An event shrouded in mystery is taking place this summer at the St. John&#8217;s Center in Little Rock. No attendees have known what adventures they were about to embark on. No one knew that this event would change their lives forever.\u00a0 This event is Search, a retreat that is entirely peer-led. Search #152 is the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":9636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[196],"tags":[143],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/liftoffnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/IMG_20221204_200135_01.jpg?fit=480%2C360&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3xfZw-2v7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9617"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9695,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9617\/revisions\/9695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}