Teens Encounter Christ retreat to arrive in Diocese in late November, spots still available

Bella Bailey

Multimedia Correspondent

Teens Encounter Christ (TEC) is a national lay ecclesial community devoted to providing older teens and young adults a community rooted in faith with retreats rooted in the Paschal Mystery.

As the Episcopal Moderator for Teens Encounter Christ, Bishop John Iffert has made it a priority since his arrival in the Diocese five years ago, to bring TEC to Covington. Now, the first TEC retreat is just a few weeks away on Nov. 21-23 and spots are still available.

Playing a large role in his own vocation and discernment journey, Bishop Iffert recommends TEC to anyone able to attend.

“I ask you all to come forward and give TEC not only a chance, but invest yourself in this and to be part of this growing community and our sense of how the young Church is growing in here in Covington,” he said in a promotional video for the Diocese of Covington’s TEC.

Angie Poat, diocesan youth minister, has been influential in supporting the TEC team in the Diocese as they prepare for the first retreat.

“I know that the TEC community is going to grow and thrive in the Diocese because of the fruit that it bears in people’s lives, and because this is the Lord’s will that he has brought it here with our Bishop,” she said.

Based in the Paschal Mystery, the three days of TEC invite young people to die to themselves and their own earthly desires, and rise again in Christ, and with Christ to go and live his mission. Don Zengel, campus minister at Bishop Brossart High School, Alexandria, and TEC team member, said “the idea that we could bring kids from different schools — public and Catholic schools together — and they would get to know each other and at the same time do something, just seems like a beautiful way to weave a web of community love.”

In order to properly run a TEC retreat, all moderators and volunteers are required to have attended a TEC retreat, either as an observer or a participant. The members of the TEC team in the Diocese therefore have branched out and attended TEC retreats across the region, observing the true wonder of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Mr. Zengel traveled to Peoria, Illinois, to observe a TEC retreat. “I enjoyed meeting people, young people who had received TEC themselves … seeing them get excited about what they were doing was a beautiful vision to think about the Covington area and how we could get young people doing something similar, giving back to each other,” he said.

Once students participate in a TEC retreat, they are invited to help moderate and chaperone retreats, creating a self-sustaining retreat model.

“It’s not a one-time program,” said Mrs. Poat, “it’s an ongoing community.”

To help host the first retreat in the Diocese of Covington, experienced TEC moderators from Dioceses across the country will travel to Covington, providing experience and expertise, emphasizing the strength of the TEC community.

During the three-day experience, participants can expect to hear witness talks from young people and older people. As well as intergenerational small groups, Mass, Adoration, reconciliation, recreation, “all of the components of most youth retreats will be there,” said Mrs. Poat.

“They’re planned with the whole premise that the Holy Spirit is guiding us. So even though it looks like we’re going here and this is the way we’re getting there, it might be different, but it’s going to be beautiful no matter what,” said Mr. Zengel.

“I hope that a year from now, two years from now, that there are so many kids … they hear such positive things about this that, not only are they willing to come and donate time and be a part of it, they want everyone around them to do the same,” said Mr. Zengel.

To register for the first Teens Encounter Christ retreat in the Diocese, go to covdio.org/tec.