Every year, around this time, 1,500 high school students from the northwest suburbs of Chicagoland start packing their bags in anticipation of what—for many of them—is the highlight of the summer.

These students will be going on a four-day retreat to a university in Indiana with a couple hundred brave volunteer leaders to accompany them, and many of them will come back home as completely different kids.

Why?

Because this isn't just any old retreat.

Each one of the 1,500 students in attendance is somehow connected to one church—Willow Creek Community Church of South Barrington, Illinois—whose high school ministry, Student Impact, puts together this retreat every summer.

They call it Sandblast.

It's a long weekend full of camp-wide worship and teaching to help students grow in their respective faith journeys, but it's also so much more than that. Between the intense competitions among different mid-sized House Groups and Regionals and intentional small group time to give students the chance to process through it all, it's always a weekend to be remembered.

It's a weekend where many students who would already consider themselves to be Christians grow in their faith, where many who have no faith and little hope find both, and where it all happens in some of the most authentic and intentional communities that these high school students will ever know.

Every year, dozens of those in attendance come on what's called a "OneLife" scholarship—an all-expenses-paid ticket to camp, provided by the church for those who are not connected to any church and would not consider themselves believers.

Dozens more in attendance, are those who have fallen away from their communities throughout the course of the school year, and many of them will reconnect for the long-haul at camp.

Still more, are those who just go to church every weekend because that's all they've ever known to do. Many of them will walk away from this camp having had for the very first time a personal, life-altering encounter with the God who created them and the Christ who died for them.

With this being my eighth Sandblast in a row, I've experienced firsthand as both a student and then a leader, the life-transforming potential of these four short days. I've seen the way they can completely alter a student's path in life, and I myself have been though that life-altering change of direction at this camp.

As a leader, I've also experienced firsthand how exhausting these four short days can be.

So if you're any sort of praying person at all, I ask that you would pray for Sandblast 2016.

Pray for the staff making it all happen, that God would bless their efforts and use them for great good.

Pray for the leaders of the students, that God would give them strength and wisdom to lead their students well.

Above all else, pray for the students, that their hearts and minds would be open to encounter a love that many of them may never have known.

And if you would, please invite others to do the same.