‘I want kids to know Christ’
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZ. — A small hotel ballroom.
A few hundred teens.
In sheer size, Winterfest Way Out West — a new teen event launched this past weekend — did not resemble the massive youth rallies that draw thousands in Texas and Tennessee each year.
“In Fort Worth and in Gatlinburg, I mean the stage is wider than this room,” said Winterfest founder and director Dudley Chancey, sitting on the modest podium at the Doubletree Hilton Hotel in this Arizona mountain community, about 150 miles north of Phoenix.
But for most church youth groups in the Western states, the distance makes attending one of the regular Winterfest conferences impractical.
Take Flagstaff, for example: It’s 950 miles from Fort Worth and 1,750 miles from Gatlinburg.
So about a year ago, a group of Arizona youth ministers approached Chancey with an idea: Why not start a new Winterfest outside the Bible Belt?
“We talked about it. We prayed about it. We Zoomed several times,” Chancey said. “I flew out here.”
About a year ago, a group of Arizona youth ministers approached Dudley Chancey with an idea: Why not start a new Winterfest outside the Bible Belt?
The road to Flagstaff
At first, the idea was to bring Winterfest to Phoenix, the nation’s 10th largest metropolitan area.
But with all the snowbirds flocking to the Valley of the Sun, winter prices were too steep.
Then someone — Chancey can’t remember who — suggested Flagstaff, a 7,000-foot elevation city of 76,000.
It’s surrounded by extinct volcanoes and the world’s largest ponderosa pine forest. It’s just 80 miles south of the Grand Canyon.
Joel Soumar
Most importantly for Winterfest purposes, it’s situated conveniently at the juncture of Interstate 17 and Interstate 40 — and its rates for such a gathering were more reasonable.
Joel Soumar, youth minister for the Mesa Church of Christ, just east of Phoenix, had a personal reason for wanting his teens to experience Winterfest.
Over a quarter-century ago, a young Soumar considered himself an atheist. But then friends in his Florida hometown invited him to visit the Vero Beach Church of Christ.
In the late 1990s, he joined the Vero Beach youth group on a 750-mile journey to Winterfest in Gatlinburg, a popular tourist destination in the Smoky Mountains.
A Winterfest sermon by Don McLaughlin, minister for the North Atlanta Church of Christ in Georgia, crystallized Soumar’s need for Jesus.
“I was an unchurched teen, and that changed everything,” he said.
An aerial view of Flagstaff, Ariz., the mountain community that hosted the first Winterfest Way Out West.
‘Loved it a lot’
What the first Winterfest Way Out West lacked in size, it made up for in excitement level, said both attendees and organizers.
In a format similar to the larger venues, participants laughed at Christian comedians Hoss Ridgeway and Bob Smiley, sang a cappella hymns and praise songs led by Stephen Maxwell and heard youth-oriented sermons by David Fraze and Mitch Wilburn.
Christian universities — including Harding, Lubbock Christian and Oklahoma Christian — sent recruiters with free swag.
Mackenzie Craig and Maddie Brown, both 16 and members of the Surprise Church of Christ, northwest of Phoenix, appreciated the program.
“I’ve been kind of looking for a cool youth event to meet other Christians and just grow my faith and grow closer to Jesus,” Craig said.
Minister Mitch Wilburn speaks at Winterfest Way Out West in Flagstaff, Ariz.
Brown echoed her friend: “It’s exciting, just to be surrounded by people who follow Christ and to talk to them and see how they improve their walk with Christ. I loved it a lot.”
Sarah Mathe, 50, a member of the Mesa church, came with her daughters: Wynonna, 21, and Selina, 16.
Mathe welcomed the opportunity to laugh and praise God at the same time.
“God wants us to embrace life and be happy,” the mother emphasized.
Hoss Ridgeway, a preacher and Christian comedian from Franklin, Ind., entertains the crowd at Winterfest Way Out West in Flagstaff, Ariz.
Thea Delia, center, and Natalee MacDonald from the Canyon Church of Christ in Anthem, Ariz., interview speaker David Fraze about Winterfest Way Out West. Fellow teen Aemilia Green served as the videographer.
‘The Spirit is still here’
The inaugural conference drew about 250 teens and adult sponsors from Churches of Christ in Arizona, California, New Mexico and even Oklahoma.
“It’s a little smaller,” said Doug Gunselman, a deacon for the Weatherford Church of Christ in southwestern Oklahoma. “But the Spirit is still here, and it’s still the same.”
The Oklahoma church typically attends Winterfest in Texas, but this year some of its teens had a conflict with an all-state choir event.
So a group of 15 from Weatherford skipped the normal 250-mile drive to Fort Worth and instead made an 800-mile journey to Flagstaff.
“We stopped in Winslow, Ariz., to stand on the corner, of course,” Gunselman said of the 13-hour trip. “I think it’s cool, too, because we’ve been to the big events, and it’s nice to be able to encourage this new one.”
Arizona youth minister Decovan Adams and his wife, Briana, brought six teens from the Kayenta Church of Christ, a Navajo congregation about 150 miles northeast of Flagstaff.
Youth minister Decovan Adams, far right, and his wife, Briana, far left, pose with teens from the Kayenta Church of Christ in Arizona.
“We’ve been doing the fun stuff: the movie nights, the get-togethers, the game nights,” Adams said of his motivation. “That’s great, but now let’s get something more spiritual. Let’s get some great teachings and great lessons and great sermons.”
For teens from the reservation, even traveling to Flagstaff — where they stayed in a hotel and ate at a Chick-fil-A — was an adventure, the minister said.
“I mean, they’re very remote,” Adams said of where his teens live. “Some of them come from homes with no power, no electricity. So all of this is awesome for them.”
Stephen Maxwell leads singing at Winterfest Way Out West in Flagstaff, Ariz.
Attendees pray at Winterfest Way Out West in Flagstaff, Ariz.
Winterfest’s humble roots
Like the Arizona event, the original Winterfest started small: 128 teens and adult sponsors from four Tennessee congregations gathered at Fall Creek Falls State Park in 1987 to hear the late “Big Don” Williams, a pioneering youth minister in Churches of Christ.
The next year the event relocated to Gatlinburg and grew to about 400 people, recalled Chancey, then the youth minister for the Collegeside Church of Christ in Cookeville.
At one point, the Gatlinburg crowds routinely exceeded 12,000. Organizers expect about 6,500 — the capacity for a single session at the Tennessee convention center — at the 39th annual Winterfest next month.
In 2012, some Winterfest participants wave “light swords” during the entertainment before praise and worship began in Gatlinburg, Tenn.
Chancey launched the second Winterfest venue in Texas in 1999. That happened after he relocated to Oklahoma City — 200 miles from the Dallas-Fort Worth area — to serve as a Bible professor specializing in youth ministry at Oklahoma Christian University.
“Some guys in Texas asked me, just like these guys in Arizona asked me,” Chancey said. “They said, ‘Hey, come do something.’”
About 2,500 teens and sponsors attended the most recent Winterfest in Fort Worth, held the weekend before the Flagstaff gathering.
What has kept Chancey, who now directs Oklahoma Christian’s Intergenerational Faith Center, working with Winterfest for nearly four decades?
He has a simple answer.
“I want kids to know Christ,” said Chancey, who already is contemplating ways to make Winterfest Way Out West bigger and better next year.
Dudley Chancey makes announcements at Winterfest Way Out West, an inaugural Christian youth event in Flagstaff, Ariz.
A unifying experience
For the Mission Viejo Church of Christ in Southern California, driving teens 1,400 miles to Fort Worth or 2,200 miles to Gatlinburg is not feasible.
But a 470-mile trek to Flagstaff? That sounded like a great idea.
Aubree Carpenter and Ayden Bingham from Mission Viejo, Calif., traveled to Winterfest Way Out West in Flagstaff, Ariz.
Eighteen Mission Viejo youths and adults made the trip to Winterfest. The all-day journey on Friday was followed by another one on Sunday with plenty of praise time and adventure in between.
“I always like doing this kind of stuff,” said Mission Viejo member Ayden Bingham, 15, who invited her friend Aubree Carpenter, 14, to join her on the trip.
While attending Winterfest, the Mission Viejo group ate a hibachi meal at a Japanese restaurant and squealed with delight as the flames got close.
They also enjoyed snow tubing at Flagstaff Snow Park. Some of the California natives got to see snow for the first time.
“Our whole goal is, we want to give the kids this common experience,” said Mission Viejo youth minister Michael Wexler, who as a boy made annual trips from California to Phoenix for Leadership Training for Christ Southwest.
“We hope that they’ll go home and talk about the things that we learned during the conference,” Wexler added. “But also, in a couple of years, they’ll come back, and they’ll say: ‘Hey, do you remember when we did that Japanese meal? Hey, do you remember when we went snow tubing?’”
Youths and adult sponsors from the Mission Viejo Church of Christ enjoy a hibachi dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Flagstaff, Ariz.
The youth group from the University Community Church in Las Cruces, N.M., had a slightly shorter drive to Flagstaff — about 430 miles.
But Haley Denney, 16, and Emily Honest, 17 — both of whom attend that congregation, which has roots in the Restoration Movement — also pointed to the unifying nature of such a journey.
“It just brings everybody closer together every single time,” Denney said. “We’re quite literally on top of each other in the van.”
Haley Denney and Emily Honest rode 430 miles in a church van to attend Winterfest Way Out West.
“It just brings everybody closer together every single time. We’re quite literally on top of each other in the van.”
BOBBY ROSS JR. is Editor-in-Chief of The Christian Chronicle. He traveled to Arizona to report this story. Reach him at [email protected].
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