Camp and Retreat ministry invites us into the process of transformation—shifting from where we’ve been to where we’re going. It’s a movement that asks something of us: to grow, to adapt, and to return changed by what we’ve experienced along the way.
With change comes curiosity, community, and courage. It invites us to ask questions, to imagine what’s next, and to consider how we shape the future of this work together.
Uplift: The Shape of Change is an invitation into that space.
Set against the backdrop of Lake Tahoe, we’ll gather at Zephyr Point surrounded by mountains that tell their own story of transformation—peaks shaped over time, revealing change in visible form. There is rhythm in their formation, a quiet reminder that change is not instant, but formed through steady movement. Even their triangular peaks echo the symbol for change itself—a fitting image of the journey we’re on.
As we take it all in, we are reminded that change is not just something we navigate—it’s something that moves us forward.
Join us as we explore the shape of change. Together, we’ll make space for curiosity, dream about what’s next, and step forward—uplifted and ready for what’s ahead.
Registration fee includes Program, Meals, and all admin fees
Housing
Below you will find two buttons to help assist you on your Group registration journey.
The "Information Needed" button sends you to a google spreadsheet that lists all the questions you will have to ask each of your group members in order to register them. Make sure to create your own copy before adding responses!
The "How-To Video" button shows a quick video on how to register a group!
To inquire about paying by check or paying later, please contact Registrar Jen Burch directly.
We’re excited to welcome author Rev. Dr. Tod Bolsinger as a keynote speaker at the 2027 National Gathering! Tod has spent his life helping leaders navigate the kind of change that reshapes not just organizations, but people. As a pastor, professor at Fuller Seminary, and leadership coach, he has walked alongside leaders in moments when the old maps no longer work and something new is being formed. His work, including Canoeing the Mountains and Tempered Resilience, speaks directly to the kind of leadership required in seasons like these.
We’re thrilled to welcome Kat Armas, ThM, as a keynote speaker for the 2027 National Gathering. Kat is a Cuban American writer, theologian, and speaker whose work explores community, belonging, wisdom, and liberation through the voices and experiences often pushed to the margins. Through books like Abuelita Faith and Sacred Belonging, Kat invites people into a deeper understanding of connection, identity, and what it means to create communities where people are truly seen and valued.
Her voice speaks deeply into this year’s theme. Uplift: The Shape of Change reminds us that transformation is something we move through together. Like mountains rising around Lake Tahoe or communities formed through shared experiences, change shapes us over time. In the midst of that change, Kat reminds us that authentic community is both sacred and transformational. In a world that often pulls people apart or asks them to perform belonging instead of truly experiencing it, her work points toward communities grounded in story, hospitality, vulnerability, and shared humanity.
Change is a constant in this life, whether it’s our camp budget or the formation of the Sierra Nevada range two million years ago. As our National Gathering theme, "Uplift," took shape at the January meeting of the UMCRM Design Team, event Co-Chair Hope Montgomery reflected on the significance of "polar plunge" moments from which we emerge changed. Hope reminds us how gathering in community can help shape and change us, too.
Hailing from the deep south of Mississippi and Memphis, singer-songwriter Abbye West Pates will bring her soulful storytelling to the UMCRM National Gathering in January. Abbye has been shaped by changes over and over again, as she attests in her songs like Long Year, tracing the changing shape of a marriage, and Ain’t Done Livin, written during the early days after a loss, facing the difference between changes forced upon you and the changes you must choose for yourself. She'll journey with us all week through the themes of "Uplift: the shape of change" as we consider the effects of change in our own lives and ministries.
Abbye has written dozens of songs and poems and led worship gatherings and retreats all over the southeast. She considers it a great honor to invite worshipers to open their hands and lift their hearts in exactly the place they are in, believing that God welcomes them this way, too: as doubters, seekers, and sometimes faith-keepers. Over the past few years, she’s been guided by one of her favorite unanswerable questions in the form of a tiny poem:
if you knew it was true
you would learn to bloom
in the soil of sorrow
would you plant yourself in that garden
over and over again?