How much does it cost to be part of the team?

First time participants do not pay anything to attend Kingdom Weekend. Their cost is paid for by previous attendees and are a gift to them.

Team members are asked for a donation of $100 to cover the cost of their lodging and food. And of course they can always donate more to help defray the cost for the participants. For this first weekend, we are asking for each team member to prayerfully consider supporting the ministry with added donations of supplies (see list) and time during the fundraising events.

Of course, any donation given, including the $100 per person cost, is above and beyond your normal offering. It is our intention that this ministry be completely self sustaining, and to that end we do not want gifts to be given at the expense of our general fund or Building on Hope campaign.

Having said this, we also do not want the cost of participating becoming a barrier to your participating on this team. If you have assistance to meet your $100 donation, please contact the current Lay Leader or the Spiritual Director.

How much time is involved for a team member?

The time that each member spends working on Kingdom Weekend varies by position, by experience, and by person. There are two team sessions that last about 3 hours each that will occur a few weeks before the retreat, and in all likelihood each team will spend some time outside the combined team meetings preparing for their roles. Speakers will need write and practice their talks, the song team will need to rehearse, the set-up team will have to ensure that all materials are accounted for, packed, and ready to go.

The commitment for the weekend usually ranges from about 5 or 6 p.m. on Friday night until about 3 or 4 p.m. on Sunday. Please make arrangements to fully commit this time to the weekend. Your commitment, or lack of commitment, really becomes evident to the participants and will either be an encouragement to them or it will become a distraction.

Will I get a chance to listen to all the talks?

Generally, every team member gets a chance to listen to all the talks. There are occasions, however, when a team member will be asked to complete a task during a talk and that assignment will require that person to be away from the talk room.

I want to be a team member, how do I apply?

Its so easy to be a member of this team. First, talk to the current Lay Leader, the Spiritual Director, or any member of the steering committee. They will then give you an application to fill out. After you have completed it, return to the Lay Leader and he/she will assign you to a team.

You can also download an application from this site (see the Team Positions page).

Please note that the applications are not meant to prompt any sort of interview. They are simply a means to keep track of who is assigned to what team, to help the lay leaders foster communication, and a means to promote first come, first serve team assignments. As more and more people participate in Kingdom Weekend and want to continue their participation through team membership the applications become more and more important to complete.

Where is Camp Arnold?

Camp Arnold is located just outside Eatonville, Washington, just off on highway 161. The following link provides you a map.

Link to mapquest

What are the accommodations like?

The accommodations for the first-time participants are very nice, first class. Their lodging in the two manufactured homes on site at Camp Arnold. Men sleep in one home, women in the other. As space allows, team members will take up the extra beds. Remaining team members will be lodged in the brick houses located on site, and finally we move to the A-frames as needed. Camp Arnold also has space for RV's and travel trailers (cost for hook-ups must be paid by team member wishing to use their own accommodation and arrangements with the camp must be made outside of the Immanuel's process for securing accommodations).

We know that there will always be situations that we cannot always control, but we do not encourage anyone to go to their own home at night unless their circumstances dictate otherwise.

Why is the sky blue?

The atmosphere is the mixture of gas molecules and other materials surrounding the earth. It is made mostly of the gases nitrogen (78%), and oxygen (21%). Argon gas and water (in the form of vapor, droplets and ice crystals) are the next most common things. There are also small amounts of other gases, plus many small solid particles, like dust, soot and ashes, pollen, and salt from the oceans.

The composition of the atmosphere varies, depending on your location, the weather, and many other things. There may be more water in the air after a rainstorm, or near the ocean. Volcanoes can put large amounts of dust particles high into the atmosphere. Pollution can add different gases or dust and soot.

The atmosphere is densest (thickest) at the bottom, near the Earth. It gradually thins out as you go higher and higher up. There is no sharp break between the atmosphere and space.

Light is a kind of energy that radiates, or travels, in waves. Many different kinds of energy travel in waves. For example, sound is a wave of vibrating air. Light is a wave of vibrating electric and magnetic fields. It is one small part of a larger range of vibrating electromagnetic fields. This range is called the electromagnetic spectrum.

Electromagnetic waves travel through space at 299,792 km/sec (186,282 miles/sec). This is called the speed of light.

The energy of the radiation depends on its wavelength and frequency. Wavelength is the distance between the tops (crests) of the waves. Frequency is the number of waves that pass by each second. The longer the wavelength of the light, the lower the frequency, and the less energy it contains.

Visible light is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes can see. Light from the sun or a light bulb may look white, but it is actually a combination of many colors. We can see the different colors of the spectrum by splitting the light with a prism. The spectrum is also visible when you see a rainbow in the sky.

The colors blend continuously into one another. At one end of the spectrum are the reds and oranges. These gradually shade into yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. The colors have different wavelengths, frequencies, and energies. Violet has the shortest wavelength in the visible spectrum. That means it has the highest frequency and energy. Red has the longest wavelength, and lowest frequency and energy.

Light travels through space in a straight line as long as nothing disturbs it. As light moves through the atmosphere, it continues to go straight until it bumps into a bit of dust or a gas molecule. Then what happens to the light depends on its wave length and the size of the thing it hits.

Dust particles and water droplets are much larger than the wavelength of visible light. When light hits these large particles, it gets reflected, or bounced off, in different directions. The different colors of light are all reflected by the particle in the same way. The reflected light appears white because it still contains all of the same colors.

Gas molecules are smaller than the wavelength of visible light. If light bumps into them, it acts differently. When light hits a gas molecule, some of it may get absorbed. After awhile, the molecule radiates (releases, or gives off) the light in a different direction. The color that is radiated is the same color that was absorbed. The different colors of light are affected differently. All of the colors can be absorbed. But the higher frequencies (blues) are absorbed more often than the lower frequencies (reds). This process is called Rayleigh scattering. (It is named after Lord John Rayleigh, an English physicist, who first described it in the 1870's.)

The blue color of the sky is due to Rayleigh scattering. As light moves through the atmosphere, most of the longer wavelengths pass straight through. Little of the red, orange and yellow light is affected by the air.

However, much of the shorter wavelength light is absorbed by the gas molecules. The absorbed blue light is then radiated in different directions. It gets scattered all around the sky. Whichever direction you look, some of this scattered blue light reaches you. Since you see the blue light from everywhere overhead, the sky looks blue.

In short, God made it that way!