POTOSI, Mo. (RNS) About 50 teenagers and their parents gathered at the YMCA Trout Lodge near here recently, in the middle of the Mark Twain National Forest, to praise Jesus Christ. “We pray that this weekend our hearts are touched, Lord,” one of the group leaders, Mark Patterson said, “and that we grow closer to you.”
But this was not one of the many church retreats that meet here, and Patterson is not a pastor. He’s the program director of the South City Y in St. Louis, and the group he prayed with was there for FaithFest, the most public evidence yet that the Young Men’s Christian Association in St. Louis is returning to its Christian roots.
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