Bench-Press and Be Baptized

“We go to war here—spiritually.”

That was what John Porras, a 39-year-old former Marine, told me on my first day at 252 The Weekend, a Christian men’s retreat.

I arrived last Friday morning at 9 a.m.—just in time for the morning worship session, which kicked off not with a prayer, but with a cup-stacking contest. Under a large tent, 580 men sat rapt, watching six guys on a stage competing to build the highest red Solo cup tower. Other challenges scheduled for the weekend would include a bench press competition and an obstacle course—the winner of which, I was told, would have his name engraved on a sword.

Run by a New Jersey-based megachurch called Transform Church, 252 The Weekend is named for Luke 2:52. It’s the only Bible verse that references what Jesus, who began his pastoral work when he was about 30, got up to as a teenager and a twentysomething: “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” The verse is the weekend’s blueprint, in the words of Transform Church founder and senior pastor Anthony Fleming, who created and runs the retreat, which is now in its fifth year; the aim is “for boys to become young men, and for young men to become great men.”