Winterfest goes ‘Way Out West’ to launch its first youth conference outside the Bible Belt.

By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle

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?

Read the full story.

This story appears in the online print edition of The Christian Chronicle.

Photo by Bobby Ross Jr.