Here is some history and general information about Benedictine University Ministry’s Koinonia program. We note that the General Information and NFK History below have been extracted almost entirely from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Newman Foundation Koinonia Manual, November 2005 edition. Thank you, NFK!
Koinonia is the Greek word for “community,” an integral part of the faith life of the early Church. The Koinonia retreat weekend is an experience in Christian community based on the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ—his life, death, and resurrection—designed principally for young-adult, college students (undergraduate or graduate). The themes for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are Die, Rise, and Go. Die Day is a re-enactment of the Lenten Season; Rise Day is a celebration of Easter; and Go Day is a re-visitation of Pentecost. Through experiences of Christian witness, faith encounters, discussions, and Christian communal living centered on the Paschal Mystery and these themes, Koinonia creates, develops, and builds Christian community and attitudes by bringing individuals closer to Christ and helps prepare them for future roles in the community that is the Church, particular and universal. The retreat is offered from a Catholic perspective; however, non-Catholics are welcome to attend.
NFK has roots back to Battle Creek, Michigan in 1965. This is when and where the first Teens Encounter Christ (TEC) retreat was offered. In 1976, the Springfield, Illinois TEC Community initiated a similar program for adults named after the Greek word for “community,”—Koinonia. In March 1978, Quincy College in Illinois offered the first college Koinonia. In November 1980, University of Illinois students brought Koinonia to the Newman Foundation after attending Quincy College K 3. NFK 1 took place in Bloomington, Illinois in February 1981. Over time, NFK has used various sites for the retreats. Since NFK 84, the NFK retreats have been held in the Bellflower Community Center, Bellflower, Illinois. The last retreat of the Spring 2006 semester was NFK 89.
Due to the loss of records in Benedictine University Ministry during the 2001–2005 period, the initiation of the Benedictine University program and its later cessation during the 1990s is rather sketchy. However, the general outline is something like this: After spending seven years in ministry at the University of Illinois Newman Foundation, Fr. David Turner, OSB, who attended six out of the 14 NFKs 8 through 25, started the Koinonia program at Benedictine University in 1990 with the help of a variety of NFK alums living in the Chicago area. One or two retreats were held each year for several years until some unknown factors, though not lack of student participation, resulted in the program’s suspension after BK 7—at least according to what records remained in University Ministry until very late September 2006.
During the Fall of 2005, Fr. Bob Sum, OSB, now in ministry and a veteran of NFKs 23 and 25, began planning the program’s resurrection. With the discovery that Benedictine University student Billy Buchholz had recently gone on NFK 86, the planning came out in the open. During the Spring of 2006, Fr. Bob and Billy recruited other students (and a couple alumnae) sending them, as their busy schedules allowed, to Koinonia programs at various schools throughout the state: NFK (UIUC), NK (ISU/IWU), SJK (Bradley), and NIK (NIU). Fr. Bob even took a refresher course shadowing the spiritual director on NFK 89!
The planning came to fruition on October 6–8, 2006: BK 8 was held at St. Charles Borromeo Pastoral Center in Romeoville, IL with great success courtesy of the hard work and prayers of many students including those Koinonia communities mentioned above. We also discovered just before this retreat through a rebuilt connection with a 1990s BK alumnus that we now had two BK 8s. Thus, we now have a greater bit of continuity with the past than we expected. BK 9, which we hope will remain uniquely numbered, occurred the weekend of March 30 through April 1, 2007.