I was told that He would come.

We were a few hours into Man Camp—an evangelical men’s retreat in the Ohio River Valley—and this promise was part of the level setting that Tyler, our ball-capped and rosy-cheeked group leader, thought we needed to hear. “You shouldn’t expect to shift all your perspectives on life in 48 hours,” he said with the buoyant enthusiasm of a radio DJ. “But you should definitely expect God to show up.”

I saw nods among the dozen and a half other faces lit by campfire. Our group consisted mostly of first-timers in their 20s and 30s from all over Ohio. Out in the darkness, there were nearly 2,700 other Jesus-loving dudes in 279 groups who’d come from as far as Mexico, Canada, and Ghana to camp on the 431-acre property.

Due to the BYO-Everything nature of the weekend, most Man Campers looked like they’d just looted an adventure supply store: technical doodads, hunting knives, hiking boots, cargo pants, lots and lots of camo. Our group fit that mold, except that practically everyone but me wore a credit-card-sized cross around his neck that one of the guys had handmade from wood.

Having been to other men’s retreats, I expected us to kick rocks around for hours before finally opening up, but we got right into it. As a hearty flame crackled beneath a tar-black sky, two men bonded over their wives’ miscarriages. Another told us wistfully that his long-estranged father had rebuffed his attempts to reconnect. The most chilling story came from a guy who, almost two years earlier, had lost three people to suicide, including his mother. “Holy crap,” someone said. Was there anymore whiskey to drink?