The aroma of slightly overcooked brownies fills the air in junior Paige Prothe’s living room as 11 high schoolers from the Greater Kansas City area lounge on the couches.
Stories of sitting around campfires at Kanakuk, a Christian summer camp, and K-Life dodgeball games are exchanged when the group realized why they were meeting — to plan the final details of the first How To Life movement (HTL movement) event in the state of Kansas.
“A lot of people are intimidated to go to K-Life or YoungLife because everyone there has been together for so long,” Angelo said. “This is an entirely new movement that we can all be apart of and involve people from everywhere.”
The HTL movement is different from other church groups because it’s student-led and is only for students. The movement was created to spread a “teen-friendly” approach towards Christianity, according to the HTL movement website.
Junior Jack Reeves, a guitar player for the worship songs, felt that the experience was unique because it was student led.
“Usually things like this have adults there talking about their experiences, but this is different because it’s just kid
s,” Reeves said.
Events across the globe are hosted by each chapter’s leaders, known as the worship group. The worship group sings hymns and gives five to seven minute long testimonies about the time they realized the importance of God in their lives.
The movement originated in Arkansas three years ago by 19 year-old Jordan Whitmer. Since then, it has spread to eight states and Europe, with the first chapter in Kansas being led by Angelo, who is co-president along side junior Dasha McDonald from Pembroke Hill. The HTL movement has grown popular as it revolves around one shared belief: the importance of embracing Christianity without the intimidation of past religious experiences.
“[The HTL movement] is a less intimidating stepping stone to knowing God,” Prothe said. “If you go to church and don’t relate to the message you lose all interest in being there.”
The Kansas City chapter had their first event March 3 at Village Presbyterian Church and included students grades six through 12 from Blue Valley schools, Kansas City Christian, Pembroke Hill and other Shawnee Mission schools.
Only 20 students were expected to come, but 75 students ended up filling the Youth Loft at the church.
“We didn’t really go into it expecting a lot,” Prothe said. “We were just going to tell our stories, hoping that it reached someone, and it reached so many more people than we thought it would.”
Angelo shared her experience of reconnecting with God to the group, in an attempt to ensure the HTL movement was a place to express Christianity in a pressure free environment without long sermons and strict routines.
“I had a moment freshman year where I realized I had nothing left but a relationship with God,” Angelo said, describing her testimony. “No matter what is happening in the moment, there’s always something to come out of it that’s good, even if you don’t realize it.”
At the end of the event, students were invited to go up on the stage to the foot of the cross to “commit their lives” to God and to start a relationship with Him.
Immediately after the announcement, no one walked up to the stage. But after three minutes of awkward silence, six people came forward. Although it was only a fraction of the students in attendance, it made history. Six people was more than any event in the history of the international HTL movement.
Angelo was introduced to the HTL movement when she was contacted by Whitmer over the summer, who she met at a summer camp. Whitmer wanted to expand the movement to more areas around the country. Days later, Angelo was added to the international HTL movement GroupMe, thus founding the Kansas City chapter. Angelo then recruited McDonald to be her co-president in Sept. 2017.
“I was interested in becoming co-president with Elle because I go to a private school where not everyone is Christian,” McDonald said. “I wanted to educate people about religion and faith because it means so much to me.”
The excitement dissipated after the initial meeting in September because McDonald went to Switzerland for three months. By December, several members of the worship group had quit.
Despite their struggles, a “switch flipped” after Christmas and the remaining members of the worship group became more invested, according to Prothe. They went from having one to two meetings a month to having weekly meetings.
“We had a venue and we had a date, and we knew it was happening whether we tried hard or not,” Prothe said. “We were all so passionate about it. No matter how much time we had, we wanted to make it the best it could be.”
The worship group hopes to host more events later this year, and will only lose two members to college. Until then, they will continue to have occasional meetings and brunches to stay connected and to plan for next year. They are trying to recruit younger members to make the HTL movement a tradition in Kansas City.
“Everyone has a different story and a different relationship with God and the fact that all of our stories brought us together is amazing,” Angelo said. “You never think that your story can be powerful, and it changed me to realize that my story is just as powerful as one that someone can write a book on.”