The media would have us believe that all millennials are leaving organized religion or faith. But that’s not the case across the board. From Jan. 3-7 in San Antonio, Texas, millennials from all over the country gathered at the SEEK 2017 conference — and they were 13,000 strong.

SEEK is a gathering presented by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), which was formed in 1998; it invites students from all over the country to join in prayer and celebrate the sacraments together. This year, students from more than 500 colleges joined together in a resounding testimony to millennial faith.

“The conference renewed my faith and gave me the tools I needed to go back into the world and live out my faith as a young adult.”

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“SEEK 2017 was a life-changing experience,” Alaska native Cierra Houchins told LifeZette. “I first heard about SEEK from my friend, Briana Tobin. She attended the conference in Nashville [in 2015] and it sounded like a fruitful experience. The conference was amazing and all of the talks were so applicable to my life.”

The conference attracts young adults and college students. It gives them a chance to be revitalized in their faith.

“The conference renewed my faith and gave me the tools I needed to go back into the world and live out my faith as a young adult. The whole theme of the conference was about prioritizing God as our main focus in life,” said Houchins.

Cierra Houchins in her SEEK T-shirt

“I was so inspired, I got a tattoo of a compass, which was the symbol that was used for the conference. This tattoo will forever serve as a reminder to let God direct my actions.”

Related: Jesus Calls for Us to Follow Him

Another attendee, Cynthia Lopez, said she almost didn’t attend. She signed up on the last day of registration and had a powerful experience.

“It’s encouraging to see that there are people trying, just as you are,” Cynthia Lopez, a sophomore at Northern Arizona University, told Catholic News Agency. “It’s hard to be holy and saintly at a secular university.”

“Sometimes you do feel like you’re alone in the world,” Lopez said, “like you’re the only college student trying to be holy, but no, you aren’t. Look around you.”

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SEEK and other like-minded conferences allow young people to be strengthened and inspired by their fellow faith-filled millennials. It wasn’t for nothing that Christ said, “For where two or three gather in My name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20).

This conference gives students and young adults the inspiration to continue fighting against the grain of popular culture once they’re back home on their campuses and in their communities.