About ARC
Since our founding on October 20, 1976, the ARC Retreat Community has embodied the values of action, reflection, and celebration. We learned how to live into these values throughout our fifty-year stewardship of a retreat center in Stanchfield, Minnesota. In October 2025, we made the hard decision to sell the land, and we once again look to these values to guide our current Season of Listening. Together, we discern what comes next.
What we hold
Contemplative retreats offer time and space apart for the body, mind and spirit to rest, listen, pray, and renew. As a society, we have never been in greater need of this renewal.
A transformed world in which all people embrace and cultivate the spiritual nature of life through healthy, loving relationships with self, others, planet earth, and the Divine.
To serve individuals and groups seeking time apart for rest and spiritual renewal. An interspiritual retreat community embracing people in their full diversity, founded in the spirit of ecumenism.
Balancing Action, Reflection, and Celebration — connecting retreat to daily life so the journey inward inspires the journey outward, in the quest for harmony, peace, and justice.
How we began
The story began in February 1976, when a small group of seekers first walked the land in Stanchfield. Ruth Halvorson had her first experience with intentional silence at age 42, at the Communauté de Grandchamp, an ecumenical monastic order in Switzerland. Gradually, her vision for a retreat center took shape.
In the first of many God-incidents, a couple gifted Ruth and her husband Loren a 56-acre plot in Stanchfield, Minnesota. Family, friends, and local businesses helped prepare the land, lay the foundation, and build the main lodge. Often at the eleventh hour, generous financial gifts allowed work to continue.
ARC was incorporated as a Minnesota 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit on October 20, 1976. Construction broke ground at the end of May 1977, with the cornerstone laid that year. The doors opened to retreat programming in January 1978.
Read more in When the Heart Is Stirred: The Transforming Power of Silence by Ruth Halvorson — a beautiful account of how ARC came into being.
Who is holding this
Board of Directors
Stewards of ARC's mission, governance, and long-term care of the community.
- ChairMike Tessneerchair@ArcLegacyFund.org
- Vice ChairChris Harrisvia Board Chair
- SecretaryDr. Patti Statesvia Board Chair
- TreasurerKent Schuttevia Board Chair
- DirectorPatrick Cheslavia Board Chair
ARC Legacy Task Force
The Task Force charged with listening to the community, and partnering with the Board to discern the future of ARC's mission.
- Season of Listening OrganizerAmy Chatelainestories@ArcLegacyFund.org
- Season of Listening OrganizerPaul Halvorsonstories@ArcLegacyFund.org
- MemberWinton Boyd
- MemberRuth Halvorson
- MemberShirley Maier
- MemberMargaret Pennings
- Ex OfficioMike TessneerARC Board Chair
What will follow this season of listening
However this chapter of ARC's fifty years in Stanchfield ends, we intend to end it well: with care, with gratitude, and together.
What we are shaping together is the how — what we honor, what we archive, and what the ARC Legacy Fund carries forward. Our Board takes these questions up at its August and September meetings.
Be part of ARC's discernment: share your voice in the August Listening Circles and through our Listening Survey.