RESTORE MY SOUL RETREATS
Most people, including most pastors, want to obey God but their world, like ours, is so loud. It is nearly impossible to distinguish the Voice of God from the competing voices. And hearing God’s Voice is crucial for spiritual formation, for soul development and for healthy churches.
The retreats are for about ten pastors or pastoral team leaders at a time. Most will be brief, lasting just 24 hours away from the norm at places such as Skycroft or Black Rock Retreat Centers—facilities where there are places for group meetings yet in a natural setting for participants to take long walks and be outdoors. No laptops are allowed and cell phone usage is limited. The goal is to disconnect and re-center; to refocus on hearing the Voice of God.
The following retreats are available for you. Click on each link to learn more about each specific retreat.
SOUL OF THE SERVANT RETREAT - March 8-9, 2012
The core value behind this retreat is to simply create opportunities for people to hear from Father again. The retreat, therefore, is organized around a series of spiritual exercises that are introduced in group, participated in personally, and debriefed in a variety of ways. The vast majority of the 20+ hours are spent with our Father. The themes for this retreat include considering what we really want from Jesus, how we are uniquely made by God, and what spiritual leadership looks like.
*Due to its foundational nature, it is suggested that you attend this retreat first, but it is not necessary for participation in any of the subsequent Restore My Soul retreats.
FREE MY SOUL RETREAT - March 22-23, 2012
In American hymnody a popular and frequently used word was very often pulled by publishers and replaced from numbers of songs between the 1920’s and 1940’s. The new word, commitment, was a strong word – a good word – a word that rested in our ability to see something through to completion – a word that focused on me. The word that it replaced was the word, surrender. During those years of world-wide conflict, Americans rejected surrender. And yet, surrender is the great hope of those of us who follow the Christ. We freely confess that our lives were in bondage to the condition of sin and rest in His strength to liberate our souls. Once liberated by His redeeming work, we begin a life-long journey of setting all things aside… surrendering… in order to know the full measure of His freedom. This quest is a warfare too – a spiritual warfare. The Free My Soul retreat is a confidential and focused opportunity for pastors and pastoral team members to engage aspects of that battle via a series of spiritual exercises. Retreatants are led to give name(s) to current bondages, confess them to our Father, and experience the freedom that is ours in Christ.
HOURS OF PRAYER - October 18-19, 2012
At its simplest, prayer is a dialog with our Father. But most of us are not that good with dialog. Monologs let me do the talking and use my own agenda for the meeting. Dialog requires the hard work of listening first and speaking later. Early Christ-followers embraced the challenge of the Psalmist in 119:164, “Seven times a day will I praise you” and began practicing fixed-hour prayers from the very start of the Church. From the practice of the Apostles to this present time, believers around the world have stopped at certain hours to spend time in prayer. Our contemporary western work-world makes such a practice difficult to maintain. But, in a retreat setting, the systems which normally bind us and the structures that daily imprison us can be laid aside for a brief time and prayer without ceasing can be fully embraced.
That is the experience of retreatants who participate in the Hours of Prayer retreat: A 24-hour prayer retreat with 7 fixed hour community prayer times and personal prayer experiences in between. This retreat is not a time to study prayer… it is a time to pray.
SIMPLIFY MY LIFE RETREAT - October 25-26, 2012
“Busy.” That’s the word I hear most often when asking pastors, “How are you doing?” And, at times, we are all ‘busy.’ But most of us recognize there is a thin, gray line that separates ‘busy’ from ‘too busy.’ A line that, once crossed, is very hard to step back over. This retreat is filled with opportunities to spend time with God assessing one’s heart when it comes to the over-scheduling that is so often the life of people in ministry. Spiritual exercises are designed to drive retreatants to make forward-moving decisions toward simplifying their lives… squashing busyness… regaining a sense of focused living.
SOUL OF THE SERVANT RETREAT FOR COUPLES - November 1-2, 2012
The core value behind this retreat is to simply create opportunities for pastors and staff to join with their spouses in a setting designed to hear from our Father. The retreat, therefore, is organized around a series of spiritual exercises that are introduced in group, participated in personally, and debriefed in a variety of ways. The vast majority of the 20+ hours are spent with our Father. The themes for this retreat include considering what we really want from Jesus, how we are uniquely made by God, and what spiritual leadership looks like.
*Due to its foundational nature, it is suggested that you attend this retreat first, but it is not necessary for participation in any of the subsequent Restore My Soul retreats.
QUIET MY SOUL RETREAT - TBD 2013
The core value behind this retreat is to simply create QUIET opportunities for people to hear from Father again. God is often a clear, bold whisper. This unique retreat provides opportunity for pastoral leaders to wrestle the noise into submission in order to hear the Voice. After an opening session orienting participants to encountering God in silence, retreatants enter into approximately 18 hours of silence. While some spiritual exercise ideas are available, this time can be crafted by each person around the issues they long to hear from God about in their own lives. For this reason, there is no limit to the number of times someone might participate in this retreat.
STILL MY SOUL RETREAT: An extended Silence Retreat with Spiritual Director available - TBD 2013
Noise at a dizzying pace in a hyper-connected world: that is where we all live. From early in the morning until late into the night – we are never disconnected, always running, and can’t find a moment’s quiet. We are sleep deprived, suffer a fear of silence, and don’t really know what it is to be fully present with Christ because of the unnumbered distractions that pull on us. What we really need – what our soul longs for – is to be still… and know – not merely by conviction born out of study, but by experience… that God is God. Still My Soul is a 3-day retreat of silence, solitude, and spiritual direction. Retreatants are given opportunities to pull away from the hectic, noisy worlds of our everyday lives and experience something of true Sabbath-rest. A number of spiritual exercises will be made available for participants who do not bring their own. A spiritual director will be on-site, available to take appointments and assist in an assessment of how we can best strengthen our spiritual practices.