Category Archives: retreat

Back from retreat

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The retreat was an excellent time away.

It was brilliant to spend some time away with each other and to give ourselves space to hear from God.

A couple of things in particular were a challenge to me.

At the start of our time we looked at our ‘shadow ministries’, those things we find ourselves involved in when we lose focus on our calling. These tend to be things that pull us away from our ministries. While I did not hold entirely with the concept, I could see what stuff I am distracted by and it was helpful to think in these terms.

A Wendell Berry quote really challenged me as this is quite pertinent to me at the moment:
‘it may be when we no longer know what to do that we have found our real work, and when we no longer know where to go that we have found our true journey’
When we think we know what is going on, maybe it is the that we are truly the most lost.

The retreat was great …. the picture shows, however, how my retreat ended. The car broke and had a lift on the back of 2 lorries to get me home and is now waiting at a garage to find out what is wrong with it – I pray it will not be costly!


On retreat

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For the next 3 days I am on retreat at Chantmarle with the other senior managers and leadership team of YFC.
Please pray for us if you are that way inclined.
I’m looking forward to some space as the last few weeks have been pretty manic, but leaving the family does hurt and their are always guilt pangs when I have to go.
Looks quite a nice place though!

On retreat

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I’m off to take part in leading another retreat in Nympsfield, this time for some of our newer staff. I am again planning to use the liturgical prayer walk which I used last time as well as consider more on contemplation and what happens when things go wrong.

I am returning a few hours early (on Thursday evening rather than Friday morning) as it is Beth’s birthday and Richard rightly says I should be there when Beth opens her cards. This is an exciting weekend – Beth will be 11 on Friday, Tom is going to a scouts celebration on Saturday where the Sugababes are doing a gig, and Joe is getting baptised on Sunday morning.

It’s going to be a special and exciting weekend. I just hope Joe does not carry out his threat to wear snorkel in the baptistery!!! Please pray!

Epping Forest Retreat

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Today it was a pleasure to lead the retreat day for the staff of Epping Forest YFC held this year at Mulberry House in Ongar.

On retreats I like to be able to give people a few ideas for how to connect with God in fresh ways that they can use again in their everyday lives. This morning we considered Psalm 139 and did a bit of an Ignation Examen thing. After a fantastic lunch, we looked at The Emmaus Journey using the Benedictine Lectio Divina. As well as this we looked at the idea of Labyrinths too.

It was great to see how God was moving and speaking through normal everyday things. The grounds of this place were amazing and leading a retreat from a summer house in the garden was quite a unique experience and one that I’d like to repeat – as long as it stays warm!

It was also great to catch up with good friend Leesa for a coffee before travelling home.

Retreat reflections

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The retreat at Nympsfield was excellent and one of the best we have been on. This was largely due to the fantastic mix of people we had at the centre. YFC is incredibly fortunate to have people of great character and integrity directing our local centres.

We based the retreat around some of the stuff from Jamison’s Finding Sanctuary. I paricularly liked the prayer walk we developed for this time away. I think the experience alowed us a different interaction with God which was complemented by the rain (!). For the walk we wrote some of the liturgy and used some liturgy from other sources such as the Northumbria Community.

Our first station was the local church. Inside the church in a time of quiet we prayed for our loved ones left bhind at home.
The second station was the gutter along the side of the road. In the rain water was slowly flowing down the hill and as we watched we offered those gutter parts of our lives to God and askd him to wash us.
As we left the gutter we reflected upon the story of the Emmaus journey and noted that Jesus met these two men on the journey, not back at home nor on the destination. We stopped in the middle of nowhere and asked ourselves ‘what do we miss in our striving from A to B rather than noticing our journey?’
Midway on the walk there is a great viewpoint across the Gloucester countrysideand we considered creation and Genesis 1, thanking God that the same creator created and called us.
On our return we stopped at the crossroads which was busy and prayed for guidance. Finally, back in the village we paused outside the school, a place of young visions, new dreams and potential; here we asked God to refresh our vision for where we were.
The whole experience lasted about 75 minutes.

The walk was a highlight for me, but so was the Pigs Ear – sucha wonderful real ale in the pub across the road from the nuns.

On the retreat I felt God telling me I needed to realign my life (just thought this could be the recentring of months ago!)and reconsider what is important. I also felt God calling me to be happier and content with a simple pass mark on my theology essays so that the family have more of my time – not just the dreggs which is what I think they are getting at the moment. I’m looking forward to sharing this in my tutorial at the end of the week!

a monastic week?

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It’s going to be an interesting rest of the week.

I’m going to Nympsfield early in the morning to take part in leading some of the retreat for our senior directors and local staff. Nympsfield is a great place and the nuns are great at looking after us. If you are ever looking for a good quiet contemplative and catholic retreat centre then the Marist Nuns at Nympsfield come recommended.

We will be encouraging our workers to slow down and take a more contemplative and quiet approach to rediscover God in places. It’s going to be an interesting time and I’m particularly looking forward to facilitating a discussion around what we do when things go wrong. This will be interesting as its an area which few tend to want to talk about. I’ve also put together a prayer walk with stations, a kind of linear ‘walk out and back’ labyrinth for one afternoon and am interested to see how that will work.

I return on Friday but will immediately leave again after changing bags and join with SEITE colleagues at Aylesford which is run by Carmelite Friars. This is our sex and sexuality weekend – so again an interesting topic!

There will, as a result, be an enforced fast of blogging from now on!

creative pain

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It’s been a mixed day. Last night, on returning from a governors meeting at school, I managed to weirdly ‘tweek’ my back as I got out of the car. I was not twisting weirdly, nor was I carrying anything. The result today has been a mixture of pain which has caused me to cancel my drive to Cambridge tomorrow – as getting into the car is ok, but out takes a little while!

The pain has enabled an interesting creative streak. I have been planning parts of our senior workers retreat which we are holding in a couple of weeks – the inability to sit in one position for too long has meant I have had to move around – and the moving seems to have aided my thinking.

I have planned session on contemplation and what that is all about as well as a contemplative walk for one of the afternoons where I plan to use places on the walk as stations to pray, worship and think on God.

I am also wanting to plan a session on looking at when things go wrong in ministry. I have some ideas, such as they go wrong when we allow the ministry to meet our needs (the need to be needed etc), or when our relationships are under pressure, or when we blow it and can’t say sorry. I wonder if any readers have any ideas for this session – would be helpful!

The journey

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Ysterday I had the pleasure of leading the morning of the retreat for our London staff and volunteers at West Malling Abbey.

The picture shows ‘the journey’ a prayer activity that I orignally experienced when Jonny introduced us to this when he had this YFC role in London. It always strikes me how honest people are in this simple activity and the result is always exciting – in that it becomes clear that we are all at different stages of our Christian journey – some in the desert, some on the mountin tops, some lazing in the lake for refreshment … and so on.

Too often we think about arriving, and having to achieve, and the need to be sorted. I think this results in us denying the reality of our situation, and consequently missing out on any blessing that God may have for us, or any lesson he may want us to learn.

Today I hope that we were able to show these young leaders that it is ok to struggle, it’s ok to not be enjoying your calling at this particular time, it’s ok to doubt God, its ok to be wherever you are – these are normal parts of our Christian lives where God wlks alongside us which we need to acknowledge so that we can continue on the road rather then get stuck somewhere.

Silence at Emmaus

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My friend, Anonymous, is probably going to make some comment as this weekend I am going on retreat again. But its not a YFC retreat this time.

With SEITE training we have 7 weekends away each year, and one of those weekends is the course retreat which happens to be in silence from Compline Friday to Compline on Saturday.

I have no problem with silence, in fact I enjoy it, although I do think it is alien at meal times and you only need to look at someone slightly differently to produce a smile and stifled giggles. Indeed I am going to wear my new purple hoody with hood up so I can make no eye contact and can fulfill my duty to eat silently.

I am currently reading Finding Sanctuary by Abbot Christopher of The Monastery fame, as this is the book that the Moot community are reading at the moment. Interestingly in one of the chapters the Abbot asks the question ‘how long should you be silent to start with’. His answer is not 24 hours … but a very surprising 5 minutes!!! He does then go on the say that to achieve this 5 minutes will probably take around 15 but even so, I can’t help but think 24 hours is too long to move to from nothing.

My group is on worship duty so each of us has prepared a worship slot for the weekend. I get to do evening prayer tomorrow just after dinner and so have prepared a track and brief meditation to get us thinking about who we are and preparing ourselves for silence.

So a weekend of quiet is ahead … I feel even more guilty hat usual about leaving Sarah and the children. The Church of England … working at keeping families together!

Stay like a kid!

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The retreat was a great time away, although I was not too sure about one of the people doing some of the input, but others were impressed so I guess that was a personal thing.

Just being in the place is a pleasure. It’s hard to explain but it is such a calm and Godly place. I think it is impossible to leave in any other way than relaxed and feeling re-connected to God. The sisters were, as always, lovely to us and have such a great serving heart. One even called me ‘a lovely youngster’ after I helped her sort out her mobile phone!

A particular memory I am taking away from the weekend is ‘a word’ I was given while being prayed for. The gist of this was that I have a ‘natural cheeky child sense of humour’ ( I think that means immature!) and that during my training people were going to expect and suggest that I will need to ‘grow up’. My friend felt God was saying it was important that I do not conform in this way and that I kept that child-like humour as God is going to use this in my mission. This really hit home with me as recently I hve been questionning who I am and how I, as I am, naturally fit into all this which resulted in me thinking can it be really right to continue with this and try and be different to who I really am. Now I think all this makes sense.

I was quite excited by that – not sure my family are though!