My last few posts have taken up the notion of the spiritual discipline of hanging out. While inspired by the good weekend in the mountain at a men’s retreat, I am also sobered by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s warning of “the glow of fellowship in a few days of life together” that he declares is actually “fatal” to true fellowship.
In my last post I said that “slow unhurried conversation over meals and late into the night” was the key ingredient to developing deeper connections and a deeper life in Christ together. And this is precisely what retreats can best provide. If we let them. You see, I believe that much of the problem with conferences and retreats today is that we tend to believe that bigger is always better and that the point of the program is maximum emotional and educational impact. This means that we tend to cram them full of speakers, music, and activities. Because we know that people are pretty picky about what they will spend time and money on, we try to get the very best speakers, the best musicians and have the coolest activities. If all goes well, we come back from a retreat “fired up”, “inspired” and ready to take on the world. Indeed, our brains are full of information and our bodies are tired from rushing from one inspiring activity to the other.
But then we find that the “glow of fellowship in a few days of life together” quickly wanes. Every pastor I know has a stump sermon in his or her pocket to charge retreatants “not to lose their fire when you go down the hill.”
In our church, we finally faced the fact that years of good Christian camps, cool retreats and high profile conferences had not left much “fruit that remains” (John 15:16). So we started changing everything about our retreats and camp ministry. Our men no longer seek out big stadium events, but instead we offer several smaller retreats centered around skiing, fishing, hiking, and even golf. We have found that the conversations while on a ski lift, a mountain trail, in a golf cart or even on the drive to and from the weekend, are the very means that God is using to deepen our connection to himself through each other. Our women have even added a ski trip and our planning hiking and river rafting experiences. We moved our teenagers from two of the biggest, best programmed summer camp experiences to a smaller camp that we take over for the week. Now instead of hearing great bands and well-known speakers, our kids have long cabin talks and Bible discussions after a day on the ropes course, wakeboarding, hiking or seeing the beauty of Yosemite National Park. The mixture of fun, challenging group activities and unhindered time to hang out and get to know each other is the key to opening a young heart to the small still voice of God.
Our emphasis in all of these experiences is not the content or the emotional experience, but the connection in Christ, the conversation that develops friendships, the small group discussion, the times of shared prayer and the long, leisurely “hang.” Don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating for doing away with speakers and bible studies. (As I said, I was the speaker at the retreat last weekend.) But very often the thing we most need when we get away from the world: time to hang out, develop friendships, to leave the hurried pace and stress of the world behind, is the very thing we don’t get. It’s all “glow” and no “know.” (Y’ know?)
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