Retreat . . . to Advance

Our board of trustees recently returned from our second annual retreat.  To get right to the point, I would highly recommend that your Christian ministry board plan to retreat . . . in order to advance.  There’s just no getting away from it, you need to “get away” from it and get together for refreshment and renewal.  It will do wonders for your organization, relationships, planning, vision, energy, and unity.

The main agenda was strategic planning, but it ended up being so much more.  While the four major planning sessions were so necessary, vital, and the focus of our 24 hours together, the “supplemental elements” of the retreat were like blessings upon the blessing.

• The worship and devotional times were very inspirational.  We read a book in advance, Mark Batterson’s, “In A Pit With A Lion On a Snowy Day”, which was a SUPER read as it relates to seizing opportunities, taking risks, and fighting fears.  It created a transparency that then opened our discussion at a different level than can be experienced at a monthly board meeting.  I highly recommend this exercise.
• “Breaking bread” together always is a blessing.  Board meetings often seem like a rush to get business done so by getting apart and away from the school itself, and having the opportunity just to “hang out” with each other opened some special doors into each others’ being . . . hey, we ARE human after all and sharing meals together provides the chance to share life.
• Picking a “get-a-way” place is important.  We chose a Christian conference center on the Chesapeake Bay and it was just the right setting, allowing us to experience God’s creation ~ beautiful sunset and sunrise, nature at it’s finest, and in an atmosphere conducive to “hearing the voice of God”.
• Setting a focus and purpose is a big step in the success of the retreat . . . keeping it can be even a bigger challenge!  For our time, I experienced such a richness of conversation, challenges to set patterns of thinking,  wider range of perspectives, and expression of emotional issues, that I just do not encounter in the normal flow of school life, well, not to the depth.  Where we started, where we “journeyed”, and where we ended were not always clean and organized.  But God had ordained this special time together and we found that “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21).

For us, the retreat hasn’t ended . . . it goes on and will continue for a number of months.  Rather than thinking of it as a “mountaintop experience”, to be enjoyed and then back to reality, it was a break in order to begin anew.  The work continues before us.  It was actually more like a commencement . . . ending one phase of  plans and strategies from the past, and beginning another phase, implementing those initiatives that will carry us to a  new place of ministry.  The 70′s group the Moody Blues said it well, “With our arms around the future, and our back up against the past”.    That is what “retreating” will do for you, give you that view of ow you got where you are and where do we want to go.   Since the retreat the e-mails have been flying!  Ideas are flowing, communication is focused, and energy abounds.  There’s a new spirit that I know has germinated from our time apart, together.  While there was challenging discussion, and comments that caused some defensiveness and anxiety, the Lord was in the midst.  We were aware of His Presence and walked together through the difficult topics and uncomfortable realities, seeing the Holy Spirit cause “the rough ground to become level & the rugged places plain”.

That’s what a retreat should do.  Renew, perhaps even change one’s perspective, both individually and corporately as a group that has been charged with the stewardship and welfare of a ministry of the Lord. Take the time, make the time, redeem the time, making the most of each opportunity.  In this venture of HIGHER LEARNING, we who have been given the ministry and entrusted with the message (2Cor 5) of Christian education are commissioned, even obligated, to “come apart”, to watch, and to pray.

And that’s the final, but most vital of all the components of an advancing retreat . . . PRAYER.  Without seeking the face of God, in order to listen for the voice of God, we cannot hope to experience the hand of God in establishing the work of our hands.

So RETREAT!  Don’t neglect this valuable part of ministry.  Don’t neglect this valuable part of your own spirituality.  While our retreat was corporate in nature, it was for me individual.  I came away a different, and hopefully better person.  I easily get caught up in the busyness (business?) of my life with no time for reflection.  If we are too busy to get apart, we are too busy.  What we will find is that we just spin, running around in smaller and smaller circles, losing sight of the forest for the trees.  So get away ~ as the leadership of a ministry, and as the leader of that leadership.  I guarantee that by retreating, you can only advance the cause of the Kingdom we’ve been called to advance.