renewal on Retreat

On retreat we stop avoiding the pain of the disconnect between our deepest desires and the way we are actually living. We have time and space to reflect on our life rhythms to see if they are really w...

Ron Roheiser points out three images for retreat used in Scripture that meet us in our yearning; all of them apply in different ways at different times.  ● There is the lonely place to which Jesus ...

When we hear the word retreat many of us think of the military use of the word, which refers to the tactic troops use when they are losing too much ground, when they are tired and ineffective, a...

Holy God–Father, Son and Spirit: We come with our agendas in order to enlist you in our causes but You won’t be co-opted for our small visions. Instead, You hold out a greater vision and purpose and i...

And so we arrive at autumn, the conclusion of our ordinary time in the land. The seeds planted at the start of our pilgrimage have produced a harvest in fields, homes, and towns. Farms display God’s a...

Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest

Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength... It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less.

Leader : Let us go before our God, confessing the ways we have dismissed His plan for internal peace from our lives. Leader : Heavenly Father, we crave rest and seek it everywhere but with You...

We may not see tangible evidence of where we are going, what God is doing, or how we are growing, but wintering is essential preparation for life to flourish. Uncertainty, like winter, clears the land...

We know we need rest, but we can no longer see the value of rest as an end in itself; it is only worthwhile if it helps us recharge our batteries.

People in a hurry never have time for recovery. Their minds have little time to meditate and pray so that problems can be put in perspective. In short, people in our age are showing signs of physiolog...

Lesslie Newbigin, the great missiologist and missionary, shares a powerful analogy of repentance from his days serving as a missionary in India. I remember once visiting a village in the Madras di...

Eternal and Glorious God, Your grace calls us toward growth and service in You. Yet today we acknowledge the many times we have forgotten Your mercy and rejected Your love. Forgive us when we sin agai...

Father, we thank you that you are a God who provides second chances. You called us to go and we ran. We ran as far from your presence as possible. You pursued us in our abandonment of your call. Like ...

Pastor: God our Redeemer, you have saved your people through Jesus Christ, your Son. You have delivered your people out of slavery to sin and have freed us into new life. Yet, we still wander through ...

Pastor: O people, return to the Holy One your God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. All: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. ...

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. that by testing you may discern what is the will of God what is good and acceptable and perfect. Risen C...

Sabbath honors the necessary wisdom of dormancy. If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for winter, they will not bear fruit in the spring. If this continues for more than a season,...

O God, too often we turn to You when we have no other place to go, but your arms are always open wide. Forgive us for using you as our last resort when you ought to be our first. We confess that you h...

Gracious God, on Sundays we come to this place and you fill us up with your goodness and light and we are renewed. But when we go out into the world, we fall short in so many ways. We confess that we ...

Lord of the Sabbath Prince of Peace Lead us away from our work for rest Our world is so fast So noisy So full Help us stop and rest with you Our world is so pressured Work, work, work Buy, buy, buy ...

Glorious One, you alone are our Rock and Redeemer. We trust you, your Holy Word, your Holy Wisdom, to put all things in right relationship. Make us wise. Let the words of our mouths be acceptable to ...

Renewing the mind is a little like refinishing furniture. It is a two-stage process. It involves taking off the old and replacing it with the new. The old is the lies you have learned to tell or were ...

PRAYER OF CONFESSION Pastor: The Lord calls to all to “Come and see” who He is, repent of our sins and put our faith in Christ. Silence for personal confession. Pastor: Merciful God, People: w...

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

Leader: Create in us clean hearts, O God, and renew right spirits within us. People: Cast us not away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from us. Leader: Restore to us the joy of...

We have set our hope on you, our living God, as those who set course for home from distant places. But we need your help if we are to keep on course: we need fresh sight of you, on which to check our ...

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding ways to rest and relax as part of a healthy, balanced life: I once read a book in which the author sa...

Almighty God, we pray for your blessing on the church in this place. Here may the faithful find salvation, and the careless be awakened. Here may the doubting find faith, and the anxious be encou...

O Lord, accept me in repentance. O Lord, do not leave us. O Lord, lead us not into temptation. O Lord, grant us good thoughts. O Lord, grant us tears and remembrance of death and guilt for our sins. O...