The purpose of our “Day Apart” was to give our existing church and new worshiping community pastors a day to take a breath, connect and get in touch with the state of our souls.
We’ve been living through unprecedented and challenging times! St. Andrew’s Monastery put it this way: “During the pandemic we have all became monks, living in our own cells.” Randy Lovejoy put it this way: “All of our churches have become redevelopment churches.” In my many conversations with our pastors, I have heard how impacted our pastors have been by these very challenging times.
This is why I decided to put a retreat together focusing on two things:
- Providing input, time and space to facilitate personal reflection on the state of our souls;
- Providing small group time to connect and share how we are doing for the sake of mutual support and ministry vitality.
As we arrived we enjoyed time over good Peet’s coffee to connect and take our COVID tests. Dea Jenkins opened our day with a group exercise to awaken us to God’s Presence. Dr. Keith Matthews, Professor of Spiritual Formation and Leadership at Azusa Pacific Seminary, shared about what’s needed for healthy soul care. We then spent an hour alone to reflect on the state of our souls, followed by small group time to connect and share.
After a nice lunch, Keith led us in large group reflection on all we experienced in the morning. Then Lynn Cory, the founding leader of the Neighborhood Initiative movement, taught on how we can fulfill Jesus’ call to love our neighbors in our own unique settings. We then had more alone time for more personal reflection, followed by more small group time for personal sharing. Our day concluded with Juan Sarmiento and Bethany McKinney-Fox leading us in a closing communion service and blessing for our ongoing journey and shared ministry.
Some photos from the retreat (click image to view larger):
In the surveys I received following the event, everyone expressed appreciation for the opportunity to meet in the restful, beautiful and spacious setting at Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center. Everyone appreciated Dea’s opening embodied prayer exercise. Everyone appreciated the time to simply spend a day together and connect after such a long time apart. Most everyone appreciated the opportunity for unhurried and spacious alone time. Some appreciated the input by Keith and Lynn. Others said they would shorten the presentations and allow for more diverse representation from leaders within our own presbytery. Others said they would like more time for simply hanging out and connecting informally. Everyone said they would like to do this again! And most everyone said they’d prefer doing this again as a one-day retreat on a Monday.
So . . . the plan is to put together a planning team that represents the diversity of our presbytery to plan next year’s retreat for sometime in the spring of 2023! Stay tuned.