Go on a Men's Retreat! - CP058

CongreGate

This episode opens with some football banter and we review the score predictions we made last week. If football isn't your thing, we start chatting about our annual church men's retreat about six minutes in.

Last weekend, about 50 of our men spent 3 days together at our annual men's retreat. Each year, we rent 3 beach houses to spend time playing, fellowshipping, worshipping, and studying God's Word together. We include our young men, ages 12 and up in this event. It's an exciting rite of passage for the new 12-year-olds to join us. The younger boys count down the years until they are old enough to be counted among the men.

Mark briefly shares our schedule of events for the retreat. The first night usually includes a pizza dinner and testimony time, before a short teaching time. The second morning is more teaching time, followed by an afternoon of sports, swimming, and talking with friends. Some of the men stay up late talking, playing games, and crab hunting. The third morning is a time of worship and teaching. We eat lunch together at a local seafood restaurant and head home. The idea is to create a good balance between Bible study and relationship building.

In contrast to many American teens that are walking away from the faith of their parents, we are seeing most of our young adults following the Lord and taking leadership around the church and community. We talk about how including the young men and women in our church retreats (and other "adult" events) seems to have a strong positive influence on our teens.

Mark addresses pastors and church leaders that might like to begin an annual men's retreat. Pastors shouldn't feel the burden to do all of the teaching and planning on their own.

Next week we'll be talking about Resolving Everday Conflict, the topic of our men's retreat teaching this year.