Author: Wick

Husband, Father, Pastor, Missionary, Writer, Poet, Friend, reader, coffee enthusiast, hockey Wing-Nut, musical participator, etc...
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from the retreat….

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“God’s message for me was “to be new” each day”

“I loved that I could get away. God is simply wanting me to get away from daily routine”
“God has done lots in me this weekend….gave me a big boost in my spiritual life.”

“God gave me a total reality check…I remember sitting on the dock, and on the trails….I’ve learned to laugh at the past, live in the present, and love the future.”
“I heard God when we did our silent prayer time…it got me thinking.”

“God talked to me more like a giant hug”“..amazing. I learned how to pray by myself. (God) showed me that I was new. I love God.”

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retreat.

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As I’m preparing to leave on a weekend “Fall Retreat” with our youth group, the news is filled with drama from another “Spiritual Retreat” that happened in Arizona last week. You’ve most likely seen it on the news, but in case you haven’t – here’s a brief synopsis:

James Arthur Ray, famous author and spiritual motivational speaker, was leading over 50 people on what he calls a “Spiritual Warrior” retreat. It’s a 5-day retreat, costing “Only $9,695 Per Person”, where:

“You’ll become privy to techniques (many kept secret for dozens of generations) that I searched out in the mountains of Peru, the jungles of the Amazon (and a few other places I don’t care to recall).”

People were crammed inhumanely into a sweat lodge, many had to be hospitalized, and 3 died from the experience. I’ve done a sweat lodge once, as a teenager at a YMCA camp. They aren’t typically things you die from.

Just in case it’s easily misinterpreted…let it be known that this retreat, and James Arthur Ray’s efforts as a whole, are NOT Christian in their nature. Read this article from Christianity Today back in 2007 to hear a few nice reasons why.

But the whole event exposes something quite important. It’s unfortunate that anyone was injured, and horrible that people actually died under such negligence and bad leadership. But it brings into the spotlight the simple fact: These Retreats Exist.

Seriously? Paying $10,000 for 5 days in Arizona, in hopes to become rich/successful/powerful? There is an illness here that goes far beyond something that can be purged in a sweat lodge. The illness of being human. Of desiring something “other”. The innocent trust that if someone offers you an “otherly” experience, we are so desperate sometimes that we will make great sacrifices to try and force such an event.

As I said, we’re leaving on a retreat where teens paid $60 each (if they could afford it, if not they simply come). Every person gets a t-shirt and food/lodging for the weekend. We’ll do some stuff together that will help build relationships and we’ll spend some time purposefully being silent in the presence of God and His creation. No promises that this will make anyone who comes more successful. But I promise if offers to be a transformational retreat, not because we force it to be, and not because we’ve discovered some ancient secret, but simply because it’s the nature of the Spirit who meets us there.

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re-emphasizing the prophetic

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I read an interesting line of thought in a book this morning. The author was talking about how much we emphasize the “sacrificial” elements in the event of Christ on the cross. He mentioned that there is something to gain from re-emphasizing the early church’s understanding of this event not so much as sacrificial (a whopping blow to an economy of something being “owed” to begin making things right with God), but as a prophetic occurrence.

As we move away from an economy, things don’t have to make quite as much sense. Not that they make a lot of sense to begin with, even though it usually takes a teenager to point it out. God forced his son to die a horrible death in order that some sort of economy of salvation was paid so that we wouldn’t have to die ourselves? What kind of all powerful God is subject to such a cosmic equation?

Instead, it becomes a prophetic event. Jesus Christ, in his entire life, and death, AND resurrection was living prophetically a new way made possible by the Holy Spirit. He was living it so completely that the powers of this world, and the structures and economies that were threatened – decided to kill him. How does Jesus Christ respond to that? He dies. His living prophetically moves right into dying prophetically which leads to the Holy Spirit accomplishing in Jesus Christ something beautiful that has been promised to each of us as well….a resurrection. A new way of living….a new way of dying….and a new way of being resurrected. All found through the Spirit in Jesus Christ, and offered to each of us…

May we recognize, and be transformed by the prophetic good news Jesus Christ brings to our lives yesterday, tomorrow, and TODAY….