Spontaneous Prayer 

• Pray with and over each other at any time, in any place

Participation 

• Make the most of every opportunity to glorify God and bless your fellow brothers/sisters here at the retreat.

Campground Environment 

• Safety first! Supervise and know where your children are at all times.
• Prohibited: profanity, abusive or inconsiderate language, use or possession of tobacco and alcohol products, lewd or pornographic materials or publications.

Lodging Areas 

• Respect lodging areas. Keep noise to a minimum. Curfew is 11:00 p.m; enjoy your cabin time in your apartments. Quiet hours are 10:00 pm to 8:00 am.
• Youth must avoid opposite gender quarters.

Electrical Devices 

• Silence phones during worship and general meetings.
• Use electrical devices in a God-honoring way. 

 

Testimonies & Small Group Sharing

Testimonies: Sharing God’s Goodness

• Audible: tell us your name and introduce yourself.
• Brief: limit your sharing to 3 minutes.
• Christ-centered: confess Jesus Christ publicly, especially if you have accepted Him or re-established your relationship with Him.

Small Group Sharing

• Open the time with prayer.
• Get personal – talk about your Christian testimony, your family, some current life challenges and joys, why you are here at retreat.
• Prayer – Pray for one another and the retreat.
• Share a recent experience or praise God for what He has done or quote something from God’s Word.

Five seconds of sheer panic
Have you ever had this very disorienting five-second experience in life, in which you wake up one day, not knowing where you are or what day or time it is?! For those brief five seconds, you are in a panic—or, at least in a mild “twilight zone”—until your brain catches up to your eyesight and connects what you see with the facts in your short-term memory. You then realize “OK, everything is fine; I know where I am (or what time or day it is)!”

Open Our Eyes to Jesus
Our church’s annual theme, and theme for this year’s retreat, is “Open Our Eyes,” based on the words Jesus spoke to Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 26:18). How must Paul have felt when he was blinded by the brilliant light and booming voice of Jesus? What went through his mind after Ananias laid his hands on him and the scales fell from his eyes? How disoriented it must have been for him to be baptized as a Christian, instead of being a persecutor of them!

Some of you “opened your eyes” to the reality and goodness of Jesus Christ a long time ago, while for others of you it was a more recent opening. Still others of you have not yet had the life-transforming experience of seeing and believing Jesus as Lord and your personal Savior. Consider what Jesus said about those who open their eyes and believe in Jesus: Acts 26:18 (NASB 2020) 18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’ To open one’s eyes to Jesus means a life transformed!

Open Our Eyes to Brothers and Sisters
Besides seeing God, may He also open our eyes to see one another as brothers and sisters in the same family. In another famous John 3:16 verse, John wrote: 16 We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters (1 John 3:16). If our eyes have been opened to believing in Jesus as the Great Sacrifice who paid the price for our sins, then may our eyes stay open to loving our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Friends, I urge you to pray and seek out opportunities to love and make sacrifices for your brother or sister. Who needs a friend, a listening ear, a love gift to pay a bill, or a laying on of hands in prayer? Who needs to be encouraged that God has not forgotten, not given up and not forsaken him/her? Who needs to be made first in Christ after being in last place their whole lives? Open your eyes and see! Your sibling in Jesus is out there waiting for you to love on him/her!

Five Seconds of Life Transformation
I pray that we might each be somehow disoriented by the Word and Spirit of God this weekend. Perhaps the Lord will speak to us during a five second stretch this weekend—in a sermon or in a quiet time. But...instead of resuming our old ways after those five seconds, may we be reoriented to a new way of living! May we wake up to a new reality because we’ve been blinded by the brilliance of Jesus and seen His majesty and glory!

With Open Eyes and Arms,
Pastor Godfrey