Church camps and retreats

Just wondering if any of you go on retreats or camps with brothers and sisters in Christ?
If so where how do you organise it, do you do the organising or someone else. Do you go with family members or on your own, are they single sex or everyone, what about catering, and how long do you stay, do you go every year?

What kinds of activities do you have? Is it something that costs a lot to organise or something you save all year for?
What to you is a successful retreat/camp and any tips?

Thanks for sharing!

As for me I have found a ladies retreat its non denominational and am looking forward to going again this year. The churches I attend don't seem to organise any, well only for children or the worship team -- not for regular people like me plus its a lot to organise for people to get away! I think church camps and retreats are a blessing though because not everyone has a holiday home or somewhere they can go to spend time with God wihtout any distractions.
 
Ok, noone?!

I realised growing up my dad just never took any holidays. He only took days off when it suited him so we as a family never had holiday break time together. Other families went away, camping or on trips we never did, I can only recall two trips away in my whole childhood.

The camps I went to were for school. I wonder if this is the norm for christians? Do you make time every year to go somewhere? Jesus got to go every year to Jerusalem to celebrate passover and thr feast of tabernacles. I imagine it was a fun time with his family. He also would go up to the mountain to pray alone to His .father as his retreat time.

I dont have a mountain to go to, but do need a retreat place from the city. IM thankful I have a car, but again its a matter of having somewhere safe to go, a refuge.
 
Retreat was great, fun and fellowship...and the beach!
Am really glad I went. I can imagine it takes a lot of organisation but was well run and been going for many years. Sometimes they have well known international speakers but the one this year was local so not as many people went but I still found it edifying.
 
I apologize for missing this... I went to a woman's retreat about 20 years ago. It was definitely a time for reflection and getting closer to the Lord.

Many men and women in the U.S. do this every year. Even small churches.

I'm so blessed to hear that you had a great and refreshing time. And I appreciated your taking the time to share all that you did.

Blessings
 
My niece who works for the library just shared with me she loves her work but needs a little break. She is praying to attend a retreat with other young women. Her church has not scheduled one yet so she is seeking a retreat elsewhere.

I attend Pastor's retreats yearly every first week in October. Last year our key note speaker was our seminary president and he and I got to spend "one on one" time in fellowship and talked about stuff outside of study. There was wonderful praise and worship singing in the morning and evening. Then during a stretch of 5 hours each day we would have free time to pray, hang out and fellowship, play some outdoor sports since we don't all get to see each other since we live in different parts of California. The breakfast, lunch and dinner meals are always a blessing!

When I get home I'm truly grateful, refreshed and ready to get back to my work in ministry, study and most important, serving people.
 
Pray that God will show her one I know it can be stressful at the library!

One of the stresses can be you feel responsible for all these books and whos reading them and whether the content of them is giving knowledge or leading people astray. But you cant dictate what other people read just make recommendations. And sometimes you see people in the library but they arent reading or you have friends that just never read any book and you wonder if maybe you just not reaching these people with the joy of reading. How can they not love books as well? Why on earth are you watching tv for lol. Thats time you could be spent reading!
 
Pray that God will show her one I know it can be stressful at the library!

One of the stresses can be you feel responsible for all these books and whos reading them and whether the content of them is giving knowledge or leading people astray. But you cant dictate what other people read just make recommendations. And sometimes you see people in the library but they arent reading or you have friends that just never read any book and you wonder if maybe you just not reaching these people with the joy of reading. How can they not love books as well? Why on earth are you watching tv for lol. Thats time you could be spent reading!

There was a Christian Humanist and author named Desiderius Erasmus who quoted, "Your library is your paradise" and "when I get a little money I buy books. Any left over I buy food and clothes."

Whatever happened to the Dewey Decimal System or Dewey Decimal Classification? We were supposed to learn that when I was in grade school but never did. I would assume its electronic now but still don't understand how it works.
 
When I get home I'm truly grateful, refreshed and ready to get back to my work in ministry, study and most important, serving people.

Back in the late 1970's when we lived in Alaska I was on an interdenominational Christian Women's board. We organized one or two retreats yearly. There were five of us on the board from various parts of the state. One year I was in charge of housing. What a job for we would get around 200 women and we had to see them all assigned to beds in the different dormitories. We rented a church camp(usually used for children's summer camps) on a lake out in the country for this. One year there were 50 women in the camp and the heat stove went out. So we had to move them, mattresses, and bedding to sleep on the chapel floor. A challenge to me on the spot. But for the grace of God we did it and it was really a good retreat.
 
Sounds fun sandpiper. I could live at a christian camp permanently I reckon if they offered me a real gardening job maybe.
Actually the one I went to said they needed like a caretaker, maintanence person. I dont know about mowing all those huge sports fields though.

I wonder if those hosting the camps what they do for their retreat or if they are just on permanent retreat and have to make mission trips every now and again since they with believers all the time.
 
There was a Christian Humanist and author named Desiderius Erasmus who quoted, "Your library is your paradise" and "when I get a little money I buy books. Any left over I buy food and clothes."

Whatever happened to the Dewey Decimal System or Dewey Decimal Classification? We were supposed to learn that when I was in grade school but never did. I would assume its electronic now but still don't understand how it works.
Haha well, I wouldnt trade my Bible for anything (it is like food and clothing to me).

The dewey decimal system is still with us. Most public libraries use it to classify non fiction.
Fiction is usually arranged by last name of the author but some libraries divide the fiction (stories) by genre.

How it works...well Dewey had this idea that all knowledge could be numbered into ten sections, it goes 000 to 999.
And within each tenth section it can be further divided, hence the full stop. So if you looking for books on christianity, say, you would go to the 200s which is the category for religion. The category goes from broad to specific. So the first 200s might be books about religion in general and then it gets into the different religions. 250 is where the christian books are. Then within each religion it would have say, books about women for example in 253. But the specific topic would have another number, so the book I am reading now had 253.083 which is about women in leadership. Not only that but it has the last name of the author the first three letters so its 253.083 SCO.

Now you dont need to remember every number from 000 to 999 this is really for the shelvers so they can numerically and alphabetically order the books exactly on the shelf so that the librarians can find them. But in general you would know where to find the books and its the same system in most libraries all around the world. So every library has biogrpahies in the 920s. All the 900s are books about the world around us, people and places. All gardening books are in the 630s because the 600s are about nature.

When you look up a book in the library catalogue the number tells you where in the library shelves to find it.
 
Lots of children have gone on church easter camps this week.
Bless them, hope they had fun.

Was Jesus 40 days in the wilderness a kind of camp for him? At least it wasn't 40 YEARS of wandering in the desert. After camp though, it's always nice to be home. You can only handle so much temptations and snoring.
 
Our church had a retreat but was only for the worship team. It was kind of near the beach and bush, and they held a service there, but I didnt go as was too far out and bad weather that Sunday. They have it every year.

I have organised a group writers retreat before but I dont know that I would do it again as I didnt actually get any writing done.
 
Am thinking of going to the retreat again next year but they said invite another person because numbers were a bit low this year and if not enough people make it we wont be able to continue having it. :-(

I will tell my friends who I invited last year to invite their friends too, just asked another one yesterday but she said she probably cant make it, as shes going to see her daughter whos giving birth around Jan 25th. Please pray that more women can come its on weekend of Feb 24-25.
 
The retreats changed to march 17-18 have sent out the invite and three ladies from my church interested in coming so far! Hooray! Keep praying.
 
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