About Axiom Retreats

I feel like I was born again, again.

NANCY ROBERTS

Axiom's Homecoming Contemplative Retreats

Do you hunger to come away for a weekend to give your full attention to developing a deeper intimacy with God? 

Using the mediums of storytelling, movie illustrations, Biblical teaching, and personal prayers times, a climate is set within our heart’s for Spiritual Renewal; a life-altering encounter with God that will lead to a better understanding of His dreams and purposes for our lives.

Here is what the weekend looks like:

Friday Evening Session – “A Place Called Home” 

Using John 15 we will discover how to find “The Abiding Place” or  “The Place called Home” where the Trinity lives within our hearts. This is a place of great power and security, anchored in His undying love. However in our busy culture we’re often too busy to live “at Home” and thus we’re Prodigal sons and daughters who are need of a Homecoming.

Saturday Morning Session – “Prayer and Contemplation” 

We will explore how Prayer and Contemplation pave for us a pathway Home to the heart of our God where we can be free from our False Self, and the fractures in our hearts. . .free to have a life changing encounter with Christ that will affect the world

Saturday Afternoon;

A time of practical application where each attendee will prepare one’s heart for A Homecoming with God through a time of  Guided Silence, Solitude and Prayer.

Saturday night;  Sharing and Affirmation time and fun together!

Sunday Morning Session – “God’s Dreams and Missional Purposes for Our Lives” 

Using Ephesians 2:10, and some poetry, and an act from a famous Broadway production, we will explore a series of questions that will help us understand God’s unique personal purposes for our lives so we can better understand our destinies.  (Time will be given to approach God with these questions in prayer.) 

Goals for the Attendees:

To be led in a Homecoming journey of personal transformation, where we are able to leave the negative effects of our pasts behind, as well as the busyness of our present lives, and more clearly hear the Voice that calls us “The Beloved.”   

Our desire is to facilitate a weekend where we expect nothing less than a Spiritual Awakening, a revitalized passion for God and for His missional purposes for our lives!

Homecoming II: “The Integrated Mind”

Many of you have joined us for our initial Homecoming Retreat in various parts of the world. This year we’ve added a follow-up retreat called, “An Integrated mind,” that researches new scientific and contemplative findings regarding how our minds, souls and bodies are to work together in facilitating a deeper union with our God. The premise is – with the help of our minds we can change the way we experience the story of our lives and God’s emotions for us. This understanding will help us better create our futures with Him.

Rewilding the Heart – Wilderness Spirituality Retreat

“Hurry always empties a soul.” —From One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

Our lives are increasingly being lived at high velocity and with greater amounts of clutter. But if we can somehow slow down and strip away that clutter, we can focus on what really matters. That, in part, is what a wilderness retreat can do.

The discipline of wilderness is a metaphor for a spiritual journey. Just as wilderness offered revelations to the early Desert Christians, so wilderness hones crucial spiritual skills for us: paying attention, traveling light, practicing silence, exercising wonder, and slowing down.

Through these practices, the wilderness itself becomes another way of knowing God in ever deeper ways. As Aslan urged at the end of the Narnia tales, “Farther up and further in.”

We will explore the convictions of the early Desert Christians such as:

  • There are no easy routes to self-realization; it begins, ironically, with self-abandonment.
  • The spiritual life thrives on the margins of society, in a solitude framed by community.
  • Desire and relinquishment are a recurring pattern in wilderness experience.
  • Failure and making mistakes don’t hinder spiritual growth; they occasion it.
  • The body, when disciplined, becomes an important teacher of spiritual insight.
  • Wilderness breeds a lifestyle of resistance, cultural critique, and cantankerous honesty.

An Axiom Wilderness Spirituality Retreat will take you deep into the Bob Marshall or Mission Mountain Wilderness of western Montana. By pack horse or by foot, we will go deep into the land known as “The last best place.”

Why attend a Contemplative Retreat?

“This is what the Lord says— ‘Stand at the Crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls’.” Jer. 6:16 

Here in the western world we often live with cluttered and distracted minds and hearts that have forgotten how to “be still and know that He is God”.  Inside ourselves we’re running all the time, forever ambushed by the tyranny of the urgent, by our busy-ness and schedules.  We are seldom awakened to the fact that every moment and every minute can be lived in the presence of God, alive and aware of His love. Robert Benson tells the story of a four year-old girl who was overheard whispering into her newborn baby brother’s ear, “Baby”, she said, “tell me what God sounds like—I am starting to forget”. In this purified state of heart we are able to experience our own personal homecoming to God.

“Live in Me, make your home in Me as I do in you.” (John 15:4) 

“Until we hear Jesus in the stillness of our own hearts, we will never be able to hear Him say, “I thirst” in the heart of the poor.” –  Mother Teresa

If you are interested in attending one of these retreats then contact Rog.andruss@me.com.

Recommendations

“My Axiom Pilgrimage Tour to Assisi, Italy was both a life-changing and culturally invigorating experience. To be away from everything familiar for a weekend, and to be in such a beautiful part of the world that has such a rich spiritual heritage, helped me find God anew. I’m now in the process of finding “The Simple” life – thank you for putting so much of your heart into our time together.” – Birte Rolhieser , Germany

“I’m now determining to not be a product of our crazy busy world, but to slow down and “Consider the lilies of the field. . . “Consider the wonders of Jesus. . .” How he loved and how He lived. I now see it is within my grasp.” – Rick and Jan Smith, Billings, MT

“My retreat in Assisi helped me realize which attachments in my life were healthy and which needed to be surrendered to create a greater place for Jesus. Now I feel empty of needless clutter, more simple, and extremely alive.” – Mark Thompson, England

“There is something significant in making a journey. Granted, all the things we encountered on the retreat are things that may be found in other places. But when combined with the journey of a pilgrimage, they take on a defined brightness and are able to penetrate deeper into the soul. First of all I can say that in our time in Ireland, God was encountered more tangibly than at any other time of the year. That alone is precious. And second, we came home changed. I know this because the un-named effects of the journey are still evident to those around us, even half a year later.” – Josanna Justine

Axiom always has a place around the table
for you!