\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>Using the mediums of storytelling, movie illustrations, Biblical teaching, and personal prayers times, a climate is set within our heart\u2019s for Spiritual Renewal; a life-altering encounter with God that will lead to a better understanding of His dreams and purposes for our lives.<\/p>
Here is what the weekend looks like:<\/strong><\/p>Friday Evening Session \u2013 \u201cA Place Called Home\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>Using John 15 we will discover how to find \u201cThe Abiding Place\u201d or \u00a0\u201cThe Place called Home\u201d 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\u2019re often too busy to live \u201cat Home\u201d and thus we\u2019re Prodigal sons and daughters who are need of a Homecoming.<\/p>
Saturday Morning Session \u2013 \u201cPrayer and Contemplation\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>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<\/p>
Saturday Afternoon;<\/strong><\/p>A time of practical application where each attendee will prepare one\u2019s heart for A Homecoming with God through a time of \u00a0Guided Silence, Solitude and Prayer.<\/p>
Saturday night;<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Sharing and Affirmation time and fun together!<\/p>Sunday Morning Session \u2013 \u201cGod\u2019s Dreams and Missional Purposes for Our Lives\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>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\u2019s unique personal purposes for our lives so we can better understand our destinies.\u00a0\u00a0(Time will be given to approach God with these questions in prayer.)<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>Goals for the Attendees:<\/strong><\/p>To be led in a Homecoming journey of personal transformation, where we are able to leave the negative effects\u00a0of our pasts behind, as well as the busyness of our present lives, and more clearly hear the Voice that calls us \u201cThe Beloved.\u201d \u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/p>
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!<\/p>
Homecoming II: \u201cThe Integrated Mind\u201d<\/h3>
Many of you have joined us for our initial Homecoming Retreat in various parts of the world. This year we\u2019ve added a follow-up retreat called, \u201cAn Integrated mind,\u201d 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 \u2013 with the help of our minds we can change the way we experience the story of our lives and God\u2019s emotions for us. This understanding will help us better create our futures with Him.<\/p>
Rewilding the Heart \u2013 Wilderness Spirituality Retreat<\/h3>
\u201cHurry always empties a soul.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u2014From One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp<\/p>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.<\/p>
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.<\/p>
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, \u201cFarther up and further in.\u201d<\/p>
We will explore the convictions of the early Desert Christians such as:<\/p>
- There are no easy routes to self-realization; it begins, ironically, with self-abandonment.<\/li>
- The spiritual life thrives on the margins of society, in a solitude framed by community.<\/li>
- Desire and relinquishment are a recurring pattern in wilderness experience.<\/li>
- Failure and making mistakes don\u2019t hinder spiritual growth; they occasion it.<\/li>
- The body, when disciplined, becomes an important teacher of spiritual insight.<\/li>
- Wilderness breeds a lifestyle of resistance, cultural critique, and cantankerous honesty.<\/li><\/ul>
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 \u201cThe last best place.\u201d<\/p>
Why attend a Contemplative Retreat?<\/h3>
\u201cThis is what the Lord says\u2014<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>\u2018Stand 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\u2019.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Jer. 6:16\u00a0<\/p>Here in the western world we often live with cluttered and distracted minds and hearts that have forgotten how to \u201cbe still and know that He is God\u201d. \u00a0Inside ourselves we\u2019re running all the time, forever ambushed by the tyranny of the urgent, by our busy-ness and schedules. \u00a0We 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\u2019s ear, \u201cBaby\u201d, she said, \u201ctell me what God sounds like\u2014I am starting to forget\u201d. In this purified state of heart we are able to experience our own personal homecoming to God.<\/p>
\u201cLive in Me, make your home in Me as I do in you.\u201d (John 15:4)\u00a0<\/p>
\u201cUntil we hear Jesus in the stillness of our own hearts, we will never be able to hear Him say, \u201cI thirst\u201d in the heart of the poor.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 \u00a0Mother Teresa<\/p>If you are interested in attending one of these retreats then contact\u00a0Rog.andruss@me.com<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t