Don’t Resolve—Retreat With Friends

Note: Enjoy this guest post by Elizabeth Clevenger!

I still love personal retreats, which I do four times a year. But—with encouragement from a mentor—I have begun doing an annual variation of the personal retreat: a group retreat.

Each year, three of my dearest (and busiest!) friends and I carve out twenty-four hours for a wonderful time of friendship, fellowship, and fun. I am delighted to give you a look into this precious time and hope it may be of some help to you.

The People

As I considered who I wanted to do a group retreat with, there were a few key factors that influenced my thinking. The first was trust: who in my life would I feel safe confiding in? The second was a degree of friendship: with whom do I have a natural connection? The third was peer level: what trusted friendships are in place among my peers?

I answered these questions by narrowing the possibilities down to those committed in membership at my local church. We have already covenanted together to care for each other’s souls, we are theologically like-minded, and a group retreat would function as an intentional subset of the larger fellowship at church.

Why peers instead of older women, as Titus 2 commands? There were three reasons: 1) I already have several “older women” relationships at church, 2) as a single person, intimate fellowship with peers helps fill the gap of not having a spouse, and 3) mature peers provide a great setting for mutual confession, encouragement in Christ, and fun.

This narrowed my search down to three ladies, two singles and a newly-married. We are within five years of each other. Our career paths vary widely, but we had already sought each other out for friendship so a group retreat was a natural progression. I reached out to them with the plan outlined below and they all said yes!

The Components

Each year, we integrate the following components into our weekend, adding and tweaking as we gain experience, growing the richness of this time together:

• In-home Hospitality – over the course of the retreat, each person hosts the group for one meal. This is usually in the home if possible, with any roommates or spouses passing the time outside the home to allow for privacy. One of our favorite aspects of the weekend, the in-home hosting promotes getting to know each other better, a relaxed atmosphere, service and care for each other in a home setting, and experience with hospitality.

• The Hot Seat – each person takes a turn being in “The Hot Seat” for one hour, during which she shares from two to four areas of Christian identity. Areas to choose from are: God, femininity, singleness/marriage, family, church, work/school, health/body, evangelism, home/household and U.S. citizenship. Chosen ahead of time, she will tell the group which areas she chose, why, a Scripture to go with each, and what she is looking for from the group. Does she desire to confess sin? Does she need encouragement? Is she looking for ideas or Scriptures? After she finishes sharing an area, the group is unleashed to provide encouragement, questions, feedback and godly counsel as requested. We recently added the “Wildcard” as an additional topic: is there anything in my life you have questions or concerns about? Anything that seems like it may be sin? Anything you have wanted to ask me about but weren’t sure how I would respond? The hot seat hour begins with the sharer praying for herself and those providing input; it concludes with those providing input praying for her. These prayer bookends have proven to be a sweet time of humility in seeking the Lord, love for each other, and, on occasion, a few tears.

• Fun Times – each year we plan fun things to do over the course of the retreat. These fun times tend to be strongly characterized by the person planning them. We have done everything from browsing an art gallery to playing table games to competing in a lively scavenger hunt in Lowe’s. A light-hearted break from the intense fellowship, the fun is also another opportunity to enjoy and love each other in unique and unexpected scenarios. 

• Song Memorization – another recent addition, song memorization is now an incredible highlight to the weekend. For our first year trying this, we chose Whate’er My God Ordains Is Right. Meditating on such rich lyrics after each hot seat hour proved to be a sweet balm to our souls. Our memory aid was a dry erase board and chalk markers. We memorized one verse at a time by writing it on the board, singing it together acapella, then replacing a word or two from each line with a blank and singing the verse again. By the time the board was completely full of blanks, we could sing the entire verse. By the end of the retreat, we were singing the entire song from memory at full volume in unity of heart and voice, encouraged and resolved that “here shall my stand be taken.” As the ultimate challenge, we concluded the retreat by taking turns singing the entire song from memory, alone and acapella, to the rest of the group. What a joy it was to hear my dear sisters encourage and admonish and testify through song, each in her own voice and style, to the edification of a group that had spent the weekend confessing sin and weakness and desire to follow Christ together.

The Schedule

Calendar-wise, we have found that the second weekend in January works best for our group. At the end of each retreat, we save the date for the next year. Then, around November, I ask the ladies who wants to take which meal segment and then plug the names into the template. I aim to not have a person be in the hot seat for the same meal they are also hosting.

Our schedule weaves the components into an enjoyable rhythm of intensity and refreshment:

FRIDAY SUPPER & EVENING, 6:00pm 

Meal will be: ________________________

Hosted by _____ @ her house

7:00pm Brief updates from all from the past year

7:30pm _______ in the hot seat

8:30pm Memorize first verse of the song

SATURDAY BREAKFAST & FUN, 8:00am

Meal will be: ________________________

Hosted by ______ @ her house

9:00am Brief walk outside

9:30am _______ in the hot seat

10:30am Fun Thing!

SATURDAY LUNCH & FUN, JAN 10, 12:30pm

Meal will be: ________________________

Hosted by ______ @ her house

1:30pm ______ in the hot seat

2:30pm Fun Thing!

SATURDAY SUPPER & EVENING, 5:30pm

Meal will be: ________________________

Hosted by ______ @ her house

6:30pm ______ in the hot seat

7:30pm Memorization of the final verse of the song, concluding with the entire group singing the entire song from memory acapella and then each member of the group singing the song alone to the rest of the group

Some Outcomes

As can happen when you step out in faith and obedience, desiring to love Christ, the outcome is sometimes even better than you had hoped. What I was looking for in a group retreat was to “walk in the Light” (1 John 1:7). What I am actually getting out of group retreats as they unfold each year is so much more.

Though my personality and my sinful bent is to be reserved, group retreats are normalizing vulnerability, confession of sin, and expression of desire to please the Lord in a personal setting. I am finding it much easier to be open in other church settings, to desire to express weakness, and to necessitate the input of fellow Christians as a way of life.

I also find group retreats to be of great benefit in killing sin. When openly confessed in a small, trusted group of believing friends in a setting desirous of holiness, sin can lose much of its power and appeal. I find that, throughout the year between retreats, I am more sensitive to temptation, quicker to repent, and more desirous of improvement in the areas confessed.

There is also a degree of accountability. Now that each person has shared specific sins and weaknesses, the other three people know about them and could potentially ask about them at any time. Simply being known serves as both a deterrent of sin and an energizer of righteousness.

My Other Source of Inspiration

My mentor’s encouragement was not the only impetus for group retreating. There was another source of inspiration that sparked my interest and which I have never forgotten. Buried at the end of an appendix in his book, The Gospel at Work: How the Gospel Gives New Purpose and Meaning to Our Jobs, Sebastian Traeger shares his practice of doing not one but two different kinds of group retreats every year:

One of the great joys of my life is my wife, Nikki. Our marriage has benefited from our biannual marriage retreats, which we schedule around our anniversary… and the middle of the year. We highly value these getaways and make sure we budget for them. While the times are always special and memorable, they’re not necessarily expensive or luxurious. Depending on the length of time that our extended family (bless them!) is willing and able to watch our kids, we spend one to two nights away.

Our goal is to relax, enjoy one another, and talk about our lives. Our agenda is to have fun and to have three long conversations…. In a fast-paced world, setting aside time every six months to talk with the person specially chosen by God to help me has been a great investment in our lives.

In addition to a biannual marriage retreat, I also go on an annual ManTreat. The name should tell you two things: (1) I have an awesome wife to let me do this, and (2) it’s a time for me to go away with three or four of my best friends…. We obviously have a ton of fun on the trip, but, we also have very intentional conversations. Our schedule is pretty simple: play, eat, talk informally, and rest during the day; then talk deliberately at night (usually from about 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.).

We try to schedule three nights away, and each night we have a conversation around a theme: family/parenting, church/ministry, and work/future. Each guy is on the hot seat for an hour per topic. They share about their life in that particular area and ask us questions (“Hey, what are you all doing for schooling, and why?”). We use the rest of the time to ask questions we might have (“Last year you said you were going to get your budget under control. How’s that going? What steps have you taken? How has your heart been losing its grip on money?”). The goal of the retreat is to encourage each other and critique our lives, all with the goal of building each other up to be faithful disciples who have multiple assignments. I encourage you, if this is at all possible for you, to find two to four other people to get away with annually for some amount of time. My high school baseball coach once told me that the Christian life is a marathon and not a sprint. We need to have partners to help us finish the race well.

Traeger, “Appendix 1: Five Practices To Help You Live out the Gospel at Work,” in Traeger and Gilbert, The Gospel at Work: How the Gospel Gives New Purpose and Meaning to Our Jobs [Zondervan, 2018], 169-170

Elizabeth Clevenger is a member of Summit Woods Baptist Church in Lee’s Summit, MO. She has a bachelor’s degree in Music Performance and a master’s degree in Biblical Counseling, both from Calvary University. Elizabeth, a certified biblical counselor, enjoys serving her church in the areas of evangelism, music, and counseling, and works on staff at Summit Woods as administrative assistant.

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