A "RETREAT" OR AN "ADVANCE" ?

“And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them.”  (Mark 9:2)

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I’ll be attending the annual “John 17:23 Fellowship” Pastors’ Retreat.  For the past several years, we’ve used the Roman Catholic “Passionists Retreat Center” in Shrewsbury as the location for our retreats.   No, it’s NOT a “Roman Catholic retreat”, we’re just using their facility.  It IS a great retreat facility!

Although I did specify we’re not having a “Roman Catholic retreat” because I guarantee someone reading this would otherwise assume that we were, I will add that in my experience Catholics do a far better “job” with retreats than do Protestants.  The concept of a “retreat”- a special, spiritual time for reflection, prayer, meditation, and spiritual growth is MUCH more Catholic than Protestant.  American Protestantism comes out of a tradition of TEACHING and DOING.  The  “Protestant Work Ethic” is not a figment of the imaginations of historians who specialize in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century American history.  It’s very real.  American Protestants did NOT tend to be very mystical people.  They tended to be hard workers and good citizens who would get to enjoy sitting in the presence of the Lord in Heaven but NOT on earth.  For those of you who are familiar with the story contrasting the actions of Mary and Martha in the tenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, traditional American Protestants were very much “Marthas”.

When Protestants DID begin holding retreats a few decades ago, (in the Assemblies of God, a “retreat” was actually often called an “advance” because they thought “retreat” sounded so NEGATIVE!) they tended to be a lot different from Catholic retreats.  They really tended to be CONFERENCES.  I actually went to one Assemblies of God Men’s Retreat in the early 1980s where 80% of the time a Christian financial planner taught us about I.R.A.s and other retirement plans!  No joke!  (That same financial planner later did jail time!)  What I like about the John 17:23 Fellowship (founded by the Rev. Dr. Dick Germaine, former pastor of First Congregational Church of Hopkinton and the Rev. Ernie Frye, pastor emeritus of Ashland’s MetroWest Worship Center about fifteen years ago) is that their retreats ARE much more mystical and about encountering God.  Now, please don’t get me wrong....there’s no “flaky stuff”...and sometimes there ARE teaching sessions, and “how to” sessions regarding effective ways to do ministry, etc.  But almost half of each retreat focuses on the individual spiritual growth and development of each pastor.  There’s plenty of time to be alone with God and there’s  plenty of time for prayer and sharing in small groups.  What I love about Roman Catholic retreat centers is that EACH person attending the retreat has a small, PRIVATE room!  That’s unheard of in Protestant conference centers where more likely four to six guys would share a room and have absolutely no privacy!  That’s one of the reasons the John 17:23 Fellowship likes to hold retreats in Catholic facilities.

I hope I have not bored you to tears, but I’m just letting you know I’ll be there on Wednesday and Thursday.  Will I be more “spiritual” when I return?  Only God knows.

One “weird” thing about the Passionists’ Retreat Center in Shrewsbury is that the Passionist Fathers who run the place strongly endorse and study the life of a young lady from over one hundred years ago who (supposedly) manifested the “stigmata”...that is, the visible marks of Jesus’ wounds on the cross on HER body.  (There were episodes of The X Files that dealt with the “stigmata”.)  Do I “buy” all that “stigmata” stuff?  I gotta tell ya, I’m extremely skeptical, but at times on these retreats I’ve looked at the photos and documents about the young lady and just kind of shook my head.  

Will my two days in Shrewsbury ultimately be an “advance” for me in my relationship with God and in my ministry?  I hope so!  But I’m not planning to manifest the stigmata!