A retreat is an intentional time away from your daily life.

 

It can make room for you to experience a new awareness of the presence of God. For generations, people have gone on spiritual retreats to encounter God and experience spiritual renewal.

 

It can also be an opportunity to put some distance between you and the day-to-day grind and help you see things in perspective. 

 

A retreat requires an unhurried pace that is directed toward rest and relaxation. For Christians, the goal often is to go away in order to come back with a renewed sense of living as disciples of Christ.

 

Retreats can bring people greater awareness of themselves, of God, of others, of creation, or with particular issues that need examination.

 

Retreats are not just for getting away and staying away. They also involve coming back, but hopefully with new and greater perspective. 

 

On a retreat we hope to deepen our relationship with God, to look at our lives — focusing on issues or questions through reflection, meditation, and possibly with discussion and dialogue with others — in order to come back renewed and with some sense of direction for life. 

 

Jesus Himself drew His disciples away on occasion, and He wants that for contemporary disciples also. Community retreats, like those Jesus provided for His Apostles, can deepen fellowship through shared experiences.