the adventures of tim and caleb

Cell Leaders' Retreat - September 2006

For most of the leaders, the trip began on Friday evening around 6:30pm when the majority of the Tim and Caleb cell leaders met up and had dinner at church.

The plan was to leave pretty much straightaway but after having a few chicken rolls and packing the four cars, our convoy left around 7:30pm.

Having made two stops along the way, we finally reached Aroona Lodge in Marysville at around 9:30pm and were greeted by the adult cell leaders along with the Amos leaders. There was a friendly (or was it?) game of poker had by a few which was rounded up soon after by Uncle Isaac for our first meeting of the camp at 10:00pm. This involved some of the leaders sharing how their cell had been going since the 40 Days of Purpose campaign last year.

The first night proved difficult for some, particularly the boys who were all 'sardine'd' into one room save Peter who opted to sleep on the couch in the main living area. So the other ten of us had to problem solve our way to sleep, and battle other life-forms like a particularly pungent beast of human methane. I can personally vouch that the stories you may have heard are true, about the viciousness of the smell and its ability to burn the inside of your nostrils.

We all began the next day early, waking up at around 7:30am and having breakfast which offered a variety of cereals and toast with different spreads. God bless the adults who actually care about what they put into their stomachs!

After breakfast we had devotion and were introduced to Edmund who is a chaplain at a university. He talked to us about the need to evangelise and tools which dispell the common notion that evangelising is just bible-bashing. We then broke up into groups to study two of the three options of the Alpha course, EE3 and Wycliff which proved to be useful sessions for us as leaders.

Again it came time to fill our stomachs and lunch was roast chicken with bread and salad. Straight after having our meal, we congregated again to listen to Edmund who gave us examples of different and creative ways to engage people. This included getting in a circle to give each other back massages, as well as being very up close with each other to form a "sitting circle" .

The day continued with free time afterwards where some napped, some went for a drive, some played sports, some got haircuts and others chased chickens.

After our free time we had an activity where in four teams, searched the property for little pieces of paper which Aunty Nancy had hidden. Team Three ended up winning (my team!) with a find of 7 out of 16 hidden pieces. Go team!

Soon after we had another reflection session to allow leaders who hadn't yet shared about their cells in the previous night to let everyone else know how they were going. After the sharing, there was a frank discussion about healthy sizes of cells, which the majority deemed to be around 6-8 people on average.

We were given more free time after this to shower and prepare for dinner. Our meal was rice with roast chicken again (can't get enough of the chicken! Mmm...) with a healthy dose of bok choi (pardon the French...I mean Chinese...'coz I don't know any!) and sweet corn soup which was all pretty tasty! So tasty that it made some dance - like Jade!

After dinner we had a final meeting to discuss the church's vision and mission as a whole. We discussed our roles within the vision that our church is a praying church, and ironed out the details of achieving this. There were some good views and concerns brought up here and it was also decided that as cell leaders, and consequently the whole congregation would meet once a month and have breakfast and prayer on the first Sunday of each month.

Saturday night ended with an intense round of poker, and a few watching Training Day on TV. For the boys, the finale of the night was two "stacks on" sessions which rounded up proceedings.

Sunday morning began bright and early at 7:00am with a flurry of activity - getting up, packing, cleaning, loading the cars and shovelling down breakfast. Most of us left around 8:00am and made it to church early, even with a short stop at a nice little Chinese deli in Box Hill to have a bit of hot food like dumplings.

Anyway, just wanted to remind people about the monthly prayer meetings on the first Sunday of each month before service. Breakfast starts at 8:00am and prayer begins at 9:00am. The first of these will be this Sunday, so I encourage everyone to come for the first inaugural prayer breakfast!

Ciao.

posted by greggie @ 11:55 am