A life-giving retreat with our life group

A life-giving retreat with our life group

A couple months ago, our life group had our annual fall camping discussion. (Yep, it took that much advanced planning to get us all in town on the same weekend!) But now that we’re Shaffer-less (miss you guys!), we have a whole lot less motivation to do all the WORK associated with camping…especially with so many littles amongst us and so few experienced campers. And then we had a brilliant idea–let’s camp IN. Still work? Yes. Believe me, anytime you travel with kids, it is NOT a vacation. But one of our families recently purchased their first home and graciously offered it to our camp-in idea. It was perfect. Not only did we have fun as families, but we also had adult conversation during afternoon naps and bedtime. (We’ve determined we must gather during nap time again!) We talked through this Francis Chan video that is currently part of a larger “church” conversation James and I (and anyone who’ll listen to us!) have been having. Seriously, if you have eleven minutes, watch that video. And then come talk to me. We also talked through group dynamics, what we want to be about as a group, what’s been hard about our group, what we love about each other, etc. What I particularly love about this group is that the number one common factor is that we all love Jesus Christ and are pursuing Him in our homes, our parenting, our marriages, and our workplaces! Sure, we have some other things in common, but that’s not why we gather. Not because we all follow certain parenting methods or share the same hobbies or have similar personalities. Some of those, sure, but ultimately, what brings us together every single week is that we love Jesus and desire to love His Church, His people through the dirty details of this life.

And those dirty details sometimes include sweeping leaves, swinging, riding in wagons, eating Jayson’s special of bacon burger dogs, talking to children through silly dolls that mix up everyone’s names, or even jumping on trampolines. Okay, so those details are pretty easy to love others through. And that was the beauty of this weekend. Mmm…our souls were so refreshed!

DSC_0013 DSC_0014-1 DSC_0016 DSC_0017-1 DSC_0018 DSC_0021 DSC_0022 DSC_0024 DSC_0026-1 DSC_0028 DSC_0031 DSC_0036-1 DSC_0040-1 DSC_0042 DSC_0043-1

No Comments

Post A Comment