Exploring the practice of retreat in a deeper way

I was at a denominational event. I had recently transitioned out of a church staff role. The host, a colleague, thought I might appreciate a personal introduction to the guest speaker, who was something of a celebrity in these circles. This person asked what I did, so I started talking about spiritual direction and that I had recently led a retreat.

"Retreat? We don't retreat in the Kingdom. We advance!" was his reply.

It reminded me of how a number of years earlier I was a new seminary student. It also happened to be a season of putting together the pieces of a faith I had shipwrecked. A friend took me to the Abbey of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery in the hills of Kentucky. That opened a whole new world to me. I'd go back and visit each semester to walk the grounds in the quiet, journal, pray, simply sit still for a minute.

I was in a difficult, in-between season and in the midst of re-learning how to pray and connect with God. The physical place of the monastery and all that I found and experienced there helped me tremendously. There are times when we've been running at such a pace that we simply cannot advance, as the celebrity speaker tried to suggest to me. Sometimes we find ourselves in a season of transition while God gives birth to something in us and through us, and we simply need a place to be still and breathe.

The Gospels show us Jesus having a rhythm of withdrawing and re-engaging: "Then Jesus said, ‘Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.’ He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat.” And isn't that the reality of ministry—that we get so wrapped up in helping people that we neglect our own physical and emotional needs and those of our family? Again, we're told this was an ongoing practice Jesus had: "Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer." For those of us in vocations where we pour ourselves out serving others, we have to be intentional about what fills us up.

Going on retreat is one of a number of healthy rhythms for taking care of our body, our mind, and our spirit. It is a really good way to un-busy our souls. Silence, stillness, and solitude are age-old, time-tested practices that Christians for centuries have done that go a long way in helping us "digest" the heavy feelings we feel, like stress, exhaustion, sadness, and grief.

If you are new to the practice of retreat, and wondering how in the world you start, here are 6 simple tips for starting this new rhythm.

Clearly define your retreat.

There are different kinds of retreats that you can do for different lengths of time. Start with WHY. What's the point? What do you want to get out of this? Is this for focused work? Is it for undistracted study? Is it for silence and intimacy with God? Is it for discernment for an upcoming change? Is it for strategic planning?

Do you need a few hours? Do you need a week? If you’re new to the practice, you might set aside 4 uninterrupted hours in the morning or afternoon. You might set aside a full 8-hour workday once a month. Or you might need 24 hours, or 3 nights, or a full week.

You might have a writing project that just needs to get done, and you need an environment free of interruptions. If you work at a church, you may simply need time out of the office to get mentally unstuck. We’ve hosted a group of pastors who are long-time friends. They stayed for 3 nights. In the mornings, they worked alone on their sermon planning for the upcoming season. In the afternoon, they collaboratively shared what they’d been working on. And in the evening, they went out to dinner together and explored downtown.

A silent retreat can be an opportunity to turn down all the relentless noise that may be coming at you. You can't try to cram all of these things into one retreat experience. So name one and have realistic expectations for yourself.

Listen to your body.

I recently caught up with a person who has stayed multiple times at the Abbey. He reflected on how, when he had arrived the first time, he didn’t know what to do. He described himself as a “do-er” and he was at a loss. As he remembered, I suggested to him that he take a nap, and he thought to himself, “I can do that?” He was amazed. And pleasantly surprised by how he felt afterwards. Sometimes, sleep is the most spiritual thing we can do.

In 1 Kings 19, we're told the story of Elijah. After his face-off with the prophets of Baal, and Jezebel puts a price on his head, Elijah runs for his life to the desert. He goes to sleep, and when he wakes up, an angel tells him to eat. This happens twice before he later encounters the God who whispers and who gives him a renewed mission.

Don't underestimate the power of a nap and snack to restore your soul. We live in a sleep-deprived society. Life in ministry can easily fall into the same traps. I often will tell guests it usually takes about 3 days for the brain and body to catch up on rest. We get so ingrained in celebrating hustle culture. We push our bodies beyond their limits so much that we don't know how to listen to them. So take a retreat to go to sleep when your body says so. Wake up when your body says so. Take a nap in the middle of the day. Go for walks.

Unplug from technology.

As much as you can, disconnect from your phone. Put it on “airplane mode.” If you're not doing a work retreat where you may need internet access, put limits on screen time. In intermittent fasting, you eat only during certain hours of the day and fast the rest of the time. We can do something similar with our phones, giving ourselves firm boundaries.

When I worked with college students and took them on cross-cultural mission trips, the students would always bring their phones, even when I warned them. The moment they pulled it out, they were immediately sucked into a wormhole away from the reality right in front of them. When we give ourselves to the algorithms of social media, we’re being shaped by consumeristic forces that make us less human. The love of God wants to make us more human. Naming our distractions so we can more effectively fight their temptation is one of the oldest monastic practices.

It's okay to take a break for a couple of days from the email, from the headlines, from the memes, from the onslaught of updates. A retreat is a perfect opportunity to rediscover being bored and the places your mind can serendipitously go in those times. If you need to be available for loved ones, coordinate with a retreat director on an alternative method for getting in touch with you in an emergency. If you want to stretch your inner muscle to be present to yourself and present to God, then put your phone and your laptop down for an extended period.

Keep it simple.

Options are obstacles. So are decisions. Eliminate as much of the decision-making process and as many options as you can. Where do you go? When do you do it? What do you do when you get there? What do you do for meals? Each of these questions easily becomes an excuse for procrastinating until you actually never go on retreat. Plan ahead. Give yourself a simple schedule. The fewer decisions you have to make when you're there, the more mental bandwidth you have for being present to God and present to yourself.

Share your expectations with God before you go. See if God has another agenda for you. I’ve spoken with guests who came with really big questions for God that they urgently felt needed to be answered. By the end of their time, they had found that God was interested in a completely different work in them. A helpful prayer may be: God, how do you want to be with me here? What do you want to talk about and explore together?

Don't take your entire stack of "to-read" books. Don't bring all your work. Don’t attempt to do too much. Make sure you measure your expectations against the WHY you articulated at the beginning. Look for a place you want to return to again and again. Once you find a location that seems to fit you, make it a routine. Make a plan for your food if it's not available on-site. Bring some snacks and bottled water.

Make it a rhythm.

A friend recently visited the Abbey of the Heights and talked about their dentist. Every time he visits his dentist, the assistant doesn't let him leave until he's scheduled his next visit. But unlike the dentist, when you’re on retreat, you know you want to do this again. Once you go on a retreat, put the next one on the calendar, whether that's next month or next quarter. We have a chaplain who visits the Abbey for a day retreat on the third Friday of every month.

This is part of the simplicity. You can make the planning automatic. When you plan ahead, you don't have to figure out how to make retreat fit into your schedule. What gets scheduled gets done. Planning your schedule is one big way of getting free from the tyranny of the urgent.

One of the biggest obstacles I hear from ministry leaders when I share about a spiritual practice of retreat is something like this: I’m already exhausted, and it stresses me out that you’re asking me to do yet one more thing.

But retreat isn’t one more thing to do. It's a grace we receive from God. Retreat is the invitation to rest from the God who says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Treat yourself.

You might sense an invitation to fast. You may also sense an invitation to indulge in feasting all your senses. Those of us in ministry and other service-oriented work have spent so much of our time serving others that we’ve forgotten to really let ourselves enjoy what we enjoy. We’ve made a habit of depriving ourselves. A recent guest came to retreat from out of state because he also wanted to see the Bob Dylan museum in our city. Hobbies and the seemingly frivolous things that really give us life have a way of getting squeezed out by the busyness of life and serving others. Jesus says, “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” A retreat should never be somber.

Like a Sabbath day, a retreat can be a time to treat yourself to an extended "Opposite Day" where you can say no to all the things you usually say yes to and yes to all the things you usually say no to. What is it that really makes you feel alive? Eat a good meal at a fancy restaurant, like you only usually see on TV. Go to a movie by yourself—the kind of movie that no one else in your family seems to appreciate but you. Take in a ballgame or a music show. Visit a museum. Walk in the woods. Pay attention to nature. Be creative. Linger in beauty. Enjoy life. Just for fun.

In her book about retreat, Ruth Haley Barton writes:

"Strategic withdrawal captures the more positive connotations of the word retreat, namely that there are times when the better part of wisdom in combat is to withdraw for good reasons—which can apply to us as well. There are times when we too need to pull back from the battle line in our own lives rather than continuing to fight the same battles in the same old ways. We need to pull back from our busyness, from life in our culture, from other people's expectations and our own compulsions, from whatever is not working in our lives."

We created the Abbey of the Heights to be a place like this, where you can pull back from the hustle and grind, the busy and hurry, the exhaustion and stress of life. It's a place designed for you to encounter God and find rest for your soul. So pull out your calendar and make a decision about when you will take your next retreat.