By Monty Harmon, Covenant Men’s Retreat Planning Team
The 2020 Covenant Men’s Retreat occurred in early March at Cascades Camp and Conference Center before social distancing became our norm. Ninety-six men gathered to hear messages from four of our conference pastors– Jim Sequeira (Vancouver), Ben Zabel (Shoreline), Mike Thomas (Renton), and Rob Fairbanks (Spokane)–and our Worship Leader and Spanish interpreter, Gustavo Sandrigo (Kent).
Hygiene was a focus. The retreat started off with reminding the men to wash their hands and use protective greeting measures such as a head nod, elbow bump, precarious foot pound, or bow.
Our pastors challenged the men to “unplug” from their devices and engage with God and others using illustrations from the Matrix. Our four gifted pastors encouraged those present to take the red pill and see how deep they can get with God by:
- Entering the world to invite others to immigrate and have hope in the Kingdom of God using the Cross as the doorway.
- Realizing in this world we tend to show up and never actually be present and challenging them to unplug and be present around others.
- Understanding just showing up is not enough, we need to be intentional to engage in God’s work.
- Knowing that to be blessed requires us to make a decision regarding whatwe are willing to do for God and others to be blessed.
- Treating God’s word as our food and stop only eating on Sundays. We must avoid this starvation diet and be a tree planted by Living Water (Ps 1) daily drinking up His nourishment.
- Finding people to “wakeup”, introducing them to the reality of God’s world, and training them to live in it; knowing their citizenship and their hope is in God’s Kingdom and His heaven.
- Striving to be like Neo, who failed “the jump” in the first movie but in the end he could fly!
Evening activities were wild this year. Pickleball and Nerf wars were new and likely to be repeated. Virtual reality glasses and a ten foot Super Smash Brothers video game competed with the movie breakout and steaks by the campfire Saturday evening. There were no outbursts from card playing adults in the game room as 1000 nerf bullets were fired on “armed individuals” only. It was a great training ground for children, dads, and granddads to Unplug and interact with each other.
In the end, a good time was had by all and every male went home a better ambassador for the Kingdom. The camp benefits each year as some men volunteer to clear trails and prepare the camp for the coming season. The foliage on the Red Wing Marsh Trail was cleared to reveal views of the previously hidden body of water. Be sure to walk the trail this summer and watch for flyers on next year’s retreat and register early. Next year’s retreat is March 12-14 2021.
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