Richard and Nathan Foster, Gina Ochsner, Dennis Littlefield, and I have been working for most of this last year on the details of a retreat for writers. Letting the Light In: Writing for the Growth of the Soul is for Christian writers who “need the vision to wrestle honestly with the complexities of the human condition and the skills to articulate those realities in ways that are crisp and imaginative.” Hosted just outside of Newberg on Camp Tilikum’s 93 beautiful, lake-front acres, the gathering is also sponsored by Renovaré and Barclay Press.
The 2017 Christian Writers Retreat is the first annual retreat of its kind at Tilikum and will bring together a broad spectrum of Christian writers and speakers. Along with Ochsner and the Fosters, presenters and writing mentors include Bill Jolliff, Mark and Lisa McMinn, Ed Higgins, and Linda Clare. One-on-one mentoring will also be available to retreat participants.
Richard Foster and his family lived at Tilikum in the 1970s when he was on the pastoral team at Newberg Friends Church. During these years he wrote the book, Celebration of Discipline. From this connection to Tilikum, the idea came to develop a special place for Christian writers. That idea has resulted in work on a cabin for Christian writers and in this retreat – the first of what may be many annual gatherings for Christian writers.
Lodge Housing and Commuters: Tilikum has overnight housing for 40 guests to stay in the Lodge (usually 2 per room with a private bath). We also have room for 6 guests to commute. The registration page has two links, one for overnight and the other for commuters. The cost is $350 for overnight guests and $150 for commuters, if registered by September 10, 2017.
Click here for more information and to register for the 2017 Christian Writers Retreat.
Eric Muhr
Rhythms of Grace
David Williams, general superintendent at Evangelical Friends Church–Mid-America Yearly Meeting, writes in Rhythms of Grace: Life-Saving Disciplines for Spiritual Leaders, that “there is no greater privilege in the Christian life than to serve as a spiritual leader within the body of Christ. Unfortunately, we are in the midst of a genuine crisis in the church today. Pastors and other spiritual leaders are leaving vocational ministry faster than we can replace them.”
David’s book, now available for purchase and scheduled to ship July 10, identifies the problem as burnout, “a pastoral pathology resulting from a lethal combination of extraordinary job-related stress and woefully inadequate self-care.”
“Most of us know someone experiencing burnout,” David writes. “They might be serving in your church right now, or more than likely, they may have recently left. They may be your friends; they may be part of your own family.”
So what is the cure? David writes about the answers we find “in the life of the prophet Elijah, in his practices of physical refreshment, spiritual renewal, and vocational realignment, renewing rituals or rhythms of grace [that] prove to be life-saving disciplines for spiritual leaders.”
Charles Mylander writes that “this is a helpful book for any Christian who feels stressed, overworked, or severely criticized.” Before retirement, Charles served as the superintendent of Evangelical Friends Church–Southwest and also as the director of Evangelical Friends Mission. “Rhythms of Grace speaks to the exhaustion and burn-out that many (if not most) spiritual leaders experience sooner or later. Williams cites his own story of trying so hard and ending up exhausted, disillusioned, and isolated. Then with the Old Testament prophet Elijah as a model, enormous research on the subject, and his own pastor’s heart, he takes the role of a shepherd to the wounded.”
Eric Muhr
On arches
In this morning’s Fruit of the Vine, Karen Swenson reflects on the Stari Most (Old Bridge) in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. “Built in the sixteenth century by the Ottomans, the Old Bridge stood for 427 years until it was destroyed in 1993 during the Croat-Bosniak War. Now rebuilt, it is one of the country’s most recognizable landmarks.”
Arch bridges like Stari Most have a “semicircular structure [that] distributes the compression through its entire length and diverts the weight onto its two abutments (supports at the ends that rest on the banks) and into the ground.” Karen points out that the physics of this shape change “the downward force of gravity into a sideways push” giving the arch bridge “more strength than a simple beam bridge.”
What if Christian community is a bridge? Do we stand alone, like a beam bridge, using our strength to hold up under the pressures of life? Or do we lean against one another, helping to change the downward forces on our neighbor into a sideways push?
In Scripture, we find all kinds of ways to lean into each other: encouragement (Hebrews 10:25), service (Galatians 5:13), mutual submission (Ephesians 5:21), hospitality (1 Peter 4:9), harmony (Romans 12:16), love (John 13:34-35).
Karen offers this prayer: “Father, may each of us see practical ways we can be an ‘arch’ that helps support”
Eric Muhr