30th January To retreat or not to retreat

It will come as a surprise to none to hear that district retreats are not my favourite thing. Whilst it might seem a good thing, it inevitably falls at at time that it the most inconveient, when my diary is crammed to capacity. And with a changing of the guard within the heirarchy of the district it was become less of a three line whip ie almost compulsory to attend, so that this time round I would guesstimate that there are roughly half the districts ministers present. 

And those that are here can very quickly fall into little cliques of circuits or committee members depending on which circles one moves in. I tend to move in triangles. As it is I am the sole (or should that be soul) representative from my circuit. Who would ever have thought that I would be the one holding the flag for NNE.

Interestingly when arriving here there was a sign in the entrance foyer directing the way to the room where a group called 'Limitless Leaders' were meeting. Needless to say that wasn't where we met!! 

I had arrived here with the intention of using the time to catch up on 1001 things I needed to catch up on, writing down a quickly scribbled list in my notebook as soon as I could gain access to my room. Only to then discover (we hadn't been informed earlier) that the theme of the retreat was 'Listen'. Listen to what I hear you ask...did you see what I did there?

Well first up it was a chance to simply listen to others sharing in worship. Now I know that might sound a daft thing to say being someone who leads worship every week, but therein lies the clue. Too often I am leading worship, I am having to make sure everything that assists worship is going okay whether that be the order of service, the appropriate tune for the hymns or making sure the correct slide is being displayed on the screen.

Today in our opening gathering, with no words displayed on the screen and people being asked to sing 'Be still for the presence of the Lord' from memory, I decided not to sing but simply to sit with my eyes closed listening to the voices around me and enjoyed the very good piano playing.

For those familiar with French (grade B 'O' level here) the word meaning to listen it 'ecouter', whereas the word meaning to pay attention is 'faites attention'. Too often we are guilty of listening but not really paying attention to what we hear or even what we don't hear. 

Over the next 48 hours, with my 'to do' list pushed firmly to one side, this retreat might give me just the time, space and opportunity to see if I can be attentive to what I am hearing instead of simply just listening.