CHRISTIAN SINGLE ADULT WEEKEND RETREAT 2013

When a friend sent me an e-mail, at the beginning of this year, about a potential Singles Retreat to be held in September 2013, I did not have to think twice about whether I wanted to go or not and my application and deposit was submitted to the conference organisers without hesitation; and having now come through the other side, I am sure I can speak for all those who attended to say that we were not disappointed.

Friday 20 September 2013

Singles, from all over the country, descended upon the picturesque country manor known as High Leigh Christian Conference Centre in Hoddesdon, with 40 acres of lawns, parkland and woodland, in anticipation of a weekend filled with fellowship, information, relaxation and lots of fun.Throughout the year, delegates were kept updated with various bits of information about the conference, the last one being, details about the registration/dinner times for the first night.I left London, in what I felt was good time, factoring into my journey any eventualities that might occur on the road, but I did not anticipate the nightmare I was to experience on the A1 en-route to the M25, eventually connecting to the A10 to Hoddesdon. In my place of ‘stuck’, I could sense that the enemy was trying to frustrate me with a view to interrupting my spirit even before I got to the retreat.

In my mind I kept going over the information that we had received about our arrival/registration…… “You are required to arrive at 6 pm for registration and room allocation. The registration will end at 7 pm. This will be followed by dinner. We are giving you advance notice of these times so that you can make the necessary travel arrangements/ to leave work early etc. No allowance can be made for dinner if you miss it so, please try to be on time. Registration is between 6.00-7.00 pm, followed by dinner. Please don’t be late for dinner.” As the time was passing away whilst sitting in my car, I could hear the enemy saying “you’re going to be late and you won’t get any dinner”. I rebuked that voice and continued listening to my gospel music. As I sat in the traffic, wondering what time I would get there, I remember saying “devil, even if I miss dinner, I have two packets of crisp and some club chocolate biscuits in my bag that I can eat, so you are not going to spoil my mood as I’m going to have an awesome weekend”.Whilst it wasn’t quite the way I had wanted to arrive, thankfully, I only arrived 15 minutes late. Everyone had gone into dinner and I got to briefly meet our conference hosts, Janet Wolfe and Angelo Oliveri, as I put my bags down and rushed into dinner.After a lovely meal, I was able to find my room, an en-suite, double-bedded room to myself; I might add, and put my things down, ready for the evening meeting.

As we all gathered together, in our conference room, which was going to be home for the rest of our retreat, our conference host, Janet, welcomed everyone and shared with the group various bits of house-keeping information we needed to be aware of and also took the opportunity to welcome our keynote guest speaker for the retreat, Kris Swiatocho, a renowned speaker and founder of The Singles Networker Ministries from the USA.

Janet then introduced an ice-breaker, to get everyone interacting with each other and we did an activity called “People Bingo”. We were all given a sheet with a grid of 24 boxes filled with questions. The aim of the exercise was to find an individual who matched the criteria, however, you could only put one person’s name in any given box. Some of the questions were “can give you a business card now”, “is scared of heights”, “has been a Christian more than 20 years”, “has a tattoo” and the like. This was a hilarious and a lot of fun as we all scuppered around the room, trying to fill our grids so that we could finish first. Shirley Cox beat everyone to it and finished first, but only by a few seconds I might add, because as she shouted “Bingo”, you could hear others screaming “Bingo” shortly after her.“People Bingo” proved a great ice-breaker and you could sense the delegates losing their individuality and beginning to bond more as a group. Plus we were encouraged to sit with individuals we didn’t know when it came to breakfast and dinner times to interact and get to know each other a bit better over the weekend.

At the start of the retreat delegates were asked to watch the movie by Sherwood Pictures “Facing the Giants” which also was to be the theme of the retreat. We all sat down together and enjoyed the movie; laughing, “ahhing” and jeering at the appropriate places. At the end of the movie, Kris shared that the movie would be the basis for some of the activities we would be doing the following day, so we were asked to ponder and reflect upon the strong characters and themes that came out of the movie.We were then free to go and get a night cap (from the complimentary hot drinks machine), whilst taking the opportunity to fellowship and get to know each other, as we made our way back to our various rooms.

Saturday 21 September 2013

After a good night’s sleep and a scrumptious breakfast, we headed to the conference room where we were met by the day delegates, who came down for the retreat, and enjoyed a time of worship by Jane Jackson Music Ministry.

The first session of the morning was led by Kris, entitled “Purpose of the Giant”, which was a continuation of the movie we watched the night before. We were given hand-outs entitled “Facing Your Giants” with the scripture Luke 1:37 “Nothing is impossible with God” and on our tables we went through a series of discussion points, identifying areas in our own lives where situations have become “Giants” and how we would go about demolishing those “Giants” enabling us to be whole individuals.After morning coffee, we went back to another session with Kris entitled ‘Change’ talking about and discussing the movie and looking at the characters in the movie who we felt we most identified with and why.After lunch, the programme allowed for “afternoon free-time” where individuals could explore the grounds, enjoy board games, go for a walk by the canal at Broxbourne, retire to their rooms and have a snooze, or sit in on a 10 minute talk on “Holidays for Singles” by Susan Ashman.

Following the free time, the delegates came back together at 4 pm and were put in discussion groups where we went off to various rooms and then came back together in the main conference room to give feedback and share. The various discussions were; “God is the Matchmaker, do we need to be proactive?” by J Adams,

“My Church doesn’t have a Singles Ministry, where do I start?” by K Swiatocho,

“Multi-racial dating; is it biblical?” by A Oliveri and “Online Christian Dating” by D Martin. Even though we were put into groups and therefore did not get the opportunity to perhaps go to the one that we were most interested in, the coming back together and feedback proved useful as it provided a flavour and highlights of the discussions had by the various groups.

The final session, prior to dinner, was the opportunity for the men and women to be separated, where the men went off with Angelo and had a “MENtoring” session (where they talked about the importance of their role in evangelising to single men amongst other things),whilst the women got to hear briefly from two individuals who had written books for single women, Tania Vaughan, sharing about her book “Let’s Talk About Sex & Relationships” and myself sharing about my book “Insightful Tips for the Unique ‘Mature’ Single”.

As we came back from dinner, various individuals went back to their rooms to get ready for our evening social, the “Sox Party”. Another piece of information delegates received prior to the retreat was to bring a pair of fun socks, the brighter the better, to wear on Saturday evening for the “Sox Party”.As everyone came back in their “sox” attire, we all couldn’t stop laughing at the variety of funny socks and it was evident that everyone was ready to have a good time. We stayed in the various groups we had earlier been put in and went through a series of silly games, a bit like kids would play at a children’s party, i.e. sitting in a single file and passing a balloon down the line using only our feet. This was followed by X-Factor style competition within our groups where we would have to perform to each other on a grand scale. Groups started to look for their individual spaces, where you could see everyone getting very competitive as they rehearsed and practised their numbers.When we all came back together and sat through each group’s performances, we had a hilarious time as groups gave their renditions. Each group was funny, original and enjoyable. There were some real stars that came out of their shells and really gave the performance of their lives. This evening, was truly one of the ‘fun’ highlights of the weekend, because it was very spontaneous, and everyone came together and gave it their all. We retired to our rooms that night reminiscing over the day’s events and thankful to God for everything we had experienced.

Sunday 22 September 2013

They say “all good things come to an end”, so it was a shock to get to Sunday already and to realise that we only had a few more hours before the retreat was due to be over.After breakfast, we had a time of worship and reflection as we took communion together. Janet reflected over the weekend and gave individuals a time to share their testimonies. She welcomed Angelo to start off the testimonies by sharing his own, heart-wrenching testimony of how he became “single-again”, which set the tone for the other, very personal and honest testimonies of their own unique roads to wholeness and victory. We were all so touched by these very honest testimonies and after our coffee break; Janet allowed further time for a few more others who felt they needed to share their testimony also. Following the testimonies, we had a Q & A Session which Kris co-ordinated. Delegates were asked throughout the weekend to put forward any questions they wanted Kris to tackle and Kris had told us that it didn’t matter how personal they were; just to be brave and go for it. The session was informative, interactive and interesting to say the least.Following lunch, we had a group photo, which we took outside, appreciating the lovely grounds of High Leigh.

Our final exercise was led by Kris, where she summarised and reflected on our theme of the weekend “Facing Your Giants”. We were given the opportunity to write down on pieces of paper those “Giants” that we wanted to finally eradicate from our lives. We were given sling shots, made by Janet, and one by one, we took part in an ‘altar call’ where we had to go up to a life-sized drawing of a picture of Goliath (also drawn by our talented host, Janet Wolfe), where we aimed our “stones” until the Goliath drawing collapsed and was finally defeated “symbolically”.For the first of its kind in the UK; what a weekend it was, it was absolutely amazing. The location and facilities were first class, the food was to “live for” and the fellowship was great and many friendships and relationships were forged.

A vote of thanks must go out to Janet and her team for their vision and hard work in bringing this dream to fruition and also for inviting Kris to be the keynote speaker, who has a warm bubbly personality and is truly anointed when speaking and sharing with singles. All that’s left to say is, “next year, here we come; bigger and better”.

Andrea Best