NYC
May 1-3, 2023
The Church Cracked Open: Naming the ways the church (and our lives) have been cracked open and exploring the practices of healing, hope, and new life.
Location: General Theological Seminary Guides: Rev. Stephanie spellers, drew jackson, Aaron niequist, shauna niequist
Retreat Schedule
MONDAY
1:00pm Registration/Connection 2:00pm Gathering & Invitation 5:00pm Dinner Together 6:00pm The Church Cracked Open 8:00pm Contemplative Compline
TUESDAY
9:00am Guided Personal Retreat 12:00pm Lunch 12:30pm Solitude 1:00pm Prayer Team in Refectory (Optional) 3:30pm Eucharist Service 4:30PM Free Night in NYC
WEDNESDAY
9:00am Practical Tools 12:00pm Prayer and Sending
Gathering & Invitation / Personal Retreat / Tangible Next Steps
On Monday we will arrive from all over the country and begin a shared journey. We’ll meet each other, worship together, orient ourselves to the retreat, and begin to exhale and slow down. Drew Jackson will help us “Embrace the Mystery” and Rev Stephanie will invite us into “The Church Cracked Open”. We’ll end with Night Prayer and the opportunity for a great night of sleep.
Tuesday morning will be a 3 hour, guided personal retreat. Through spiritual practices, simple liturgies, and embodied prayer, we will be led into holy space in which God can do what only God can do. This will propel us into an afternoon of solitude, either on campus or in the neighborhood of Chelsea, and then back together for an ecumenical, practice-based Eucharist service. And then by 4:30pm or so, we’ll be released into the beauty and energy and art of NYC. Eat great food…explore a museum…walk Central Park…see a Broadway show…and soak up the goodness of the city. (FYI, our hospitality team will help with ideas, plans, directions, and anything else you might need)
Finally, Wednesday morning will focus on heading back into our actual home communities. How can we translate the practices and rhythms of the retreat into our real lives and churches? What are tools and resources that can support this good work? How can we become menders of the church cracked open? We’ll end the whole retreat with a time of prayer and sending.
Or said more simply: the three movements of the retreat are (1) Opening to the rhythms of Grace, (2) Swimming deep in the rhythms of Grace, and (3) Learning tools to invite others into the rhythms of Grace.
General Theological Seminary
Retreat Guides
“My fervent prayer is that you will examine your life and the life of your church, and the systems and assumptions that shape both. I hope you will become less anxious about how you and your community are cracking open, and more curious about how God might remake you as a true community of love.”