Laying the foundation

So, the idea for this past weekend's retreat was born in the late summer, and it was put on the calendar at some point around September/October, without a whole lot more thought about it for a month or so. Somewhere in there I felt the additional sense that we needed to fast as a team through our prayer and seeking time, and I put that word out to the team as well.

(Note - this is going to be one of those jumps that might not seem to make sense for a bit, but I promise I'll bring it back around, perhaps even by the end of this post)

Due to some issues I had been wrestling with in my own life for a while, I had told my pastor at some point in this timeframe that I really felt I needed to find a spiritual mentor to provide me with accountabilty and to really hold my feet to the fire and spur me in my relationship with God. Nothing had happened with that, until a Sunday evening toward the end of November. We had a special speaker at CrossWalk that night, and I really felt God saying that I needed to follow through with that idea. So, I pulled my pastor aside after the service to discuss it. He brought up Joe, the man from the couple I mentioned in my previous post. I didn't really know Joe a whole lot, and kind of thought it wouldn't be a particularly natural fit, but I was also intrigued by the idea, so I agreed to get together with him and see how it would go. We setup a meeting for the first Monday in December, but with the Thanksgiving holiday in between, Joe actually forgot and didn't show up that first night, so we postponed for the following Monday.

In the interim, we had our December Core Team meeting, which was going to be our last "business" meeting prior to the retreat. Because of all the various things I mentioned in my background post, we were facing some very significant decisions and so forth regarding our direction. Up until this point, I had been selling the retreat as a time where we would have nothing on the agenda but praying and listening to God, and processing what we heard Him saying. However, at this meeting, I got a bit spooked, and that, coupled with some suggestion by our team that we really needed to discuss a few things, led me to start creating an agenda for the retreat.

Back to Joe - we met the following Monday, and without me even bringing up the retreat or anything about it, our conversation led me to process the decision I had made the prior week, and determine that I needed to hold onto what I believed God had originally laid on my heart. I shared this with Joe and he affirmed that course of action, if that was what I really believed was the vision God had given me, and it was. I pulled my pastor aside at the next opportunity and let him know I was taking those items we had put on the agenda back off, and that they would only come out if we weren't getting anywhere listening to God, or if that was how we sensed God leading. At the time, Joe's missing of our first meeting was an annoyance to me and an embarrassment to Joe, but I really believe that God used it, because had we met before that core team meeting, I think there's a very good chance I would have made the change of plans and then never looked back. Joe did agree to be my mentor, but due to the holidays and some other complications, we haven't had a formal meeting since then, though we've had a number of conversations.

As it was, I was left my original vision, which was was something that, not only had I never led before, I had never really even been involved in something like this. How in the world do you spend an entire morning and afternoon (that was the schedule I had in mind) listening to God while staying focused, without falling asleep, etc? Re-enter Joe, as this was an area of his expertise. I tapped his experience and together we put together a framework for our time.

That pretty much brings us up to the week before the retreat, the story of which will start the Sunday before the retreat.