It was during a meeting with my Lead/Senior Pastor that I really had no idea what the weekend was about or for. So, the Pastor reassured me that I could go as an observer, but also be a participant. It was the church that he went to when he was seeking mentorship for how our church should be guided; so some of the stuff he was going to be implementing. However, he also wanted others to see if they were onboard and willing as well.
As the weekend approached closer, I almost failed to realize the context and history of the Southland church and thought I could be going into a 'overly charismatic mega church.'
I was asking my friends, youth leaders, and family to be praying for me as I was about to head into this somewhat vague and unknown weekend.
One of the members of my church picked me up at 6:45am, the morning of our departure to Southland church, and we waited for the rest of our group at Hillcrest. A total of 19 of us were going, and some had already left on their own time to Southland and would meet up with them at designated stops.
The people arrived and I was placed in a car with a woman from Caronport, who had be a member of Hillcrest for a number of years before moving out to the small town.
The drive with her was delightful and informative as we talked about our backgrounds and history up till where we were now.
Once we reached Southland - somewhat delayed from Winnipeg's construction on their roads and dinner time traffic - we made it to the church intact, and somewhat tired from the eight hour drive.
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| I took this picture the next morning, but this is what the church looked like. |
We were given a "Set Free Retreat" booklet, 'spiritual healing' cards with a list of things relating to sin, and a 'healing pattern' leaflet.
The main speaker, Stefen Duerksen, son of the lead Pastor Ray Duerksen, was humorous, honest, and humble as he spoke about the weekend, the expectations, and his life struggles and illustrations.
As we went through the 2 main session talks: 1. Spiritual Warfare and 2. Sinful Habits, Attitudes, & Actions.
Stefen talked about the strategies of the enemy (meaning the devil and his demons), which are temptations to disobey God, and putting spiritual strongholds in your life causing a bondage of destructive patterns.
Also weapons to fight the enemy, which is confession of sins and what it brings and entails, as well as deliverance (which can be an ongoing process, or quick depending on the mercy and wisdom of God).
Along with how our sinful habits, attitudes, actions, addictions and dependences, and vows & curses are rebellion against God (1 Sam 15:23, 1 Peter 2:13, Eph. 5:21, Phil 2:14-15, Exodus 16:8) thus hurting our relationship with Him.
At this point, we were to take our 'spiritual healing' cards and 'healing pattern' leaflet, and get into our designated (and prayed over) groups of 3, and go through the sins we checked of and confess to one another and be prayed over.
At first it was a little awkward, one of the women wanted to just get right into it (she had done this retreat before) and the other (thanks be to God) had us at lest say our names and where we were from. After our introductions, we arranged a system where one of us would confess and one other person would pray for us : person 1 confessed, person 2 would pray; then person 2 confessed person 3 would pray, person 3 confessed and person 1 would pray; and so on and so forth.
It was not until I went down to the 'vows & curses' part of the confession that I began to cry - the vows and curses had to do with saying to ones self things like, "you're stupid," you are a failure," "you will never be good enough" - and so when I confessed my vow to myself the woman who prayed over me said she had an image of hold holding me close as I was swaddled in a white cloth and the idea of how I am a precious daughter to Him and He is my Father.
Once we finished our confessions, we were dismissed to meet our billets.
I went out to the foyer, and amongst the swarm of people I was directed to the couple I was to sat with. The young couple, Dan and Olivia, shook my hand and with smiles on their faces greeted me saying 'good to meet you!' The man had an accent which upon my first mistake thought it was Australian (this wouldn't be my first mistaken presupposition on him), and found out he was from New Zealand, while Olivia was raised in Manitoba, and they had been married for 6ish years.
I also met up with my roommate for the weekend who was from the church and to my surprise it was the woman who I often saw leading on one of the worship teams.
CONFESSION TIME: I had seen this woman lead on the worship team, and I had mistaken her excitability and outgoingness as forced when leadings songs during worship.
So when I found out she was going to be my roommate for the whole weekend, I knew - I KNEW - God was doing something.
So we all gathered in the car and as they talked about and showed us around the house once we got their, the first thing I took to heart was the fact they lived RIGHT ACROSS THE FIELD from the church (For me, this meant I could have a quick get away if I need to, to be alone or even sleep if I grew weary from the weekend - THANK YOU LORD!) They had only been living in their house for 2 months and they had it designed so that the downstairs had 4 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and a kitchen for the girls from their cell group (small groups in the church) to live with them. Also the upstairs was open and had a kitchen and their bedrooms off to the side with another bedroom (for their soon to be coming baby) and bathroom was sound proofed as to not keep the girl's up with the baby's noise. IT GETS BETTER - The room SC (the worship team woman from our church) and I would be staying in was built off the house and in the garage with 2 beds and a bathroom. Dan had it in mind because when he lived in New Zealand, his father would bring in people who were homeless or needed a place to stay to their house, so Dan had that room built for that purpose in mind. Up till that point they were using it as a prayer room, so we were the first to use it as people who needed a place to stay for the time being.
That evening, SC's personality rang true to what I had seen on the stage at church. She was dynamic and outgoing as any extravert could be and it was through the weekend I discovered that she would often get nervous or concerned trying to convey herself outside of the scripted singing. Meaning, when she was asked to maybe say something about the song they would be singing, or give a prayer, she didn't like doing that because she felt as if her words would not make sense or she would say something silly. Father, thank you for SC and the person you made her to be. May she find a comfort in knowing it's okay to mess up and roll with being funny even if you don't mean to on stage. Thank you for our wisdom and mercy for having us as roommates for the weekend and when we see each other at church be encouraging and delighted with one another.
I think this will end up being a 3 or 4th part series depending on what I talk about from this trip.
Till the next time!
~To God be the glory
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