Men's Getaway Recap (by Scott Newman)
On Friday October 2nd, fifty-five of Copperhill's men loaded up their camping gear and piled into trucks for a weekend men's retreat at the Ocean Mesa campground at El Capitan State Beach. As all men know, there are three key ingredients for a successful men's retreat: food, fun and fellowship over God's Word. Our retreat fit the bill in just about every way to make for yet another successful men's retreat to finish out 2009.
It is seriously questionable whether there has ever been better camp food than what the men feasted on at the retreat. Master chef Brantley Dunaway basically imported a roving kitchen to craft the incredible meals to keep the guys going during all the activities. Special thanks are due Brantley for taking his weekend (and his retreat time) to serve our men in the food department.
The weekend was also a great time to both relax and compete together. The late night campfire on Friday night mixed with fresh baked cookies, good conversations, cigars and a starlit sky made for a memorable and calming evening. Saturday, following a morning devotion, the afternoon was spent on the beach. Most of the men enjoyed playing semi-tackle flag football organized by Luis Espino. Although many of us came back sore and bruised it's hard to spend a more worthwhile afternoon than playing football on the beach.
Most importantly, we were blessed and honored to have a wonderful retreat speaker this year. We were joined by Matt Troupe, an Acts 29 planter who helped start Free Grace Church in Fresno, CA. He challenged our men with the concept of living "Coram Deo", a fancy Latin phrase, which means that our entire lives are lived out in front of God. As Psalm 139 makes clear, God is intimately aware of every detail of our lives. This is comforting for us because we know that God is aware and cares about all of our concerns. However, it also reminds us that the infinitely holy God is aware of every single way that we fail to give him the honor He deserves. Understanding this helps make the Gospel come alive because it teaches us that God, who is fully aware of the ways that we sin against Him, nevertheless sent His Son to die a horrible death in our place. Then, because of Jesus' death, God is now able to shower grace into our lives so that we are enabled to give Him the honor He's due in our every-day life circumstance.
It is seriously questionable whether there has ever been better camp food than what the men feasted on at the retreat. Master chef Brantley Dunaway basically imported a roving kitchen to craft the incredible meals to keep the guys going during all the activities. Special thanks are due Brantley for taking his weekend (and his retreat time) to serve our men in the food department.
The weekend was also a great time to both relax and compete together. The late night campfire on Friday night mixed with fresh baked cookies, good conversations, cigars and a starlit sky made for a memorable and calming evening. Saturday, following a morning devotion, the afternoon was spent on the beach. Most of the men enjoyed playing semi-tackle flag football organized by Luis Espino. Although many of us came back sore and bruised it's hard to spend a more worthwhile afternoon than playing football on the beach.
Most importantly, we were blessed and honored to have a wonderful retreat speaker this year. We were joined by Matt Troupe, an Acts 29 planter who helped start Free Grace Church in Fresno, CA. He challenged our men with the concept of living "Coram Deo", a fancy Latin phrase, which means that our entire lives are lived out in front of God. As Psalm 139 makes clear, God is intimately aware of every detail of our lives. This is comforting for us because we know that God is aware and cares about all of our concerns. However, it also reminds us that the infinitely holy God is aware of every single way that we fail to give him the honor He deserves. Understanding this helps make the Gospel come alive because it teaches us that God, who is fully aware of the ways that we sin against Him, nevertheless sent His Son to die a horrible death in our place. Then, because of Jesus' death, God is now able to shower grace into our lives so that we are enabled to give Him the honor He's due in our every-day life circumstance.
Labels: Men's Retreat
posted by copperhill at 10:51 AM
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