Well-Being Retreat 2023 offers renewal and fellowship at Montreat
More than 70 active and retired ministers and employees of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), spouses, and surviving spouses gathered at Montreat Conference Center in North Carolina this summer for Well-Being Retreat 2023.
In a secluded cove in the Blue Ridge Mountains, surrounded by wilderness, attendees were able to rest, reflect — and connect with one another. “Time, space, grace,” is how one participant summed up the three-day retreat.
The Board of Pensions partners with the Presbyterian Foundation and its subsidiary, New Covenant Trust Company, to host the annual Well-Being Retreat, with programming led by a team of professional educators from Board University. It is an opportunity for participants to engage in fellowship and take part in workshops designed to support important areas of well-being: spiritual, health, financial, and vocational.
This year’s retreat, August 21-23, carried the theme Imagine. Create. Discover. — and promised to reawaken in participants their curiosity and imagination. Organizers of the retreat said creative expression has the potential to enhance individual well-being, heal emotional and spiritual wounds, and bring people together. The workshops included Making Space for Creativity: Release, Refresh, Refocus — Practices for Relaxation, and Imagining the Kingdom through Parables and Poetry.
“God will help me cultivate my imagination, creativity, and discovery,” one workshop participant said, adding that “writing is an excellent way to stimulate the process and ideas.”
The retreat included several workshops around the particular needs and concerns of clergy and their spouses. Three workshops focused, separately, on healthy transitions for clergy, spouses, and couples. Healthcare in retirement and financial health for women were covered by representatives of Fidelity Investments, administrator of the Retirement Savings Plan of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Fidelity representatives were also available to meet one-on-one.
“I need to live as a fountain and not a pitcher. I cannot let myself become too depleted,” was a reminder one participant took home. Another said, “I learned that I need to slow down and be still. Listen more closely to hear God’s whispers of love, hope, encouragement, forgiveness, and grace.”
Others who traveled to Montreat for the retreat talked about enjoying the opportunity to step away from daily demands and learn from and connect with others. There was time for prayer and worship and room to renew a personal relationship with God — while taking restorative time to hike a wilderness trail or commune with nature in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
