The women’s ministry at your church has likely often featured an annual women’s retreat. What is the main purpose of a retreat? Do we hold retreats because it’s a tradition, or is there something profound going on during these weekends away? And what should you get out of a retreat that makes it worth the cost and effort of going in the first place?
Main Purposes of a Women’s Retreat
A women’s retreat provides an ideal environment for women to draw closer to God and to their sisters in Christ. Bound together, these two purposes arch over all the aspects of a retreat like an umbrella. The center support of the umbrella is each woman’s vertical connection to God, through worship and the Bible. The spokes and rain cover of the umbrella form the horizontal connections women make with one another as they share their lives and faith stories and as they encourage one another and bear each other’s burdens.
Connect Vertically with God
Retreats offer many ways for women to connect with God. Here are a few:
Through Worship
Retreat group sessions help women connect with God through prayer, quality music, and/or a woman’s prepared testimony of God’s faithfulness in her life. Personal times of reflection and prayer at retreats also help women connect with God.
Through the Word
At a retreat, women receive Biblical teaching and participate in discussions about the Bible and its application in their lives. God’s Word transforms minds and hearts, just as Hebrews 4:12 says: “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword … it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
The concentrated, focused time at a retreat allows women to lay aside regular distractions. For many women, this environment—especially when combined with a beautiful natural setting—acts as a catalyst for God’s work in their lives.
Connect Horizontally with Other Women
When women gather and are willing to reach out to one another, God strengthens their relationships. Then, they become bound together like the spokes and rain cover of an umbrella. Nancy Abbott, YMCA Chaplain in San Antonio, Texas, and former women’s ministry director at Grace Covenant Church in Austin, Texas, has organized many women’s retreats over her career.
“Retreats are one of the best things I know to bring women together, get them out of their comfort zones and in a different environment that allows them to focus, rest, and listen,” says Abbott.
Retreat meals, activities and workshops—even time traveling together to and from the retreat venue—all provide women time to talk. At retreats, women are bound together especially when conversations do these things:
- Share unique things: Talk about life situations and reveal quirky, humorous traits.
- Share stories: Bond over personal stories of God’s faithfulness.
- Listen well: Bear each other’s burdens with empathy and prayer.
- Encourage: Help each other press on in faith, trusting God to do new things.
When women show up at a retreat—physically and emotionally—they can experience what Paul told the Thessalonians: “Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well” (1 Thessalonians 2:8).
The purpose of a retreat is for women to draw closer to God and to one another. Like a sheltering umbrella, a retreat can provide women with focused, sweet opportunities to connect vertically with God and horizontally with one another.
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