Christian retreats. If you’re involved in an Ignite group on your campus, you’ve likely been invited to attend a retreat.
Between classes, school work, and holding down a job, it can seem impossible to carve out time to attend a weekend retreat — especially if you’ve never been on before.
Retreats are an essential part of developing your faith, and a time when you can encounter God in a new and fresh way.
A new year is right around the corner, and with it often comes a sudden urge to change.
Resolutions are made.
Goals are set.
Gym memberships are purchased.
Life plans are written down.
The promise of a clean slate is a powerful motivator.
But how do you set the right goals? How do you make the right resolutions? What life plans should you pursue in the new year? How do you get ready to tackle a new year and do so in a way that you can stick to your new goals?
Every semester, Ignite hosts the Encounter Retreat – giving students the opportunity to get off campus, disconnect from school, and reconnect with God.
We design each retreat with one main goal: for students to have a genuine encounter with God. Retreats are powerful and a necessary practice for building your faith, growing closer to God and to other Christians. We believe in the power of retreats so much that we put a lot of time, energy, and resources into our retreats.
But why are retreats so important and, better yet, why should you attend a retreat? Here are our top 5 reasons:
If you take an entire weekend to focus yourself on seeking God, you will have some kind of encounter with Him – be it an overwhelming sense of His presence, clarity on an issue in your life, receiving a life call, encouragement or challenge to reach out more, even healing for the wounds in your life. And as we say in Ignite – one encounter with God can change your life.
Lock yourself away at a retreat center for a few days with other Christians and you will come back with some new and deeper friendships. In the midst of meals together, sharing a bathroom, playing games, worshipping, praying, discussing, and eating snacks you get to know more about the people on the retreat – in a way you never could just at school.
Our priorities often get out of whack. We tend to place more importance on grades, work, organizations we’re involved in and forget our main priority – growing closer to God. When you put aside everything else to focus on God, your life suddenly comes back into alignment and the amazing happens – God gives you everything you need. After all, when you seek Him first, everything else will be given to you (Matthew 6).
School can be exhausting, especially with papers to write, books to read, math problems to solve, not to mention roommate issues and finding ways to make cafeteria food taste good. Taking a weekend off campus away from the homework and stresses of school is relaxing – and often what you need to be recharged and energized for the rest of the semester.
Let’s face it – school has a way of overwhelming you, stealing your time, attention, and desire to reach others for Christ. Attending a retreat will help energize you again for reaching the lost – and put a fire in you to see it happen.
These are just five of the many reasons why attending a retreat is important for your spiritual growth. Getting away, disconnecting from life, and reconnecting to God is necessary to becoming the person God has called you to be.
Take the step today – register for our next Encounter Retreat. You won’t regret it. We promise.
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Trying to find a local church to attend while you’re away at college can often be difficult.
Most churches probably aren’t advertising on campus, you might not find an active Christian group at your school or, if you do, you might not be able to attend right away, and finding other students willing to get up on a Sunday morning to go to church can often be near impossible.
It’s important for your faith and your walk with Christ to get involved in a local church, but how do you find the right one?
Millions of students around the country will venture off this week (or some week very soon) to college. They will pack their bags, make the journey to the college they chose, and settle in for an amazing adventure. It will be an exciting, scary, sad, and exhilarating week.
But the first week of college also holds some pitfalls.
Statistically, 60-80% of incoming college freshmen who were actively involved in a Christian youth group during high school will walk away from their faith, many in this first week. That’s alarming.
So how do you avoid being one of those statistics? Here are a few tips to thrive in your faith on campus:
These 5 tips will help you to not only survive your first week of college with your faith in tact, but also to thrive. Getting involved in a Christian organization as soon as possible will help your faith grow as you surround yourself with other believers and reach out to those who don’t know Him.
Looking for ways to grow your faith while in college? Check out our resources section for a number of devotions, how-to manuals, and more all designed to help you passionately pursue Christ and transform your college campus for Him.
Background photo credit: Sewanee: The University of the South via photopin cc
This past weekend, a number of Ignite Monmouth members walked across the front lawn of Monmouth College for the last time. Amid the clapping and picture taking, tears and goodbyes, these former students are now college graduates.
They started a whole new chapter in their lives.
They said goodbye to the place they called home for four years, to venture out into the unknown.
They are leaving dorm rooms for apartments.
Cafeterias for kitchens.
School work for desk work.
And security for the hope of employment.
A new chapter has begun.
Finals are upon us, which means as a student you’re probably experiencing an increased level of stress trying to wrap up your projects and study for your exams. While increased levels of stress are normal this time of year, we have put together some strategies you can use to decrease the stress that studying and test-taking can cause, as well as some tips for coping with the stress that you may experience.
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