HOUSTON
February 24-26, 2025
LOCATION: HOLY FAMILY HTX EPISCOPAL CHURCH
GUIDES: DREW JACKSON, Nina Barnes, JONATHAN MERRITT, Rev Lisha Epperson, AARON NIEQUIST, and more
Retreat Schedule
MONDAY
1:00pm Registration
2:00pm Gathering & Invitation 6:00pm Dinner Together 7:00pm Evening Session 8:00pm Contemplative Compline
TUESDAY
8:00am Breakfast 9:00am Opening Liturgy 9:30am Guided Mini-Retreat 12:00pm Lunch/Solitude 4:00pm Eucharist Service 5:00pm Practice of Delight
WEDNESDAY
8:00am Breakfast 9:00am Opening Liturgy
10:00am Circle Conversations 12:00pm Lunch
1:00pm Sending Session
2:00pm Retreat Ends
Gathering & Invitation / Personal Retreat / Tangible Next Steps
On Monday we will arrive from all over the country and begin a shared journey. We’ll meet each other, worship together, orient ourselves to the retreat, and begin to exhale and slow down. There will be an opening session. We’ll end with Night Prayer and the opportunity for a great night of sleep.
Tuesday morning will be a 3-hour, guided personal retreat. Through spiritual practices, simple liturgies, and embodied prayer, we will be led into holy space in which God can do what only God can do. This will propel us into an afternoon of solitude, either on campus or in the neighborhood of the church, and then back together for an ecumenical, practice-based Eucharist service. And then by 5:00pm or so, we’ll be released into the beauty and energy and art of Houston. Eat great food…explore the arts…and soak up the goodness of the city. (FYI, our hospitality team will help with ideas, plans, directions, and anything else you might need)
Finally, Wednesday morning will focus on heading back into our actual home communities. How can we translate the practices and rhythms of the retreat into our real lives and churches? What are tools and resources that can support this good work? How can we become menders of the church cracked open? We’ll end the whole retreat with a sending service. (Please don’t leave early!)
Or said more simply: the three movements of the retreat are (1) Opening to the rhythms of Grace, (2) Swimming deep in the rhythms of Grace, and (3) Learning tools to invite others into the rhythms of Grace.
Registration is now open
Registration Fee: $399 (does not include two-night stay)
Register by January 16, 2025, and receive $50 OFF. Use the code EARLYBIRD.