Saturday's retreat

Saturday morning we drove about an hour to meet up with the 16+ people on the International Worship Service retreat. It was nice to get away to a quiet countryside and even better to get to really meet some people. Again I was surprised to be the only non-German and native English speaker present. They were actually conducting the retreat in German until the point when we arrived and they switched to English - nice...and weird too!

Almost everybody there was either in med school or already practicing. Evidently the sciences (at the universities) all have upper level seminars in english, so med students tend to be great english speakers. I think the leading influence was that nearly everybody present had spent a significant amount of time living abroad in an english-speaking country. I enjoy the english bubble but told them to speak German to me outside of IWS services so I can work on my german!

The group had a lot of young married couples and a fair amount of single people. I really enjoyed talking to people and hearing their stories and hearing why they were at the IWS instead of the german services. It seems that most of them just really like english and are also looking for a smaller group to meet with on Sundays.

The group had a time to discuss leadership (team led, no pastor) and the past year of highs and lows and visions. It was interesting to hear what had been going on and where people wanted to see the service go. It seemed that people were really craving more exegetical and doctrinally oriented teachings (less topical). It was interesting to hear that because last week Stefan and I had attended two services and had noted how they were topical (as were their schedules) and how that was different than what we'd been hearing in the US. Not bad, but definitely noticable.

Stefan spoke up and offered an idea to have another meeting time, either before the IWS service or during the week, a kind of study time to look at some things. One of the professors at GCTS had a really great tool to learn an overview of the Old Testament. Dr. Kaminsky has previously given Stefan permission to copy and use her materials for teaching, so this may be a good fit. People were really interested in this idea and are eager to discuss this further with him. I think they will also try to slowly phase in more exegetical sermons and see what the response is.

There is also a need for an english language small group to be started. The people who had been part of it in the past have all moved away, and those who remain are all invested in their own small groups. We could be part of that. We're not sure though. More things to pray about. We don't want to jump into leading stuff for a number of reasons.

I like the intimacy of this smaller group, and I also like the opportunity to partner with them and share the vision. We'll have to see what happens over time and what God directs us to.

Cool day!