Pastor's Retreat

A pastor's retreat is a short time away from the demands of ministry. It can be as short as one day or as long as four or five. Under normal ministry conditions I think a pastor needs two retreats a year. When things are more stressful in your church or his own life, your pastor may need to get away every month.

 Why Pastor's Retreats Are Important

• Refresh. Pastors frequently work about 60 hours a week. Meetings and phone calls last into the late evening. Hospital visits start about six in the morning. Your pastor rarely works fewer than six days a week... have you ever wondered why he has one day off? Ministry is exhausting work. Pastors need times when they can get away and sleep in, take a casual walk in the woods, or read a non-ministry related book while lying on a hammock.

• Renew. Pastors need to renew their minds. Physical fatigue is usually accompanied by mental fatigue. They also need time to renew spiritually. Pastor retreats allow your pastor to renew his body, mind and spirit.  

• Recover. Your minister is involved in many stressful circumstances. He is doing crisis marriage counseling, ministering to a family whose newborn recently passed away, and trying to create peace between quarreling church members. In addition, he may have stress at home you don't know about. A pastor retreat gives him or her the perfect opportunity to recover from a stressful circumstance.

• Relax. There are periods - sometimes long periods - in every pastor's ministry where stress is intense and unending. Our bodies are designed to handle short periods of stress. But prolonged stress can cause physical and psychological problems. Pastor's retreats can help break the cycle of stress.

    

• Rekindle. When I pastored B.C. (before children) my wife and I did almost everything together: visitation, counseling, committee meetings, golf. But children introduced a different dynamic. It became more like tag-team ministry: one of us would stay home while the other went out. When you add to this the fact that many ministry activities last late into the evenings, your marriage tends to suffer. A pastor's retreat is an ideal way to rekindle the marital relationship.

   

• Refocus. It's easy to lose sight of the big picture when you are getting swallowed by daily details. A pastor's retreat can provide the time to assess ministry goals and strategy. It can also be a time to refocus spiritually. Pastors need periodic times of dedicated prayer and meditation. 

     The pastors rate in $150.00 per night and is all inclusive. You bring only your personal items and everything else in included. The owner has been in the ministry for thirty years, twenty of those in the inner-city of New Orleans. He has firsthand knowledge of the stress of pastoring. If you need to talk he is there, if you need peace and quite it is there. If you need excitement, we have twenty five horses, fifty cows, twenty dogs and many chickens all ready to be watch or played with. The wildlife is outstanding, deer in the pastures and little critters running all around. Check out the Bar-J Ranch web site for more information.