Weekend Retreats

  Weekend Retreats for Women

Are you looking for a weekend retreat for your women’s group? Choose one retreat topic for an intense weekend experience or combine two topics to broaden the scope. Most of these offerings will suit women of all ages and walks of life.

Savoring God: Praying With All Our Senses

Based on Kathleen Finley's book of the same name, this retreat invites you to be with God through the use of your senses. The retreat is a playful, imaginative and right-brained approach to prayer, with time spent slowing down, centering, and focusing on the use of each sense to pray in a refreshing and appealing way. There will be time for silence, journaling, guided meditations, and discussion.

Mindfulness: Living in the Sacred Now
Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. When we’re mindful, we reduce stress, enhance performance, gain insight and awareness through observing our own mind, and increase our attention to others’ well-being. This retreat focuses on mindfulness practices, using guided meditations to help center you in the Now, with time spent in nature, group discussion, journaling, and silence.

Lectio Divina: Reading Scripture With Deeper Eyes
Lectio divina is a practice that has been in use for centuries by Benedictines the world over. This weekend retreat will teach you how to practice lectio divina on your own and in a group setting. Bring your Bible, as we will use it and other materials to practice with together. There will be times of silence and reflection, journaling and sharing, revelation and tears, as we experience how this sacred practice opens our hearts to God’s message for each of us each day. The Bible is alive, and God longs to speak to us from its pages!

Advent and Lent Retreats

An Advent or Lent retreat during the church year can be very meaningful while bringing deep insights into our busy lives and assisting us to be immersed in Christ. Learn about the particular season and history, and why we celebrate these traditions in our church communities. Discover how participating in Advent and Lent practices can deepen your spiritual journey.

Christian Meditation Retreat

Two forms of Christian meditation, Centering Prayer and the Jesus Prayer, are taught during this retreat. You will learn the mechanics of Christian meditation, what is happening when you meditate, and how to develop a lasting prayer practice of meditation. Information about local Christian meditation and support groups is supplied, as well as helpful advice on maintaining your discipline. Sitting meditation and walking meditation will be practiced, and there will be plenty of group discussion and sharing as you develop this important practice for your life.

Everyday Sabbath Spirituality

Is your life too busy by half? Do you wish you could slow down and appreciate everything in your life more? This weekend retreat will give you the tools to begin an overhaul on your busy life. Lots of prayer, Sabbath-style rest, great ideas, soul-searching, guided meditations, and experimentation will give you the chance to save your own life from the treadmill and the demands that our culture breeds and exploits. Come and learn how to pray, play, and relax. 

Finding Your Own Way to the Presence of God

Prayer is not "one-size-fits-all." During this retreat, you'll take a prayer styles self-assessment to find your prayer type. Many different kinds of prayer will be introduced and practiced in this meaningful retreat. The group will pray alone and together, reflect, share, and journal their discoveries. There will be time for silent reflection.

The Seasons of Our Lives

What “spiritual season” are you in now? Explore the seasons of your life from a spiritual viewpoint, spend time in reflection, share your current season with others, and write your own “season-psalm” during this retreat. Periods of silence and listening to God are a part of the weekend, as well as guided meditation.

Cultivating Gratitude

Discover and experience how to be truly grateful for your life, the planet, each other, and God’s gifts to you. Spiritual practices and activities around gratitude and thankfulness are explored. Guided meditations, reflective activities, and group sharing are included in this weekend, as are some periods of deep listening to God.

Expressing Our Spirituality Creatively 

This is a true creativity retreat that asks what our spirituality may look like, celebrates the different ways we express it, and introduces creative, spiritual practices to support it. There will be artistic activities to explore and experiment with, along with prayer, music, guided meditation, and group/individual movement, and sharing our thoughts and our artwork with others in a non-judgmental and loving atmosphere.

Praying With Color

           Based on Sybil MacBeth’s book, Praying in Color, this enjoyable workshop explores prayer as an “active, meditative, playful, prayer practice” using colored markers, pencils and paper. (It is not an art class; if you can doodle then you can do this!) It involves both process and product. The process involves a re-entry into the childlike world of coloring and improvising. The product is a colorful design or drawing that is a visual reminder of the time spent in prayer. Learn an amazing and effective way to pray in this weekend retreat.

Mandalas: Symbols of Inner Healing

“Mandala” is the Sanskrit word for wholeness, or center. A mandala is a sacred circle with a center point, which has for centuries been a universal image of wholeness and healing for many civilizations. More simply, it’s an art form that encompasses a graphic and often symbolic pattern. The mandala retreat employs different mediums and activities to discover the inner healing that is available through the creation, reflection, and sharing of mandalas. Be prepared to do lots of drawing with colored pencils, as this retreat is about expressing our inner selves with art materials.

Opening Your Spiritual Gifts

A spiritual gifts assessment will be taken at the beginning of the weekend, which reveals your God-given gifts. This informative weekend retreat teaches what spiritual gifts are, how to identify your manifest and latent gifts, and instructs you in a method for putting them to use for the building up of the Kingdom of God. Journaling and prayer are a part of this intriguing and revealing retreat.

All the retreats are crafted by Lynne Prechel, save for Praying With Color, which is based on Sybil MacBeth's book, and Savoring God, based on Kathleen Finley's book. Lynne presents all retreats and material. To contact Lynne with any questions about retreats, to inquire as to a sliding fee scale (fees are on a sliding scale and based on a church's ability to pay), or for a meeting to set up your retreat, email her at: lynne@fanfaremusic.net or call her at: 714-721-8740. (Fees will only be discussed on the phone and not by email.)