Taste and see that the Lord is good

Terry Moore writes.... Once again it is my turn to write the God spot for the news letter this month. As you may know (or maybe didn’t know) several of our church members went on a retreat for about 4 days in the middle of September. Under the guidance of Reverend Jackie and her friend Reverend Rhonnie we all went up into the Alentejo to a beautiful cork farm which offers wonderful accommo-dation and somewhere quiet to study, talk, and chill out. Those who attended were Jenny, Marina, Angela, Sue and Terry, and a good friend from another church, Patricia. All in all there were eight of us there including Jackie and Rhonnie.

Our theme was “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” It’s amazing how many foods are listed in the Bible that are also quite common here in Portugal! Suffice to say that our time away covered all sorts of things and there was fellowship, laughter, tears, reflection, memories, healing and forgiveness – amongst other things!

I suspect that some of you are wondering why we need such a thing as a retreat. A very good question that, so I shall try to answer it. As we all know there are a lot of people involved in the running of our church with its two congregations – and a lot of these people have had little or no rest from their church activities for some time. We give and give until we run out of what we have to give but then we keep giving even more – effectively running on empty and “borrowing” from the future to give today. Eventually those of us who are concerned with running the church, doing or assisting at services (and all the 101 other things that need doing) have given so much that we need a short break to “recharge the batteries.” A time where instead of giving of ourselves we have time to receive for ourselves.

Consider a minister such as Paul. He is expected to officiate at church services every Sunday and is often expected to perform other duties during the week as required. This is, of course, in addition to running the newspaper and looking after Madeline. The same also applies (but not as much) to those other stalwarts in our church – coming to mind are people such as the ministry assistants, the music/worship leaders, the welcom-ers and the sidespersons. Then there are the church council members toiling away in the background between meetings. I have no doubt I have omitted somebody – please forgive me if I have. All these people give and give until they have nothing more to give – and THAT is why a retreat is so important.

I know we all came back quite refreshed and threw ourselves once more into the fray to give, give and give some more once again. I will close this by thanking all those who give and give so much – I know I am just one small voice thanking you all, but to me a little thanks is far better than none at all.