Incorporating Prayer into Your Retreat
Prayer is a most important ingredient of your retreat, during the planning stages as well as before, during and after the retreat or event itself. If given the opportunity to participate in prayer before and during the retreat, we have found that there will be a core of women who will gladly participate. We have promises from His Word that God answers prayer where “two or more are gathered together” and pray in agreement. And keeping in mind that the enemy is also lurking at our retreat, prayer is an essential weapon in that warfare. I’m sure I don’t need to say anything further about the absolute necessity of prayer. But how can you incorporate it into your retreat?
Please note that each of these suggestions requires that a leader to be in charge and guiding it.
Before the retreat, we designate at least one time (usually before or after a service or study at church) where we pray specifically for the retreat. At this meeting, we have specific areas for the ladies to pray about: pray for the speaker, pray for the worship team, pray for distractions that the enemy would try to cause, etc. And by that time we should have an almost final list of those who have registered, so we pray for each woman by name.
At the retreat, we schedule a prayer time before breakfast. We probably lose some of those women who are not early risers, but gain others who are up early. Usually this is a guided prayer time, where we pray for the events of the day, from fellowship time, to sessions and activities.
Another way we have incorporated prayer into a retreat is to schedule a “prayer walk” as a free time activity. Some of your ladies might find this an invigorating activity after hours of sitting. The way these are conducted varies, and you can google “prayer walk” for various options. We would simple determine a walking path, and set up prayer stops along the way. At each stop, a brief explanation or teaching was followed by directed prayer. This was repeated at each stop along the path.
