On 6th March, the Small Church Connexion held their spring retreat.  The time was based around the story of Bartimaeus (Mark 10v46-52).

Bartimaeus was blind and as a result of his blindness, he would have lost his sense of wonder, not be able to work and could only walk with help.  It is easy for us to become blind too, especially if we have been Christians for a long time or have grown weary in the battle.  We can lose our sense of wonder at who God is and all He longs to do for us, so we took time to look around us and see God’s creation and objects that remind us of His goodness in the past.  We then looked in to ourselves and reminded ourselves of five good things that God has made us or done in our lives.  We finished that session by looking up in Scripture and meditating on the blessing at the end of Jude (v24-25). 

The second session dwelt upon Romans 8 v28 where we are reminded that all things do work together for good, but only if we are called according to His purpose. It is important that we know God’s call on our lives and are ‘working’ in the right place.  We looked at a number of characters from the Bible to see how different their calls were.

The third session was looking at our walk with Jesus and help that is available to improve our walk and bring us closer to Jesus. We worked through a ‘Taketime’ meditation (https://taketime.org.uk/) (Other resources available!)

Bartimaeus was healed and then his life would have changed dramatically. So finally, we considered where our lives may need to change following these past strange months. It is possible we may need to let go of something that may be hindering God’s blessing and in an act of dedication, we all took a dead leaf and symbolically dropped it.

Just 4 hours– but time well spent and much to think about for the days ahead!

Sandra Kimber

Some feedback from participants:

I send you my thanks for yesterday and tell you how much I appreciated the time. It was great to just spend time in a relaxed and unhurried way – listening To Him rather than having to absorb a lot of new material. Derek.

I am grateful for being invited to participate in the seminar of yesterday. I gained new perspective on Christian living especially on the attributes of Bartimaeus before and after meeting Jesus. I discovered some areas of my life that I have to work on. I need to drop my dead leaf and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. I cannot wait to participate in the next one if Jesus tarries. I am learning to let go of many things and let Jesus my Redeemer take absolutely control.  The seminar has increased my state of calmness and absolute trust in my Lord Jesus. Eunice

‍