Collaroy Retreat 2019

Our annual Collaroy Retreat was held on 11–13 September for anyone able to attend the mid-week camp. Bev Swinbourne gives us a recap of the three days up on the Northern Beaches.

What a wonderful blessing it is to be able to experience a mid-week retreat with brothers and sisters in Christ. To have fellowship with each other, to pray and to be taught from God’s word.

This year we had 25–30 people attend Collaroy. Many from the 8am service and some from the 10am service. We were delighted that some of our English language students, along with some Chinese friends from the morning service, joined us for the day on the Thursday.

Collaroy is a beautiful setting, surrounded by bushland and with magnificent views across the ocean. We were also blessed with perfect weather.

Accommodation is motel style, including free WiFi. The food served is very good we definitely didn’t go hungry.

Mat was our speaker and his topic was ‘Pride and Humility’. The Bible contains many warnings about pride, since pride is taking the glory away from God and making everything all about us. Pride makes forgiveness difficult, spoils relationships and stops us from serving one another.

In contrast to being proud, we should be humble as Christ was humble. Philippians 2:1–11 shows us that true humility comes from fixing our eyes on Jesus.

CS Lewis said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” Wise words….

We not only met to study God’s word, we sang praises to our Lord and were enriched by time spent with our Father in prayer. What a privilege!

After dinner we had a more relaxed time. The first night we were treated with challenging trivia questions and puzzles, thanks to Lyn and Ian MacFarlane. And Mat ran a games night on Thursday, which was a lot of fun, particularly when he admitted he would be open to bribes!! And thanks to Nigel for keeping us updated with the Cricket World Cup score.

Thursday afternoon was free time and many of us went for long walks on the beach or in the bush or up to the point for some whale spotting—a wonderful way to enjoy God’s beautiful creation and get to know each other a little better.

Sadly, by lunch time on Friday we had to say our farewells, feeling very challenged and blessed by our time together.

A very big thanks to Julie Allen for organising our retreat. Next year Collaroy Retreat is from 14–16 September. Put the date in your calendar and come along!