What is the Encounter God Retreat?
Encounter God is a weekend retreat that provides an opportunity for intense spiritual growth. The goal is to experience the freedom that God has made available to believers. Freedom from guilt, freedom from sin, freedom from hurts, freedom from 'strongholds' - those areas of our lives that have not yet been brought under the Lordship of Christ.
How Does it Work?
An Encounter Retreat generally runs from Friday evening through to Saturday evening. Usually only men or only women attend. People either come to the retreat with a partner from their Cell Group, or a partner is assigned before the retreat begins. It is very important that your partner is someone with whom you feel comfortable. Early in the retreat you learn a simple but effective prayer pattern to be used with you partner. After an introduction of the basic principles the retreat follows a simple twofold pattern. First, there is a brief 15 minute presentation on a topic (the topics are listed below). Following this presentation there is a ministry time where you and your partner use the prayer pattern to pray for each other. The weekend concludes with a small group prayer circle which often becomes a powerful highlight of the entire retreat.
The Topics
Understanding Spiritual Warfare
From Darkness to Light
From Bondage to Freedom
From Impure to Pure
From Broken to Whole
From Rebellion to Submission
From Curse to Blessed
Living in Victory
Source: http://www.stanleyparkchurch.ca/encounter.htm
ARTICLE ii
What is an Encounter God Retreat?
All of us get stuck in life and can't seem to go forward spiritually and relationally. Discouragement, doubt and fear then begin to set in.
Encounter God Retreats provide the place, time, and opportunity for you to spend personal, devoted time with God that will help you move beyond your present spiritual state and into a stronger, more intimate relationship with God.
Why attend an Encounter Retreat?
We have seen many, many people who have attended an Encounter God Retreat begin to experience the freedom that only Christ can give, such as:
Breakthroughs in their relationship with God and others in their lives
Physical and emotional healing
Hurtful thought and behavioral patterns have been broken
Lives have been changed and transformed
Wounded hearts have been restored and broken relationships have been mended
What happens at an Encounter Retreat?
A series of teachings are presented that help you to establish or deepen your relationship with God, lead you through times of forgiveness and healing, and help you to let God take your hurts, wounds, fears, doubts, and burdens, and bring you to a place of freedom and restoration.
The teachings are focused on God and what He can- and wants - to do in your life. Time is provided so that each person can interact with God on an individual basis. People truly experience God on an Encounter speaking with them, healing them, and delivering them from their pain, fears, and strongholds.
You will never be put on the spot, asked to pray out loud, forced to share, or anything else that makes you uncomfortable. The focus is on the interaction between you and God, not you and others who attend.
What are the benefits of attending an Encounter Retreat?
Every person who has attended an Encounter God Retreat has come away with a deeper knowledge of God and His love for them, and most have come away with dramatic stories of their encounter with Him. They have experienced:
Healing
Hope
Forgiveness
Freedom
GOD!
What comes after an Encounter?
We offer a 10-week Post-Encounter Class to everyone who attends an Encounter God Retreat. This follow-up class is to help you continue to grow and solidify what God began in your life at the Encounter.
We want to help people grow in their relationship with God and commit to coming alongside them as they learn more about themselves and God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Post-Encounter classes offer additional teachings, people committed to pray for you and to be available to you to help you walk out what God is showing and teaching you, and the opportunity to be able to go further with God on your spiritual journey.
We hope that you will attend an Encounter God retreat so that you will experience the healing, hope, forgiveness, and freedom that only God can bring into your life.
Source: http://www.hunterscreekcommunitychurch.com/encounter_god_retreats.htm
Author’s note:
EGR was an enticing experience that gave me more knowledge about my faith and the “god” that I’ve been reading and hearing about since my younger years. First, to add a few info about the technicalities of EGR, I should mention that it is a part of the G12 System that started in Colombia. Motivated by his frustrations on what has become of his community’s youth and the call for his mission to spread the word of salvation, Pastor Cesar Castellano of Bogota, Colombia thought of creating a system that would lead to the growth of churches first, in terms of quantity. Hence, G12 system was born, similar to a networking or pyramiding which would make everything seem easier to explain, one is required to disciple at least 12 persons. A church member should share the gospel to 12 persons “Make disciples" (See Matthew 28:19-20)" and overseer them as they enter the family of Christ and hopefully, grow joyously in it and repeat the process they’ve gone through by sharing with another set of 12 persons . A simple arithmetic as it may be, but the G12 requires intense dedication, commitment, boldness and full awareness of the covenant that you create with the living God.
Now to grow churches in terms of quality, every member must be trained so that they'd be equipped with enough wisdom to fully understand faith, God and the purpose that should drive their lives. This is where EGR comes in- it is a wonderful two-day experience that equips you with enough knowledge (I may say) to learn or learn more about God and arm you with an encounter that will make you say to yourself every now and then that “There really I a living God and He is out there watching over me, I have all the reason in the world now to believe His existence.” And then you can share it to everyone. As blissful and as exciting as the way you share a good movie with your friends. And then life suddenly starts to be different now, everything has become beautiful, the world becomes more colorful, just like the feeling of a teenager who has just conversed with his life-long crush. You start to be excited to share what has become of you, just because you’ve known God--- that He loved you first and He loves you so much, He made sure He gets to catch all the pain and suffering that were rightfully for you. Because you have sinned, yet He loved you more.
Having an encounter with Him was “THE” ultimate experience. And being a long-time Christian that I claim to be, EGR is like a renewing of vow with my redeemer. And the world sure seemed to be different, I am more happy, I am sure, more sure He is there, living and probably breathing just like me. But all that he breathes is His love and care for all of us. Now, I could say a lot more nice things about the EGR, but like I mentioned previously, it requires intense dedication, boldness, commitment and full awareness of the covenant you make with a living God. This is no joke, Jesus wasn’t joking when He stood there bravely, receiving all the whips, beating and curses. It wasn’t a joke for Jesus when he received the punishment and died horrifyingly painful- because you have sinned.
With EGR, you are required to attend Pre-encounter classes, Post encounter and since it is a part of the G12 System, you follow strict standards. I should also mention other classes- School Of Leaders and others that I am personally looking forward to. Time consuming as it may sound, but if doctors take 10 or more years to study and specialize in dealing with sicknesses and diseases, a few EGR an G12 classes won’t get you much in trouble, remember you are dealing here with LIFE. Sabi nga, “ayusan ng buhay to.”
I personally recommend that you, this blog’s readers, attend the EGR and experience what I and my friends had. We are not fool, ignorant individuals who claim we experience something supernatural, we are young people who have gone to school, probably the same you’ve been to, dine and chit chat in McDonalds, roamed around Galleria, bought the same shirt or probably the same shoes that you had, receive monthly wages, work till the wee hours of the morning, farted, and yanked corny jokes, just like you. But, we had a wonderful and undeniably supernal experience.
I give it a five star.
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