What IF:Gathering Meant to Me w/ Sowmya Gali

If you missed the IF:Gathering, you missed big!  Don't worry, we plan to participate again next year.  Here Somwya Gali shares what the experience meant to her:

Growing up I attended children’s retreat at my church in Hyderabad, India every January. During animportant Hindu festival, schools were closed for three days. My dad’s aunt who used to stay with us used to accompany me and my sister to this retreat. We used to pack our lunch boxes and head out every morning. All our Sunday school teachers and close to 200 kids used to gather in the big sanctuary.

‘The Ten Commandments’ was the theme every year. All the teachers use to divvy up the Ten Commandments among themselves and a lesson was taught on each commandment. Kids who accepted the Lord as their personal savior would share their testimonies. We were taught new songs by older kids. Little skits were performed by teachers. Prizes were given for memorizing all the Ten Commandments. Sometimes quizzes, competitions and fun games were also conducted. This was what retreat meant for me. As I grew older, I was tired of the same old commandments repeated year after year. I felt I was too old for such childish things. Every attempt to skip the retreat in my 13th & 14th years drew the ire of my folks. However, in my 15th year, I skipped the retreat due to an important examination at school. Ever since, I never attended a retreat again. Until IF, that is.

IF:LOCAL

I am so excited to announce our 2015 women's retreat!!!!

February 6th and 7th, we'll be joining thousands of women across the country to take part in the IF:Gathering.  This teleconference from Austin, TX is in it's second year.  Last year, 150,000 women attended IF: in person and via simulcast.  This year, we get to be among those women!  Join us at Westside Christian Fellowship for our simulcast and be part of the experience.

Ready. Set. Go! ...to Arabia

We're thinking through spiritual seasons: chunks of time that serve specific spiritual purposes.  These seasons are not to be confused with pumpkin latte season.  That's where the spiritual discipline aspect of it comes into play.  We are often more willingly engulfed by the seasonal wares of the mass-market than by the spiritual seasons tenderly executed in our lives by the living God.

God may have you in a season of simplicity, trying to drive a few basic points home, trying to help you discover simplistic acts of worship and the simplicity of His love for you, but you will stop by Target and load up a cart with fall junk, make an impossible must-accomplish list, sign your kids up for that extra activity no one has time for, dive into a new friendship because you'll feel guilty if you don't make plans, and on and on.  God may have you in a season of loneliness - on purpose! - gasp! Perhaps He is trying to teach you to rely on Him alone.  Perhaps He is trying to correct false expectations in relationship, or to fashion you into a better friend.  Regardless, you'll fight against this season by joining a few dozen chat rooms, hammering down a friendship door that's been closed, insisting the problem isn't you and talking the ear off your barista while she's frantically trying to make ten pumpkin lattes simultaneously.  (Side note - What is it with the pumpkin latte?  Is there no other flavor of fall?!)