Welcome to Abide

This one day retreat is an invitation to slow down long enough to notice what is supplying the inner life. It is possible to serve, give, plan, lead, and keep moving while quietly becoming disconnected from the only One who can sustain us. Jesus does not begin with a demand for more fruit. He begins with an invitation: “Abide in me.”

This retreat was created as a companion to Abide: Remaining in Christ, Bearing Fruit for His Glory. The book offers a fuller biblical journey. The retreat creates space to receive and practice its central truths together. Participants do not need to read the book before attending. The teaching, reflection, prayer, and exercises in these pages are complete enough to stand on their own.

CENTRAL MOVEMENT Surrender opens our hands. Abiding teaches us where to remain. The day moves from receiving Christ’s invitation, to recognizing false sources, to staying through difficult seasons, and finally to living from the Vine in ordinary life.

The Saturday Experience

Abide is a focused one day gathering with four movements of teaching, silence, written reflection, honest conversation, and concrete response. The times below are one adaptable planning example. Change the day, starting time, lunch, and breaks to fit the host setting while keeping the movements in order and protecting private reflection, the gospel response, and closing.

What This Day Is Meant to Do

Help participants understand abiding as an ongoing relationship with Christ, not an emotional state or spiritual achievement.
Expose the false sources from which people often try to draw safety, worth, control, or identity.
Give honest language for remaining with God when He feels quiet, the path is unclear, or life is painful.
Replace anxious striving with faithful dependence, obedience, rest, and return.
Send participants home with a realistic rhythm that can live inside ordinary responsibilities.

How to Use the Two Guides

The leader guide contains the full teaching direction, timing, transitions, safety notes, prayers, and facilitation language. The participant workbook follows the same movement and gives people enough substance to stay connected while listening. It also provides private space for reflection. No participant should be required to show what they write.