St. Andrew Men's Retreat 2023

On March 4, St. Andrew will be hosting its first Men’s Retreat after a two-year hiatus. This year’s guest speaker will be Dan Voigt, a Presbyterian pastor from the Twin Cities area who will be speaking on “Spirituality Built to Last.”


We're hoping you’ll join with us for a time of food, fun, music, soap carving, and intergenerational dialogue (not necessarily in that order) all focused on encouraging what Dan Voigt calls “a relentless pursuit toward a more honest faith.”


We expect the questions to be deep, the conversation to be lively, the food to be super-tasty, the music to be appealingly cross-generational, and the overall experience to be nothing less than life-changing.


Retreat Schedule

8 a.m. | Hot Breakfast


9 a.m. | Introduction & Overview


9:15 a.m. | Session 1: The Decline of the Institutional Church


10:15 a.m. | Break


10:25 a.m. | Session 2: A Look at our Own Spirituality


11:45 a.m. | Interlude | What Are We Talking about When We Talk about Men?


Noon | Lunch


12:45 p.m. | Session 3: A Church Built to Last


2 p.m. | Short Break


2:10 p.m. | Wrap-Up | Questions, Take-Aways, and Evaluations


3 p.m | Times Up

spirituality built to last

It’s not exactly a straightforward process when you’re trying to focus on a single theme for a Men’s Retreat—especially when your planning team has eight people, ranging in age from 33 to 83, who are all looking to ask big questions about the evolution of the church today and in the future.


At first, we spent some time talking through questions about what worship communities might be like a half-century from now: 

  • Will denominations even matter? 
  • Will mid-size congregations still exist? 
  • Will we see an explosion of satellite campuses and microchurches? 
  • Will we find a way to bridge our divisions, or will we become even more divided?

But we eventually decided that envisioning change over a 50-year span would be cloudy, at best—even for those among us who can clearly remember what the church was like back in 1973. Instead, our focus narrowed on the next 20 years, a generation from now. 


That led to a lot of insight about how different generations can learn from each other. The Psalmist and the hymn writers say that “one generation calls to the next,” but such intergenerational understanding needs to be multi-directional.


“Churches often seem to be trying to drive while only looking in the rearview mirror,” said Dan Voigt, the Presbyterian pastor we’ve asked to be our guest speaker at the retreat. “That’s not the best way to get somewhere.”


Every generation has something unique to teach–whether that's in terms of traditional mentoring (say, Gen Xers helping Zoomers prepare for what next stages of life are coming) or so-called “reverse mentoring” (say, Gen Alpha explaining to Boomers how best to stay involved with their grandkids). For the church to remain vibrant in the future, we need it to be a vibrant worshiping community in the present.


That’s when we realized we were really talking about how to build a church to last … how to build a faith community to last … how to build a broader spirituality that will outlast our short lives and continue to connect us as part of God’s grander plan. 


Thus, this year’s Men’s Retreat (back after a two-year hiatus) will focus on “Building Spirituality to Last.” And we invite all friends and members of the broader St. Andrew community to join us on Saturday March 4 for a time of good food, spiritual insight, intergenerational dialogue, and a lot of fun.


— Jeff Charis-Carlson, director of communications and media ministries

LOADING PLAYER…

The Rev. Dan Voigt

Featured Speaker

This is the part of my bio where speakers are supposed to laud their accolades. Where I'm supposed to tell you that, like Midas, everything I've touched turned to gold. Churches boomed, and lives dramatically changed overnight. Or, that I'm brilliant and amazingly an expert on some topic before the age of 40.


But that isn't the case here; that just isn't my story.


Instead, my life and work in the church have been marked by its struggles. Like most Millennials who grew up and stayed in the church, I've seen nearly my whole confirmation class and youth group gradually disengage with religion. In leadership roles in different Presbyteries, I have been with churches as they have closed, left the denomination, and divided. I have also served churches that have had to make radical changes to staff and programming structure due to a shortage of finances, people, and energy. And I've supported pastor colleagues as they decided to leave the ministry.


But it hasn't been all death, decay, and loss. Out of the struggle, I've also been able to wrestle out a blessing or two. Gifted by attending a seminary at the forefront of creating new worshipping communities, I've nourished an imagination for what the church will need to look like moving forward. Blessed with some fantastic elders and church leaders, I've been with congregations as we've developed non-Sunday programming that has become our greatest reach to our membership and the community, worshipped in new ways, and created actual intergenerational programs. We've also moved (mostly) beyond the mindset that budget size and butts in pews are measures of congregational health we want to worry much about. Most of all, though, it has created a relentless pursuit toward a more honest faith. There isn't room anymore for anything else.


Over the past five years of ministry, some of the most significant spiritual growth has happened during retreat ministry. I'm excited to spend a day with you all, and I look forward to seeing what will come of it.