Day 73 - Oakville (arrived at 9:30am) - Sunday 17th October

What happens when 55 men go away together for a church men's weekend?

I was collected by the pastor (vicar) at around 1:30pm. He had with him his father Alan and another member of our House Church (Home Group). I had only decided to go at 11:00am that morning. Typical man thing that - put off making the decision to go until the last moment. Or wait until your wife finally persuades you! I rang the organiser of the weekend at 11:05am. By 11:15am the pastor had volunteered to collect me and take me up to the resort where we were meeting.

I enjoyed a 3 and a half hour drive with this little party. This was quite an amusing affair as it turned out that the rest of our lads did the same journey in 2 hours flat. We got off Highway 400, drove away from it for 45 minutes and arrived back at the 400. We are still none the wiser about what happened but it did add to the fun factor and provided a great talking point for the rest of the weekend.

We went to a place called Collingwood which is just at the bottom of a set of hills which are covered in chair and ski lifts. I can remember skiing here 22 years ago. The resort has grown immensely since then. But unfortunately the hills have not grown any higher. For a skier you can get from the top to the bottom of the highest one in about 90 seconds. Join the line up for the lift and get to the top again 10 minutes later to do it all again. Not quite Switzerland/Austria/France but good for short periods of time.

At this resort there are numerous chalets type places. Usually a building containing 6 or 8 apartments which can each accommodate up to 8 people. These buildings are spread around in groups of 8 or 10 with a central reception, swimming pool and other facilities. The apartments are all self catering. The nearest restaurants were about 12 minutes away.

All the guys had arrived by 6:30 pm and we started with a period of worship followed by several talks and more worship. The church worship leader had brought a complete worship team with him, so we were well served. The weekend was billed as "Band of Brothers - Call to Arms". The talks were on "The Meaning of Masculinity", "Accountability", "Called to Lead My Family" and "Called to Change the World".

For those in the know, there were many references to the books "Wild at Heart" by John Eldridge which is all about how men bury their "wildness" as they grow up. How we need to have some battles and a maiden to rescue. All good stuff and quite in line with what the Boards are actually doing at the moment. I think quite a few people had also read the "Get out of the Boat" book. I forget who it is by.

We had some great testimonies, that you would never hear outside of this kind of environment. All the speakers were from the body of the church and were excellent. The pastor himself, who had had no involvement in the weekend except for making suggestions about the general theme at the time they were putting it together, was a participant like the rest of us. He also did the final talk on the spiritual leadership of your family. He asked his father to talk as well which was very touching.

His father Alan lives in or near Prince Albert, north of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan. This is a place way out there where the temperatures in the winter could be down to minus 40 degF. He was a welder and latterly specialised in repairing propellers from boats and outboards. This is where he had his family. Sometime in the fifties, he was watching a Billy Graham Convention on the TV and with his wife, prayed the prayer of committment (see a sample here: Prayer of Commitment). The rest is the history in which we were living. His son Jeff, went to study and became a pastor and more recently was moved to start the Sanctuary church in Oakville, where we went and this is how I am involved in this weekend. Although clearly not the wealthiest person, Alan told us how rich he really was. God had blessed him with a son who became a pastor and a daughter who is a missionary in South America. He had grand children and a healthy family. Everything. It was a great story.

On Saturday we went and played paintball. It was on a 70 acre site nearby. Very well organised. We split into 2 teams of about 22 each. We played out several scenarios at different locations on the site. It was really good. They had landscaped it all into little towns, forts, battlefields and so on (see Battlefields). On the first encounter I was hit in the first 10 seconds without letting off a single shot. I had no idea how far these things can shoot. At least 50 to 60 feet with considerable accuracy. In the second scenario I kept my head down and helped lead the full frontal assault on the fort. In fact our team won all the skirmishes. We got through about 200 paintballs each. What you might call a blast especially with such a big group.

The long and short of it all was that it was a great weekend and the Holy Spirit moved us all to a new place. I was so glad to have been pushed. I also met some great people, one of whom I will say more about shortly.