The Huggett Interview

	David and Joyce Huggett have been leading retreats around the world for many years. Now settled in Bournemouth, they take an active interest in the life of Green Pastures and have started to lead retreats here. Paul Eddy caught up with them to for the first in a series of interviews.
Paul:	Retreat means different things different people. How would you describe it?
Joyce:	I'd quote the words of Jesus, when he called his disciples to "come apart by yourself, with me, to a quiet place and take some rest". It's the with me (that is, with Jesus), coming apart with Jesus to a quiet place that's at the heart of retreat. Some people view retreat as belonging to churches of a particular churchmanship: that’s a mistake because it goes back to Jesus' own ministry and example. I think of the occasion when Jesus' disciples went to him while he was praying. They told him that large crowds had gathered to listen to him. Jesus' response was to take his disciples off to a quiet place with him on retreat. That's a wonderful example, and it encourages me to do the same. You see, there are so many ministry opportunities and needs, but Jesus teaches us that if we are to be used by God, we first need to find a quiet place where we can just be with him. The essential thing to remember about retreat is that it is what Jesus taught and modelled personally.
David:	Jesus also went on retreat immediately he was commissioned for his work, as well as at the transition the transfiguration. We also find him making a mini-retreat after the Last Supper when he withdrew to be alone with his Father before the inevitable that followed. Spending quality time the presence of his Father was part of life-style. Some Christians talk about going on retreat, but often they really go to a conference. I say this because retreat not work time, it's time alone with God -with no agenda - just a longing to be with him.
Paul:	How have the opportunities for retreat developed in the Church?
Joyce:	Retreats have always been in the life of the church, in various incarnations. I am thinking of the early fathers - those who went off into the desert for solitude. These men were so dedicated that they attracted many other would-be pray-ers who joined them because they wanted to learn from them. That's where it all began. But it's interesting, whereas for many years it was mainly Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians who went away on prayer retreats, increasingly in recent years countless evangelicals and charismatics have recognised the need for leisurely time spent with God too, and that’s very healthy. I have a passion to enable Christians to discover that we all need to incarnate several strands of spirituality. When we acknowledge that there is strength and value in many traditions of the church our own walk with God can be enriched. Unfortunately, throughout church history retreat was put on the back burner, often due to the teaching from the pulpit. In this country, for example, Christians have been encouraged to have a daily 'quiet time', but actually, they have been taught to study the Bible rather than to use it as a ‘letter from home’ - to quote St Augustine. So I learned always to have Bible commentaries and concordances at hand during my Quiet Time. What really mattered was that I understood the Bible’s teaching. This meant that for me at any rate, my time of quiet with God was mainly head stuff rather than a time for hearing God speak personally through silence or meditation. But then came the charismatic wave of spirituality and one of the gifts this gave the church was to put us in touch with our heart as well as our head. As we explored this marrying of head and heart we were drawn into a deeper experience of God. At the same time, many people found themselves being drawn into a more contemplative method of prayer. Richard Foster and I were two of those who quickly discovered the richness of this method of prayer. Although this exposed us to criticism from some, very quickly we both found a deep spiritual hunger being expressed by many Christians of all denominations. Today, that thirst is even greater than ever.
Paul:	Is that a spiritual thirst, or because we live in a rat-race society and people are looking for peace and rest?
David:	I think it's something to do with people wanting to discover the sensitive, tender, Jesus-side of their character. Great teachers with great intellects have led the Church, but by and large, we have not been encouraged to get in touch with our deeper ‘feeling’ spiritual side. When you look back to the Early Fathers you discover a tenderness and sensitivity and depth that touches a different part of you from the doctrinal correct teaching which we as evangelicals are used to. And I think there's actually a love/hate longing for this depth, that is driving many to explore retreats. Many men who discover silence find it frightening at first, but they usually come back and settle into it. Renewal has opened many people up to feelings and they are wanting to worship not only with their minds, but also their hearts.
Joyce:	The resurgence of interest is also part of the wave of the Holy Spirit that started in the 1970s and that paved the way as denominations came together. Also the prayer groups which sprang up the 1970s were interdenominational giving us the opportunity and need to learn from one another. A great deal of good came out of this.
Paul:	So why are people having to use places like Green Pastures, when they should be able to listen and be still in church every Sunday?
Joyce:	There are several possible answers to that question! I believe that, increasingly, clergy of all denominations are recognising the need their congregations have to do what God urges us to do when he says ‘Be still and know that I am God’. But exploring stillness takes time. Many clergy are creating spaces within their Sunday services for short periods of stillness but a place like Green Pastures offers us the opportunity to spend a whole day in stillness so that we can go deeper and deeper into God’s love. For years now the hunger for this among Christians has grown and grown. In 1986 when I wrote about these things in Listening to God, I expected complaints from a variety of traditions, but every day for months I received letters from across the world -from all churchmanships - saying God was speaking to them about developing their relationship through contemplative prayer. The need to build stillness into church worship to give people time to be still became obvious. Today, it is more obvious than ever.
David:	As a former vicar, I often found church services were noisy and extrovert. A ‘good’ service for an evangelical tends to be wordy and full of content, and it’s hard to make stillness and quietness and sensitivity compatible with this. We need to start to change the focus of worship to help people move faith south-wards, from their heads to their hearts!