Reproduced by kind permission of

May 2005

This week the mental health charity MIND called on employers to help cut soaring levels of work-related stress, costing nearly 13 million working days a year. PAUL EDDY discovers a Christian centre in Poole, which has been offering spiritual retreats for the past 50 years is busier than ever.

Tucked away in a quiet leafy road in Poole stands the Green Pastures Christian Centre, a charity offering guests the chance to retreat from the rat race, and experience renewal.

Last weekend, the centre celebrated 50 years of service to local churches and to Christians throughout the UK who, for five decades, have made annual pilgrimages to reflect on where they're heading and re-focus their lives. As the current pastoral director, the Rev Colin Norris puts it, "our goal is to help them find their God-given pace of life".

With the Department for Work and Pensions admitting that stress and anxiety now tops backache as the major cause of long term incapacity, Mr Norris believes centres such as Green Pastures will increasingly be needed to offer people an opportunity to look at the spiritual side of life, and try to regain some perspective on what life really is all about. He said: "We're living in an age of anxiety where there are no boundaries between the private and public, work and home life. Relationships are suffering, our health is suffering, and from teenagers to pensioners, time is a commodity we all seem to run out of.

"And it's not just those who work in the secular world who are struggling to keep a balance. Many Christians today - even clergy - are finding that the pace of life, and the demands and expectations on them, are humanly impossible. They're experiencing emotional, physical and spiritual meltdown. What Green Pastures has offered for half a century is a place to retreat, to consider afresh how we were made and loved by God, draw closer to him, and find our God-given purpose and meaning to life. Then we can approach life with peace and purpose, knowing how to live life in a way that goes with the grain of how we are made."

Green Pastures offers mid-week and weekend stays for individuals as well as church groups, as well as day retreats. Guests have options of taking part in chapel services, listening to invited retreat leaders, and/or using arts and crafts to help express themselves, and to focus their minds away from the busyness of life. The centre's landscaped gardens and outdoor heated swimming pool form an attractive backdrop to the 28-bedded house, where full board is on offer.

Colin says the change in guests from when they arrive to when they leave can be remarkable. He explained: "Sometimes I welcome people at the door on Friday evenings when they arrive straight from work for a weekend retreat. They're harassed, stressed, not yet switched off from the 'to-do' list which is never completed, and quite frankly, they're probably very anxious as to what will transpire from two days of retreat and quietness.

"But gradually, as the weekend unfolds, you notice people sitting in the chapel, maybe attending a session, praying, listening to music, and just walking in the gardens, tuning into God and into what's really going on in their lives.

"Sometimes I can see the scales of pressure, the burdens and the baggage which has been weighing them down, dropping off as they re-discover, or sometimes even discover for the first time, their relationship to God, and what he wants to give them, instead of what the world wants to take from them. It's very moving to see.

"It doesn't happen all the time - everyone is different. Some people run away from quietness and stillness to escape their pain, but most people who stick with the process make connections between God, who they really are and God in the end."

Colin says that as churches struggle to reach out to into a society where people are stressed and anxious, they must also ensure that they too don't add to the stress levels of members of their own congregations. He said: "As a Baptist minister, I've led churches where I know we have unwittingly added to the pressure, the guilt and expectation of members, knowing too well that they were at blowing point due to work and family pressures.

"Churches should be places where we model Christ's values of life, relationships and priorities. People matter more than programmes to God, and even in our worship, the noisiness and busyness often means that people don't get a chance to be still before God, and receive from him. Our 'Time Out' open days at Green Pastures, as well as our schedule of mid-week and weekend retreats, offer models to churches as to how they can encourage Christians to find their God-given pace of life".

For details of retreats and Time Out open days at Green Pastures, or to receive a free copy of their six minute introductory DVD, call 0845 230 2680 (local rate) or 01202 764776 or email admin@green-pastures.org.