Father & Son Retreat

Our church(Hope Baptist) is going to have a Father Son retreat in October. Click Here for more information about it, and here for other Hope Baptist Church events. For past church events that we have blogged, click here.

Father Son Retreat messages and a NCIFC conference

Mr. Scott Brown, an elder at our church along with my father and two others, just put the sermons from the father son retreat in MP3 on his website. You can buy them here.


Our church does a lot of NCFIC (National Center for Family Integrated Churches) conferences. My father has spoken at many of them. We are doing one the first week in December. Kevin Swanson, Scott Brown and the other elders of our church including my father are speaking. To sign up, click here.

My father preaches a lot at our church. You can listen to his sermons here.

Father Son Retreat - Day 2

Saturday morning, Daddy got up about at 5:30 (I don't think he actually slept) , I got up at 6:00, and Stephen got up about 6:45. Daddy went to the truck to work on his sermon, and I walked out to watch some of our friends from church fish. About 7:00 they served breakfast, which was french toast and sausage. It was very good! The first message was by Mr. Bradrick entitled "A Young Man's Roadmap for Victory." He spoke on how fathers need to train their sons to fight battles for God. I enjoyed it. After a short break, Mr. Brown gave another message on how sons should relate to girls in the church. Next Mr. Dohm spoke next on purity. These were all the messages for the morning. Here are some pictures:

Mr. Bradrick

Some people from our church listening

Mr. Dohm



Mr. Breagy and his son Samuel

Next we ate lunch, which was sloppy joes and potato chips. After we ate lunch, there was a time for the fathers and sons to be together and learn more about each other.

At 2:30, the games started! We were on the blue team. The first game was tug-a-war. It was the green team vs. the red team. It was really close, and each team won once. Then for some reason they decided to send us off the do different games, and then come back and finish the tug-a-war. This year we did "Highland" games, because we went to some in Scotland with Mr. Brown. First we did the tabor toss, and then we tried to throw a small rock from Iona, Scotland.

Me throwing the rock

After the Highland games, we finished the tug-a-war (which our team lost at) and did a canoe race, and another game where you had to catch water balloons in a tarp. It was a lot of fun, even though our team was not the best. After the games there was a little free time, in which Stephen and I went out in the canoes with a lot of other boys (and men) and tried to tip each other over.

I am the one on the left with the grey shirt on

After the tug-a-war

We had hamburgers for dinner, and after dinner Daddy gave a message on the spiritual, wisdom, and material inheritances that fathers should pass on to their children. It was a good message. After Daddy's message, we had ice-cream, and we went home late at night. I really enjoyed this father son retreat.





You can read the posts about the father son retreat last year here:
Day 1
Day 2

Father Son Retreat - Day 1

Last weekend, we went to a Father Son Retreat at our church (Hope Baptist Church). It started Friday night, and ended Saturday morning. It was a lot of fun! Stephen and I convinced Daddy to camp, so we left from work and arrived after stopping at Walmart to get a tarp, because the weather forecast that it might rain that night. For dinner there was pizza. After we ate dinner, we set up our tent, with the tarp under it. It wasn't too hard, and so we finished right before the sermons started. The first was by Mr. Brown, and he talked about what fathers and sons can learn from the relationship between God and Jesus. Here is a picture of Mr. Brown:



The next message was a short dialogue between Mr. Brown and Mr. Bradrick on how fathers exasperate their sons, and how sons need to honor their fathers.


After a short testimony by a man from Texas, Mr. Breagy, another elder at our church, gave a message about what we can learn from the story of Daniel. He said that we should resist temptation and not be enticed by the evils of the world around us.

Mr. Breagy

After the messages, we got to have smores, and we finally went to bed at about 11:30. We got in our sleeping bags, and then it started raining very hard. As the water poured down the side of the tent, it got caught under the tent by the tarp, so in a few minutes we were in a puddle of water! I got on the huge air mattress we borrowed from Mammaw (with my wet pillow.) And Stephen moved to the back seat of the truck! We spent the rest of the night trying to sleep!

Father Son Retreat - Day 2

We woke up with the sun on Saturday, and Daddy got in the car to prepare his sermon for that day. He got in the car so he could plug his laptop in. We went to the fire, and then walked down to the lakes to watch the fishing tournament. There was an award for the biggest and the most fish. The boys that we knew did not catch anything! The only thing was that Anthony Daming caught a fish about an inch long!

When it was time for breakfast, we walked back up to the tent. Breakfast was french toast and sausage. Mommy and Rachel served sausage from over the fire. The first sermon was by Mr. Burroughs, and he talked about the use of time. Then he sent us out to have a father and son time. After this, Daddy got up to give his message about fathers working with their sons. It was a good message and lots of other people liked it too. Then Mr. Dohm spoke about purity. Then there was another father and son time. We went through a list of questions where fathers told their sons about their lives.


After this, at 2:30 there were games. We were on the blue team. The first game was tug-of-war. We first went against the green team. We planned out how we would work together well. We went 1, 2, 3, PULL! On pull, we would pull our hardest. The first match we beat the green team. Then we decided to go ready, PULL, ready, PULL! so that we would pull better. It worked! So we beat the green team again. Then we moved on to the red team. The first time they beat us, because there was slack in the rope. But then the second time we beat them. So for the third match, we pulled and pulled, and then we won! That meant that we won the entire tug-of-war! Here are some pictures:

On your mark (Daddy talked with our team about what to do (he has the hat on))



Get set (the red team)



GO!!!




After the tug-of-war, we did the balloon toss. Half the group shot balloons with 3-man-slingshots to try to get them in the tarps held by the other part of the team. It was hard. We only got seven in. The red team got seven, and the green got four. We did not do very well, because we got 50 balloons!

Then we did the canoe race. We did pretty well on this also. Other people flipped there canoes, and we did not flip at all, except for one canoe. Daddy was in this canoe. He was docking the canoe at the end. He was in with two boys whose fathers did not go, and so he offered to go with them. He was a little off, so he turned the canoe really sharp, and one of the boys leaned the wrong way, and it flipped! It was funny, because Daddy had been saying how good he was at managing a canoe! We had a lot of fun. We also shot bows and arrows. We did not do very well in that. Over all, the blue team was the best at the games! Here is Daddy and Stephen doing archery:



After this, there was some free time. We went swimming in the pond. Then we ate dinner, which was hamburgers and beans. Mommy and Rachel served beans over the fire. It was good. The final message after dinner was by Mr. Brown on how Joshua showed how fathers should be leaders.

We had a good time at the father son retreat, and look forward to going again next year!

Here is more information on the Father Son Retreat: Click Here

Father Son Retreat - Day 1

On October 5th&6th we had a father son retreat at our church, Hope Baptist Church. On the 1srt day which was Friday, first we had BBQ Chicken for dinner. Here is Mommy and Rachel waiting for somebody to come who she can serve mashed potatoes. Mr. Breagy was supposed to do the first session, but he had to get a treatment and he had an infection so he had to stay overnight at the hospital. Mr. Brown did a session for him. Then he did another session on the heart battle between fathers and sons. Then Bill Brown, his father, was going to talk about the stars but it was too cloudy.