One Body In Christ

Twin Beach Resort in Pulau Sibu, Malaysia

23-25 June 2000

By Jason Wee and Clarence Singam

[Jason]

Inspiration was taken from the verse 'Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.' (1 Cor 10: 17) This retreat was held from Friday 23 June to Sunday 25 June at the Twin Beach Resort in Pulau Sibu, Malaysia. The program was spread over three days, concentrated on Saturday itself. We decided to post updates onto the Safehaven list, so those who could not be with us in person could still be with us in prayer.

Session I: His People's Passion

The retreat begins with a reading from a diverse range of authors, including Yukio Mishima, St Juan de la Cruz and Dr Larry Crabb. Two questions are asked for mental fodder as we left for quiet spots around the island to ponder: What have we lost? What will we do to gain it back? The replies include the loss of innocence, youth, time, peace and calm, involvement in church life.

Placing the second question aside for a moment, let's ask ourselves what it means to submit to God as a poor, humble people (Zephaniah 3). Parallels to being poor in spirit, poor as a decrease in the sense of self and an accompanying increase in the sense of the holy, are drawn. But realise that humans are ultimately selfish, and any attempt by us towards submission is still finally within that limit of being human. In other words, to want to submit is still a selfish want.

Yet it is within that realisation that we are selfish creatures that true surrender begins. And it is from that surrender the answer to the second question can be found.

Session II: Retreat Inauguration

This session celebrates the beginning of Sabbath Day and places the retreat in context of a Sabbath Celebration-a time for resting, disconnecting with things that normally regulate our lives and connecting with ourselves, one another and with God.

We brought a Gay Pride flag to the beach and sat around two rainbow candles. We lit the candles and then remembered all other people who could not be with us and we prayed for us all. Then a few poems from different faiths we read to which we listened carefully. Then we rang a bell that called for a time of silence, we moved away as individual persons and we meditated on lines from the poems that spoke to us particularly on the theme of 'retreating'.

We got together and shared our thoughts.

Then following a Jewish tradition by welcoming the Sabbath day, we walked to the sea with the rainbow candles as in a wedding procession, welcoming Sabbath Day and Shekinah, the splendour and Wisdom of God.

We ended with the singing of the Hymn Be Now My Vision.

Session III: Reconciliation and the Church

Session began with a short (too short in David's retrospective view) deep breathing and self-awareness exercise as an entrance into the session. By looking briefly at the development of God's calling out for Himself a People in the OT (from Israel to the remnant of Israel), and the formation of a New People of God in the NT through Jesus' planting the seed of a new People of God by preaching the Kingdom of God and the gathering of a group of disciples, and then the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as mentioned in Acts, essentially the People of God, or the Church (i.e. the called out community by God), is the group of persons who submit to God's reign (i.e. the Kingdom of God is set up within them).

The NT used various imageries to describe the Church (e.g. the New Israel, the Temple etc.). The imagery focused in the session was the body of Christ. Since Christ has one body, and that the body is the Church, then there is one universal or invisible Church despite many churches (church is translated from the Greek word "ekklesia" meaning "gathering"). Each local church in each location represents that spiritual Church. Not being with an institutional church does not necessarily mean not being in that universal Church. All who submit to the reign of God constitute the community of God. If church is understood this manner, then there is no unchurched Christians. But since God wanted us to form a community, Christianity becomes a corporate religion, and one needs to avoid the extreme of turning a personal relationship with God into an individualistic religion.

What then should our attitude be if we feel rejected by our institutional churches? The proposal is not to look upon them in a "we and they" or "us and the church" attitude but to see that we and them are all part of the Church, even though opinions may differ between them and us. Questions and discussion followed.

We had some pretty intense discussions/experiences in the second day; the sessions are briefly summed up here.

Session IV: Safehaven

Session IV was a follow on from Session III on Reconciliation with the Church. The purpose was to consider (i) What Safehaven is to us? (ii) What we would like it to be to us? (iii) What part we can play in Safehaven?

We each went to look for an item from around the island that would symbolise our gift from God to Safehaven. One brought a coconut, since it is a useful plant, to represent his wish to be useful in the group. Another brought a worship CD to say that he would like to see more singing in the group. A grey hair (no it was not curly just in case some are wondering) to symbolise ageing and sharing of wisdom and experience from life's journey. A roll of toilet paper-as God wipes away our sin so the person who brought the gift wished too that he would be an instrument to walk with others to come out of a sense of guilt and condemnation over their sexuality.

After the sharing, we took the items to the sea, gathered in a circle, sang the Brother Let Me Be Your Servant and then prayed. After the prayer we released the items into the sea which symbolised returning our gifts to God.

Session V: Resurrection

On the eve of Sunday we celebrated the Resurrection of Christ.

We began by singing an Indian Song to centre our thoughts. We heard a story of the Fall of Humanity in Adam and Eve. We heard from an extract from Chris Glaser's 'Come Home' which spoke of the Fall as being a fall our of our 'integration with one another, with God and with ourselves.

We then discussed on the kind of knowledge that we received, accepted, and passed on that made ourselves less than ourselves, made others less than who they are and God less than who God is.

We told our stories, tried to remember the specific incidences and recall how we felt. Then with the lights switched off, we lay on our backs and imagined this destructive knowledge as weighing us down, pressed and bound to the ground.

A candle was carried in, Christ was proclaimed as risen and calling us to him-"Come! My image! Come my likeness!" We lit our candles from that one light.

We looked at a Russian painting showing the Risen Christ grabbing the hands of Adam and Eve. We imagined ourselves in the scene and talked about what we would say to Christ and what Christ would say to us.

We remembered that we now carry the light of the Risen Christ and discussed on how we can bring light to a world filled with the darkness of the false notions we discussed above. Then we carried our lights, went through darkened rooms to light up every single dark corner and affirmed our promises to carry Christ's light to everyone else, naming the ways that we can work with.

At the end we sang a song praising the Risen Christ.

Session VI: Reconciliation and God

We talked about how (i) being gay has caused us suffering or pain and (ii) explored where we believed we stood with God today. The pain ranged from the fear of rejection to a sense of internal conflict. Some said they wondered if they were acceptable to God being gay. Others shared how they had come to reconcile their gayness with their spirituality. This is a fundamental area which each of us will need to reconcile. Some options are (i) to say homosexuality is wrong, (ii) to just leave aside the gay issue while we live out our best in the other areas of our Christian life, or (iii) to come to a reconciliation between our faith and our sexuality-possibly even seeing our sexuality as a gift from God.

We closed the session by singing "Jesus Take Me As I Am".

Jesus take me as I am, I can come no other way
Take me deeper into you, Make my flesh life melt away
Make me like a precious stone, Crystal clear and finely honed
Life of Jesus shining through, Giving glory back to you.

We prayed for God to give us a new vision of himself - of a God who is embracing, accepting and loving. The night closed as we listened to the Flirtations singing the South African song 'Something Inside So Strong', while we kept in physical touch with one another, as a symbol of the ties that bind us. The prayer is that we are each other's father, brother, that these bonds are what make us inside so strong.

Session VII: Vision

The last morning we breakfasted, and headed down to one of three beaches on the island. It is more secluded, and faces a rugged, wind-burned smaller isle filled with wave, gulls and cliffs.

The question asked in the first session is finally answered: Now that we have discovered our lost passions, what are we going to do about it?

Asked to answer in relation to their contribution as well as their vision for Safehaven, we decided that we would like to see Safehaven as shelter, fellowship, outreach, kingdom-minded and refuge. We also talked about the year ahead for Safehaven. A few changes were suggested, which will be discussed.

We ended in a reading of the retreat theme 'Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.' (1 Cor. 10:17), in response to 1 Cor. 6: 17 'But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.' We stood in a circle, and began by touching fingertips, moving to palm, elbow, and shoulder. The prayer is that we will continue to strengthen the fellowship between each man, and each man with the Lord.

[Clarence]

At the recent retreat we discussed the need to set up a group within Safehaven to facilitate Christian gay men (and women) who are seeking to:

• Reconcile their faith with their sexuality.
• Work through the coming out and/or integration process.
• Develop a healthy spirituality and identity.

This group is not meant for veteran Safehaven members but for people who are commencing the journey of integration. However to keep the others informed we will endeavour to post weekly summaries of the meetings.

We had our first meeting today with four of us to discuss preliminaries. We will meet weekly for a period of at least 4 months. After that period group members can join the Bible study group or the regular monthly meetings.

The target is to get 8-10 regular members. We currently have five confirmed members and will cover the following topics:

• Exploring our personal frameworks for making moral decisions
• The Bible and homosexuality
• Spiritual options for the gay person
• Personal and interpersonal integration
• Self esteem
• Relationships and sexuality

We also agreed on some basic ground rules, namely that members who join will make attendance a priority, and that there will not be any sex or dating between members in the first four months-this position will be evaluated by the group at the end of the four months.

The group will accept new members for the first 1.5 months and will then become closed for the remaining 2.5 months.

[Note: The new group Safehands started on Fri Aug 18, 2000.]