6 Approaches to Table Facilitation

Following are insights from David Montgomery about how he prepares for and allows the Lord to work through him during retreat weekends.

• Listen and Respond to God

  • Watching God at work while serving a table at Souly Business continues to be a very humbling and special experience.   The first time serving a table, I was scared to death of detracting from the guy’s experience.   I thought I needed to “do” something by asking the right questions, making the right observations or recommendations, knowing enough about the bible, etc. in order to have the weekend turn out for them.   How wrong I was.   As time goes on, I continue learning and growing in just how effortless it is to listen and respond to God.

• Heart Preparation

  • I feel like the retreat really begins several weeks before the weekend.   As the retreat approaches, I suppose the first thing on my heart is really drawing close to God (as always) by spending intimate time alone with Him and praying for the guys and the host team.   This is so important for me.   During this time of prayer and communion, it feels like God really prepares my heart to serve.   It’s nice to arrive at the retreat the night before to pray and settle in, if at all possible.

• Trusting God with the Weekend

  • My prayer is for the guys to open their hearts and experience God and His love for them.   I feel like my role at the table is to create a safe, nonjudgmental, loving place for the guys to feel comfortable.   God seems to create this space by my focus on Him, by resting in His love for me, by trusting Him for what He has planned over the term of the weekend (even if I do not understand), by staying away from my expectations and by being attentive to/following the Holy Spirit.   God seems to usher in His love through the host team/table listeners being real, authentic, transparent and vulnerable.

• Asking Questions

  • As God creates this special environment, I feel my job is to follow Him, listen to the guys and encourage them to unwrap their personal presents from the Lord.   Everyone is so unique and God speaks to us each so very personally.   There is rarely a time that I’m doing anything more than asking questions about something the guys have heard from the Lord and what that means to them.  In this space, the table really flows by itself.   Listening to what the guys hear from God is an amazing gift.   As the men share in a place of vulnerability, God’s presence is palpable.  This is very sacred space.

• Grace vs. Performance

  • Regardless of how the weekend turns out for each man, I trust God accomplishes what He intends to accomplish. God is so much bigger than my plans, performance, being perfect or trying to make something I think should happen, happen.   He’s got it.  This has been evidenced over and over in so many ways, from men coming to Christ to many other breakthroughs.   The times men have accepted Christ at our table where we didn’t “try” to convert them, but loved them and allowed the Holy Spirit to do what He had planned for them, have far exceeded any efforts we could have expended.

• Pitfalls

  • I suppose some of the pitfalls I’ve experienced are times of projecting my/our experiences onto the guys, teaching, or being prescriptive. This often actually has the opposite effect, in that guys are prone to shutting down.