CU Fire Retreats Continue to Blaze Across America
By erin conner
“Once again CU Fire Retreats Delivered! Amazing!,” claimed one participant following the past Christian Union America Retreat held on October 13-14. CU Fire Retreats are multi-site, two-day simulcast retreats focusing on spiritual strengthening through prayer, fasting, repentance, and seeking the Lord. CU Fire Retreats are a part of Christian Union America’s efforts to bring sweeping change to our nation for God’s glory through the development and connection of transformative Christian leaders.
Grace Ann Arvey, director of Christian Union America, said, “God is faithful. When we draw near to Him, He draws near to us and uplifts His people through His presence and power.” For this past CU Fire retreat, attendees gathered to seek God together for 16 hours in homes and churches from Kansas to New York and from New Hampshire to Georgia. Many groups testified that God met them in extraordinary ways, with strong repentance, deliverance, healing, and fillings of the Spirit.
The theme of this CU Fire Retreat was the need to immerse ourselves deeply in Scripture. Matt Bennett, founder and CEO of Christian Union, led the simulcast messages with a call to repentance for self-indulgence and neglecting to seek God wholeheartedly. Christian Union associates Chuck Hetzler and Qwynn Gross also spoke on the need and benefits of devoting ourselves to Scripture. Rice Broocks, author of God’s Not Dead, pastor, and co-founder of Every Nation churches, spoke on his own practice of reading the New Testament every week as well as the Old Testament once each year. Groups also spent hours seeking God in prayer, worship, and Scripture reading, along with fasting until dinner.
One attendee, Paul, an alumnus of CU Vox at Dartmouth, said, “The most memorable part of the event was seeing the movement of the spirit in the room.” The life-changing spiritual impact of the retreat was reiterated dozens of times by other CU Fire Retreat attendees:
I expect my life to be richer and my relationship with the Lord deeper for focusing more on reading God‘s word every day. I feel like now I have a plan and a purpose that will give me more desire to read His word daily so I may prioritize what the Lord values.
I am excited to put into practice the plans on reading more of the Word! I want to keep pressing forward to know God and grow closer and closer to Him through his Word. I'm so grateful and blessed that I got to experience this, my second CU Fire Retreat!
What a wonderful, rich time of feasting!!!!! I loved the messages…drank in the challenges! The beautiful time of sharing & prayer was a gift!!!
My heart is hungry for revival, and this definitely deepened relationships among Christian peers. Reading scripture was most impactful, as the word is God, and a recurring theme of the retreat was emphasis upon immersing ourselves in the word.
What an amazing time… The Holy Spirit was very present and powerful, bringing repentance, healing, deliverance, understanding, fellowship, passionate worship, joy and fillings of the Holy Spirit!
I'm so grateful and blessed that I got to experience this, my second CU Fire Retreat!
In addition to Christian Union’s focus on strategic universities, a second, complementary effort of Christian Union is to promote spiritual strengthening in Christians across America, including in key cities such as New York.
Christian Union America calls all Christians to join in prayer and fasting for revival and reformation in our cities and our nation. CU Fire Retreats are one way to join this movement. The next CU Fire Retreat is scheduled for February 2-3, 2024. Registration will open December 2, 2023.
- Learn more at CUFire.org.
- Access a powerful message of encouragement from one of the retreat speakers, Qwynn Gross, here.
- Join our Christian Union America online community group, here.
