Kirkridge Retreat Center in PA is offering a compelling line-up of retreats in 2025.

Dear Radical Discipleship community,

I wanted to reach out to this beloved circle to let you know about retreats that are happening at Kirkridge Retreat Center in 2025. We would love to have you here at some point this year.

You can also see our full list of retreats here: https://kirkridge.org/retreat-programs/

Grateful for you all,

Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

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Whose Liturgy Is It Anyway? Lenten Liturgy as the Work of and for the People
February 7- 9
Facilitated by Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart
What work does liturgy do, and for whom? Come engage in theological wrestling, collective reading and interrogating of various liturgies, and the creation of new liturgical forms, including songs, litanies, and prayers for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter.

Reclaim Mary Magdalene: A Journey Through Scripture and Early Christian, Medieval, and Contemporary Art
February 21- 23
Facilitated by Beth Maczka
Engage the senses as we trace the steps of Mary Magdalene, of whom Jesus said, “Wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

William Stringfellow: The Giant Triplets and the Communion of the Saints
February 28- March 2
Facilitated by Bill Wylie-Kellermann
As an exercise in practical theology, this retreat will contemplate a spiritual, personal, and political struggle with the principalities of racism, militarism, and extreme materialism. On our days together on the mountain, we will nurture a community of discernment and movement formation.

The P-Pastor’s BIPOC Pleasure Retreat
March 14- 16
Facilitated by Rev. Lorren Z. Buck
Begin your journey towards self-acceptance, sexual exploration, and spiritual discovery as we banish the “good girl” image that cons us into rejecting our sexual power. This retreat is rooted in a womanist sexual ethic with practices from Authentic Tantra®.

Dreaming Our Way Forward: A Collective Dreaming Retreat
March 28-30
Facilitated by Michelle C. Johnson
We have the capacity to vision and dream outside the constraints of systems of oppression. In this retreat, Michelle C. Johnson will help us more fully engage our dream of a healed and whole world and take steps to make it a reality.

Justice and Fascism in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans
April 4- 6
Facilitated by Adam Braun, Ph.D.
With the rise of neo-fascist, far-right extremist, and populist movements across the globe, now is a great time to challenge the individualist readings of Paul that have contributed to the rise of fascism. Reading from Jewish perspectives and recognizing Paul as a political thinker, we will examine how the text challenges both the antagonism of liberal identity politics and the rising tide of fascist violence.

We Are Deaf, Queer, and Here
April 4-6
Facilitated by Mervin Primeaux-OBryant and Spencer Grugan
Through group facilitations, community-building, and activities, the two co-facilitators will foster a space of healing, connection, and celebration of the intersectionality of Deaf queer people.

Women’s Writing Retreat: Healing the Heart Through Writing
April 11-13
Facilitated by Dr. Juanita Kirton
Write to unravel confusion, to understand, to question, to explore feelings, find honesty, heal and break silence. This workshop reminds us that every person has artistic wisdom inside that is asking for an outlet and that in community we can write together to support and encourage this creative release. With this kinship, we can connect around individual healing and social transformation. 

Unstructured Retreat for Pastors and Their Families
Flexible dates between April 21-27
He is risen! Or he will be! And, after guiding your congregation through Lent and Holy Week, it will be time for you to rest. We’ll provide three meals a day in a beautiful place; the rest of the time is yours to do with as you please. Cost is dependent on the number of nights. See our website for details.

Spirituality of Stone: Palestinian, Celtic, and Lenape Voices
April 25-27
Facilitated by James W. Perkinson
Jacob anointed a rock.  Pre-Celtic Indo-European ancestors built cairns. Bedouin in the Hejaz enshrined a meteor fragment.  So what’s up with this spirituality of stone?  Were our ancestors just backward?  Or did they know something we need—now more than ever—to recover? 

Women in Recovery: A Spiritual Retreat
May 2-4
Facilitated by Nichola Torbett and Rev. Deb Staniszewski
Women and nonbinary people of all spiritual beliefs are invited to a weekend of 12-step recovery fellowship and conscious connection in a beautiful natural setting. Expect meetings, ritual, art-making, time in nature, a candlelight labyrinth walk, and more. 

Festival of Radical Discipleship
May 23-26
Facilitated by friends of Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries and Kirkridge Retreat Center
Our souls are hungering for time and community to ask what it means to live humanly in this moment. We need to create space for listening and discernment, deep study and imaginative organizing, a diversity of voices and stories, and perhaps more than anything else hope and joy. Come join the feast! See our website for registration options.

Queer Dating and Relationships: Consciousness, Communication, and Consent
June 6-8
Longing for more intimacy and joy in your dating and relationships? Cultivate self-compassion and learn skills to navigate and regulate your emotions, clarify your desires and limits, and communicate them clearly. Queer and trans folks of all kinds, whether monogamous or poly or somewhere in between, are warmly welcome.

Did You Get What You Need? Revisiting Black Women’s Everyday Techniques of Resistance
September 5-7
Facilitated by Dr. Pamela Lightsey
As Black women, we refuse to silently acquiesce to the demands of our oppressors. Come practice ordinary acts of resistance: Bring your favorite music, your dance shoes, your favorite recipes, your favorite resistance stories, and be prepared to love yourself. Regardless.

Sisterly Conversations: Sharing Our Stories Across Generations
September 12-14
Facilitated by Grace Aheron, Riot Mueller, and others
At this retreat for lesbian, trans, and queer women and nonbinary people, we will share our stories of coming out and coming into our full gender expression. Stories are how we connect, how we learn about one another, how we come to love one another. Come build friendships across the generations.

Taking the State Out of the Body: Embodied Resistance to Zionism
September 19-21
Facilitated by Eliana Rubin
The fight for Palestine is a fight for all of our aliveness. In this workshop we will disentangle from Zionist propaganda, root into anti-Zionist and anti-fascist histories of resistance, workshop difficult conversations, debrief organizing experiences, create space for our collective grief, and co-create a transformative environment through popular education and applied practice.

With the Land: Remember, Relationship, Repair
October 3-5
Facilitated by Susan Raffo
Our bodies are created of and are part of the land. And for most of us living on Turtle Island, the land we are on is occupied. During our time together, we will work with the physical sensed truth of relationship with the land, the memories of our people’s generational relationship to it, and the clarity of repair and accountability that seeks to change what is possible for all of our descendants. 

Writing Table Retreat
October 9-12
Facilitated by Eileen Campbell
Give yourself the gift of daily writing time, craft sessions, and evening sharing circles, all amidst the beautiful Pocono autumn. All levels of experience are welcome. Optional coaching is available at extra cost. The sliding scale for this three-night retreat is $595, $495, or $395 for a shared room; a private room supplement is available.

Rooted in Hope–Lived in Community
October 17-19
Facilitated by Ruth Harvey
Come learn from Ruth Harvey’s experience with the Iona Community (a kind of sister community to Kirkridge) about how to build and maintain intentional spiritual community even in the midst of division and violence. The hope of new life is nestled within all that is wrong.

Taking Cues from Womanists to Break Rank with Toxic Masculinity
October 24-26
Facilitated by Rev. Dr. Nick Peterson and Tommy Airey
In this retreat, men will let down together and learn from the voices and experiences of Black women to re-member the wholeness, mutuality, abundance, joy, tenderness, nurture, playfulness, awe, wonder, open-heartedness and emotional expressiveness that has been atrophied by what bell hooks famously called imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.  

Living, Dying, Music, and Mystery–A Retreat Exploring the Threshold
October 30-November 2
Facilitated by Barbara McAfee
Join singer/songwriter and wise woman Barbara McAfee in a soulful investigation of living and dying, song and silence, beauty and mystery. Expect laughter, tears, deep play, and delicious surprises. Come away with songs to sing to friends and family facing illness and dying. The sliding scale for this three-night retreat is $595, $495, or $395 for a shared room; a private room supplement is available..

Liturgical Direct Action: A Discernment Retreat
November 14-16
Facilitated by Bill Wylie-Kellermann, Naomi Washington-Leapheart, and Nichola Torbett
With examples from the freedom movement, antiwar movements, anti-imperial and decolonizing struggles, and more, this retreat will offer opportunities to explore direct action within movement work from a Christian perspective.

Winter Craft Retreat
December 5- 7Gather around the fire with a cup of hot chocolate and your craft projects. No facilitator. No agenda, Just delicious meals, good company, and lots of time to craft and tell stories. The retreat will conclude with a public craft fair where you can have a table to sell your creations, if you like.