It is 7:00pm on a Saturday night. Women have gathered and are waiting outside our meeting space. There is a table set up with a welcome sign, journals, pens, bottles of water, and slips of paper with instructions for the evening. Women are encouraged to take one of each.

The facilitator of the evening welcomes the group, briefly explains the format of the evening (which is all explained in the provided instruction card as well), and prays over the group and for the evening. The doors are opened...and women walk to any of the various stations provided. There is instrumental music playing, the lights have been dimmed to create a cozy feel, and each station has candles nearby. There is no timing for anything. Women are encouraged to move through the stations as slowly or quickly as they desire. Most do not visit all the stations throughout the night. The evening is entirely self-directed; we will not reconvene until the very end of the evening to close in prayer together.

This follows the (beautiful) model I feel Jesus established for us the night before his death. He asked his friends to pray with him...and then withdrew to be by himself. He wanted them to spend time with God alone...together. This evening is ours to share, but it is very much a space for us to be one-on-one with God.

That’s it. The evening has an incredibly simple format:

Start with prayer together. Uninterrupted time alone with Jesus. End with prayer together.

At 9:15pm, the facilitator asks everyone to grab the chair they are using and make their way to the center of the room. We have closed the evening two different ways over the years: 1) shared what we heard, felt, learned that night as an entire group then ended in prayer together and 2) broken off into groups of 2-6 and closed off the evening in those smaller more intimate groups.