So are you using some of the money saved and the time saved(by not going to these retreats) to actually serve the poor and witness to the lost that you say aren’t “being saved” by these events?
What you say might be true in a lot of cases but in “all cases”? Are you doing what you say these people arent’ doing? Or are you a whiner hypocrite and judging those for not doing what you aren’t doing??!! And if you are...are you “doing God’s work enough”? Or “not enough”? And what book are you using to measure yourself versus what the “others” aren’t doing?
I agree with you somewhat though, and do think that a “retreat” based on the book of James might not be so popular! (No personal mirrors allowed...just each other to “sharpen one another like knives”!
I don’t do enough personally. I could give you all the excuses under the sun, but it remains, that I don’t do enough.
I’m old enough and seen enough that I’ve seen most of the people doing what I wrote about do, and nothing else. No work camps, no community service, no volunteer work. Of course, I do not know what they give in tithes and offerings.
So maybe a bit hypocritical? Probably.