City Pastors Switch Pulpits for Solitude, Renewal
By Katherine T. Phan
Christian Post Reporter
Tue, Jan. 29 2008

MT. BETHEL, Pa. – When city folk want a refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city and the laundry list of demands from daily life they come to the quiet hills of Pennsylvania. For New York pastors, finding renewal is also as simple as going back to the basics.

"Silence and solitude are the two most difficult spiritual disciplines in the West," Pete Scazerro, author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, told a crowd of 300 New York church leaders who kicked off their annual prayer retreat at Mt. Bethel, Pa., on Monday.

As a pastor himself, Scazerro said there were times he was so busy fulfilling the demands of his position that it was hard for him to find time alone with God. He could be preparing a sermon for hours and still not think about God, he said to acknowledging grunts and chuckles.
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