It is a great irony that the technological revolution has made us poorer. These new-fangled computer-things were supposed to make us so efficient that we could complete all of our work in half the time, granting us twice as much time in recreation.

As we all know, the opposite is true. We’re more efficient, but our expectations on output have increased even more. We’re now earning more money, and many of our consumer items are significantly cheaper than the ‘old days’. Yet, housing prices continue to spiral upwards as our population growth causes increased demand for the limited land in our capital cities.

The upshot is that we’ve now got less time than ever before. And because of our spending ‘choices’, we feel we’ve got less money than ever before. We’re so rich that we feel poor.

Sadly, one of the victims of this revolution is the enjoyment and beauty of slowness. In our constantly-connected world, we seem to always feel busy. Even those brief pauses of time are filled with reading our Twitter feeds on our smartphones. We can’t sit on the train without answering emails or listening to a podcast. We just can’t seem to slow down and go offline.

And so the idea of going away for a church weekend to have an action-packed time of teaching and fellowship seems far-less appealing than ever before. The last thing we often want is to have our weekend full of tightly-programmed activities, as beneficial as we know they will be to us. Maybe we need to re-think our church weekends away?

Over the June Long Weekend I spent three nights and three days away with twenty Christian families at the beautiful Waterslea centre (pardon my bias!) It was a very special time of Christian growth.

Yet, what was most special about the time away was that it was mainly unstructured. We had breakfast together then we sat and talked and played. Then we had lunch, and then went Billy Carting together down the steep hill at the front (lots of fun!). Then we had dinner, and the grownups sat around and shared about the highs and lows of the year that’s been, as we laughed, cried, and prayed for each other.

We did the same thing on Sunday, except that in the afternoon, we held an all-age church service for everyone. It was very special.

Yet, this would not happen on a typical church weekendaway. Normally a group would start with a main session (which feels like a normal church service), immediately followed by another main session (which feels like another normal church service), followed by afternoon activities, then an evening activity, then another session on Sunday morning (that feels like another normal church service) followed by training or discussion groups or something.

No wonder people leave church weekends away feeling tired. And no wonder people find the idea of a church weekend away to be tiresome.

So, here’s my crazy idea.

If it’s adequate for a group of believers to have normally only one church service each weekend, then why do we do three or four of them when we go away for a weekend together?

I know I’m at risk of being stoned as a heretic, but if we planned for the whole weekend to be filled with informal slowness and relaxed fellowship (plus a terrific, extended church service on Sunday morning), then the weekend might achieve more than we would ever imagine.

I love hearing the word of God in the fellowship of others. Every week I do this on Sunday mornings, plus at other times during the week. But normally I don’t have two extra services on a Saturday morning. Normally I spend Saturday morning relaxing with my family and with friends. All I’m suggesting is that when we go away with our church family we do the same.

We are so busy that we need some slowness. And we need this slowness together as a Christian community. Imagine how much richer our community would be if we were to spend more time informally relating to each other in warm, unstructured Christian fellowship?

Jodie McNeill is the Executive Director of Youthworks Outdoors.