Oklahoma City First Church of the Nazarene is opening the Walt Crow Center for Pastors, a free retreat center designed to provide rest, restoration, and recreation for pastors. The center opens in January 2021, and the application process opens 15 November 2020.

All meals, housing accommodations, and sessions with a therapist, spiritual director, and a pastor/mentor are free of charge for those accepted to attend. Pastors are only responsible for providing their own transportation to and from the retreat, and they have the option to bring their families.

The center is named after Walt Crow, a Nazarene pastor and missionary who previously served as president of European Nazarene College. Kelly Diehl Yates, the center’s founder and director, said she remembered many conversations with Crow about what could be done to help pastors. 

Together, Yates and Crow worked directly with hurting pastors, but they dreamed of doing something bigger. Crow passed away in April, and Yates could not get it out of her mind to set up something to help pastors. Yates could feel a nudge form the Lord about a retreat center but said, “I don’t know how to do that God.”

“A few days later, I was just driving and I had this vision of how the retreat center was supposed to be, and how it was to be set up, and everything it was going to offer,” Yates said. “And I knew that I had to do that because God was calling me to do it.”

Yates talked to her pastor and church board about what God had placed on her heart, and they got behind the project. 

The application process for pastors is an essay stating why they need the retreat. 

“Any pastor can apply,” Yates said. “They really just need to let us know why they think they need to retreat. If they’re having a difficult time with family, or with their church, or if things are going great but they just need a break.”

When a guest arrives, they will first meet with a spiritual director and therapist. They will also have dinner with pastoral mentors. After their weekend at the Walt Crow Center, they will continue to meet and talk with their spiritual and pastoral mentors on a monthly basis for a whole year following their visit to the center.  

The rest of the time at the retreat is theirs to relax, reflect, study, or take advantage of the surrounding recreation opportunities in the Oklahoma City area. It lasts from Friday to Monday. 

Because the center is operating entirely on donations, the Walt Crow Center will partner with Southern Nazarene University for housing accommodations, including a fully furnished three-bedroom house and condos. Because Yates is a professor at SNU, the relationships don’t stop there. Many of the therapists and spiritual mentors are also affiliated with SNU.

Yates hopes the center will help start the process of healing and restoration for pastors.

“I just want to reach out to pastors and provide a place for them to rest, and renew,” she said.

For more information on the Walt Crow Center for Pastors, visit waltcrowcenter.com.