The History of Tres Dias
Tres Dias International
The Three Days movement had its beginnings in Spain following the turmoil of civil warfare and the destruction of the Second World War, both of which left Spain with empty churches led by few men. Church leaders knew that to revitalize the church, it meant finding a way to bring men back into the activities of the Church.
Late in the 1940s, a sense of revival was stirring within the Roman Catholic Church. Small groups of friends began to share their faith regularly to help one another. People began to rededicate their lives toward Christian ideals. As Church leaders saw how the church could benefit from the sharing, weekly meetings turned into “retreats” known as Cursillos de Christiandad, which means “short courses in Christianity.” During the retreats, the reality of living a Christian life was taught and experienced.
At first, Cursillos were open only to men as a means of revitalizing men for Christian leadership. The Cursillo movement was confined to Spain until the late 1950s when a group of men from the Spanish Air force who were training in Texas and in a Reunion Group, conducted the first Cursillo in the United States. Among the Spanish-speaking people, the movement began to spread across the United States. The first English-speaking Cursillo was not held until the early 1960s.
When Protestants began attending weekends, Roman Catholics saw the need to make the experience available to Protestants. This need led to the development of the ecumenical Tres Dias. The first Tres Dias weekend, open to all Christian traditions, was held in Newburgh, New York, November 2-5, 1972. From there, Tres Dias spread into the neighboring states of New England, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It didn’t take long for Tres Dias communities to develop throughout the United States. On July 11, 1980, the communities joined together to form Tres Dias International (TDI) to coordinate overall activities of Tres Dias.
The Lehigh Valley Tres Dias Community
Official steps to create Lehigh Valley Tres Dias began in December 2008 when a small group of six Pescadores, three of whom had just completed their original weekend in November, met for prayer and to discuss “How do we develop a Lehigh Valley Tres Dias chapter?” By January, Susquehanna Valley Tres Dias agreed to serve as a “sponsor” for the new community, and the group expanded to about a dozen Pescadores who met regularly to pray. As more Pescadores from Tres Dias of Northern New Jersey joined the growing community, the first official meeting of the Lehigh Valley Tres Dias Steering Committee was held February 28, 2009.
God worked amazingly fast to “birth” the new community! He brought forth a location for the weekends, people to serve within the community and all the resources and supplies needed when starting from scratch. In those early months, God delivered far more than the new community members could have asked or imagined. The first weekends were held in September 2009 at Camp Jubilee in Wescosville, PA – less than a year from the first whispers of “How do we begin?”
Lehigh Valley Tres Dias received its charter from Tres Dias International in June 2010 and has been growing ever since. In 2018, the community changed the location of the weekends to the current location at Twin Pines Camp, Conference and Retreat Center in Stroudsburg, PA. LVTD currently hosts two sets of Men’s and Women’s weekends, one in the spring, and one in the fall, typically April and October.
Tres Dias Today
Today, there are more than 100 local Tres Dias communities around the world. Thousands of men and women across the globe have made a Tres Dias weekend. As a result, tens of thousands of lives have been changed and have become more committed to serving the Lord Jesus Christ. You can stake your claim in the history of Tres Dias, too.