So Sunday we concluded Go Home, our 1st ever local retreat. I just wanted to tell you a little bit about what we did and perhaps you might gain some inspiration in one way or another. I hope so, since we've never done it before and I'd love to save you some trouble.
Overall it was a huge success and we'll do it again. It was risky from a chaotic standpoint to do it the same week as our Vacation Bible school (our summer children's program), but it really worked to our advantage. Each day the 14 students that participated in Go Home worked with the children from 9-12 and then we headed off to Habitat for Humanity's Blitz build. Every night was a bit different, but mostly there was some acoustic worship and Bible study. Here are a few lessons we learned:
Go Habitat! Habitat for Humanity hooked us up. Their policy is typically that each student under 18 needs a chaperon, but they worked overtime to find tasks that we could do around their work sites. It included everything from moving building materials to moving rocks to moving gabage. Lots of moving. To the students, it may have seemed menial at times, but the tasks they jumped on freed up the more skilled workers to get more done. We also happened to land Go Home during their Blitz build, which is where they throw extra effort towards marketing and get more people there. This helped create a team environment greater than usual. The students stepped up and few of them complained at all.
Build in free time. So this is no surprise, but over schedule a week-long activity and you'll have a mutiny on your hands. We let the students choose what we were doing, what songs we worshipped to, even parts of the schedule. It let them own the event a bit and they bought into it for the duration.
Come down hard. This is one I should've known, but didn't put into place. Two things I will definetely do differently next retreat (whatever it is) is to remind the V-Staff (volunteer Staff) of their authority to send students home. The V-Staff stepped up for Go Home and let me sleep at home most of the week. But occasionally when I left the building, they were disrespected. I have always made it clear to our staff that I will back them up when they have to make hard decisions, like sending students home from an event, but it's never really had to be practiced. It's well known that students are looking for boundaries and will push to find them. I believe in freedom of restriction for the most part so that the students learn responsibility, but when the few rules that are in place are disrespected, you and you're staff need to come down hard in love.
Turn your leaders loose. Devin and Amanda, two of our Student Leaders, stepped up huge this week and confirmed for me this principle. They did everything form help plan major parts of the week to handle some tough relational disputes, and they hit it out of the park. I've been trying to teach students to be responsible and treat them like adults - because they deserve it - but it was awesome to see it come together.
So if you're thinking of keeping things cheap (we charged $125 per student, or $25 per day) and local, learn from this. Flex with the economy (that's not in a recession).
Overall it was a huge success and we'll do it again. It was risky from a chaotic standpoint to do it the same week as our Vacation Bible school (our summer children's program), but it really worked to our advantage. Each day the 14 students that participated in Go Home worked with the children from 9-12 and then we headed off to Habitat for Humanity's Blitz build. Every night was a bit different, but mostly there was some acoustic worship and Bible study. Here are a few lessons we learned:
Go Habitat! Habitat for Humanity hooked us up. Their policy is typically that each student under 18 needs a chaperon, but they worked overtime to find tasks that we could do around their work sites. It included everything from moving building materials to moving rocks to moving gabage. Lots of moving. To the students, it may have seemed menial at times, but the tasks they jumped on freed up the more skilled workers to get more done. We also happened to land Go Home during their Blitz build, which is where they throw extra effort towards marketing and get more people there. This helped create a team environment greater than usual. The students stepped up and few of them complained at all.
Build in free time. So this is no surprise, but over schedule a week-long activity and you'll have a mutiny on your hands. We let the students choose what we were doing, what songs we worshipped to, even parts of the schedule. It let them own the event a bit and they bought into it for the duration.
Come down hard. This is one I should've known, but didn't put into place. Two things I will definetely do differently next retreat (whatever it is) is to remind the V-Staff (volunteer Staff) of their authority to send students home. The V-Staff stepped up for Go Home and let me sleep at home most of the week. But occasionally when I left the building, they were disrespected. I have always made it clear to our staff that I will back them up when they have to make hard decisions, like sending students home from an event, but it's never really had to be practiced. It's well known that students are looking for boundaries and will push to find them. I believe in freedom of restriction for the most part so that the students learn responsibility, but when the few rules that are in place are disrespected, you and you're staff need to come down hard in love.
Turn your leaders loose. Devin and Amanda, two of our Student Leaders, stepped up huge this week and confirmed for me this principle. They did everything form help plan major parts of the week to handle some tough relational disputes, and they hit it out of the park. I've been trying to teach students to be responsible and treat them like adults - because they deserve it - but it was awesome to see it come together.
So if you're thinking of keeping things cheap (we charged $125 per student, or $25 per day) and local, learn from this. Flex with the economy (that's not in a recession).
Post a Comment