Ways to bring the Retreat Experience to our Weekly Program

This past weekend our Middle School ministry took a bunch of our students and leaders to CIY's Believe Retreat in Peoria, IL. A short recap is that we had an amazing weekend.

I noticed that on the bus ride home, which was only about 26 hours after the trip began, that our students and leaders had grown so much closer to one another. Also, from the discussions i had with my guys and from what i heard from the other leaders they grower closer to Christ as well. It was amazing to see what God did to our group in a little more than a day.

So, the question that comes up is how can we see this happen weekly through our programing. Or, does it take a retreat for these things to occur.

So Thoughts,
1. Relationships take intentional time. I think if we showed up to our weekly programing with real intention to make meaningful relationships with particular students than some of this will happen ever week. I know many times i want to build relationships, but in reality i don't do anything specific except small talk with a few students. This week focus on a few and work hard at it.

2. Application to the messages. I noticed that every time the speaker got done speaking the program never ended. Many times in our weekly program when the speaker is done he will pray and then dismiss the students. I think we should implement some purposeful elements into the program after the lesson. The believe retreat always ended with an extended time of praise and worship and then a thought provoking video, then that was usually followed up by a time of small group discussion. I think our middle school ministry will be implementing these elements in the near future.

3. Programing starts when the first student enters the room and end when the last student leaves. I think our ministry does this pretty well, but i want to keep improving on this. The retreat had elements of programing going on from the time doors opened until the time they kicked everyone out. There was always purposeful things to do which pointed back to the theme. My favorite- The had probably 8 black boards hooked together which made a big wall and tons of neon colored markers and allowed students to write on the wall thoughts on the topic of that lesson. Awesome Idea.