Its Tuesday. I sit in my extremely cluttered office, trying to decide whether I should continue to work on my lesson for tomorrow night, clean my desk, or do some planning for my upcoming fall retreat. Strangely, posting a blog won out. So in order to justify blog posting I am going to write about my fall retreat planning thus far.
As I mentioned before, my background is in larger church ministry. When we planned retreats we often spent as much money on one retreat for a couple hundred students as my entire youth budget for the year. So trying to provide what I know a fall retreat can be for my students now, on the small amount of money that I have alloted to me is a daunting task.
(Let me note here that I have only been in my current position for a few months. This being said, I did not plan this year's budget, and so no monies have been previously set aside for this retreat. . . )
The first thing I had to do in planning this retreat was to decide what I felt like God was showing me the purpose should be. Fellowship, yes. Awesomeness, yes. Food, yes. Worship, yes. All of those things are a giving. But what would the driving force be? What would my students walk away with? I felt like it needed to be so much more than just fun memories and full bellies. They needed to walk away with life change and knowledge.
And so, after much prayer, I have decided that this retreat will focus on Biblical manhood and womanhood. I made this decision because I know that it would be nearly impossible for me to cover these topics in our weekly worship setting, and I also know that I want my students to have a good concept of what the Bible teaches about being a man of God and woman of God. I think its essential actually.
The Girly Burly Retreat has been born!
The next step was finding lodging. Do I want to have a retreat out of town (a town where there is a whole lot of nothing to do)? Do I want to host in at the church lock-in style? (I will post later about my passionate dislike of lock-ins). Do guys and girls stay co-ed? Should they be in completely different locations? How can I give my students a place to sleep for cheap? Here is what I came up with:
1. Girls like sleepovers. Girls like showers.
2. Guys don't really care.
In our area we are blessed to have a Baptist District Office that has lodging available for missionaries. By lodging I mean a giant room where people could crash on air mattresses, a kitchen, and a few showers. Best of all, to churches who want to use it, this space is free. That's right, FREE! So decision made, my ladies will be staying sleepover style in the district office, for free.
In our area we are blessed to have farmers. With farmers comes a lot of land. With land comes camping. Guys love camping! So decision made, my gentlemen will be camping out in one of our church member's field. And we can borrow tents, air mattresses, sleeping bags, and firewood from other church members (our church member LOVE our students. HUGE BLESSING). Again, FREE.
I have a speaker lined up to come in and lead talks with our girls. She is friend from college who is passionate about seeing girls come to recognize themselves as a creation of God and what that means. And since she is friend, I will pay her gas and a little $ and be good to go.
I still need to figure out a speaker for my guys. And I need to plan some activities and meals. But that is where I stand in the planning process as of this morning.
This retreat may not be the biggest and best retreat to ever hit student ministry. In fact in may fail terribly. But my prayer is that my students will love it, that they will be challenged to take a deeper ownership of their walks with God as young men and women, and that they will be excited about it again next year.
What are some things that you have done to plan retreats for cheap? I would love some of your pointers!
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