We just wrapped up our winter retreat this past weekend, and I thought I would share some tips and helps with you should you be looking at running your own retreat. Sure, most of these will seem like common sense, but sometimes when we neglect to state the obvious, we wind up forgetting the obvious.
When leading a retreat for your Student Ministry…
Ban Personal Electronics – The two major factors of most every retreat are building community and getting away from the hustle and bustle of life. Anything that requires headphones will automatically cut a person off from the group, and cell phones, PDA’s, etc. being present are not getting people away from life’s bustle. Do not allow students to bring anything that falls under this category, or you will be fighting an uphill battle the entire trip.
We let our teens know 2 months in advance that all personal electronics would be banned. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth about it for two months. But during the retreat and after? I personally (and most other leaders and students) heard nothing negative about this rule. It allowed our group to grow closer together and to focus solely on the weekend.
Filed under: H20, Instruction, Ministry, Ministry Resourcing, Technology, Youth Ministry | Tagged: advice, cell phones, headphones, Instruction, mp3 players, personal electronics, prayer, retreat, winter, Youth Ministry
Our rule is that anything electronic found (including Cell Phones) will belong to the church. I make sure that parents sign this as part of the rules disclaimer (the one that says they will come and pick up their kids if they are disruptive).
On cell phones I let them come on the trip, but they live in the chaperons’ room. I tell parents that if they are caught with them and when they aren’t supposed to have them I will take them up and keep using them until the contract runs out.
I am still waiting for our iPhone kids to test me on this one.
heh. i debated using saddleback’s philosophy of canning electronics from the trip, taking one last chance to collect them before we left the church, and if anything contraband was found on the trip, destroying it. i decided against it because I can’t really find much in that rule that would help us with our kids (especially since this was the first retreat they had been on without electronics allowed).
We ultimately decided to enact what is already in our rules, in that teens signed a combination Medical Release Form and behavioral contract before going on the trip, and a part of that was that if teens refuse to follow rules, they will be sent home at their parent’s expense. We did not have to send anyone home.
now we’ll see how our trip to alive (Creation-type music festival) this summer goes with the same electronics banning rule…
I have found that “banning” these items is also profitable, for the purposes already stated. I have also experienced when items such as phone would have been helpful. We recently did a missions trip which included a lot of door-to-door ministry. I had 2 teams of 4 on each street…and multiple streets being covered…in times such as these, it would have been nice to know that I had a fast way of communicating…and the groups also would have a fast way of communicating if anything happened or if they needed help in a conversation, etc.
so, in general I would also recommend keeping much of the personal electronics – anything that separates the individual from the group – at home.