Retreat Overview
The goal of this retreat is to introduce the middle school youth to the mystery of God. For many middle school youth, God can seem big and impersonal. This retreat seeks to explain that God, though far beyond our comprehension, can still be known. By accepting this, the middle school youth can begin to have a deeper and more personal relationship with God. By understanding who God is (Trinity) and who we are in light of Him (image and likeness), that deeper relationship can begin to take shape. This retreat will also give the middle school youth an opportunity to look at their own lives to evaluate where they need God’s love and forgiveness. Finally, this retreat will give the middle school youth practical ways to live out God’s great love for them. The goal is for the youth to leave the retreat with a community of peers to pray with and hold them accountable for their actions.
We just did this retreat with our 6th, 7th, 8th graders and they LOVED IT!! It's been over two months ago and they are still talking about it. Because it was winter time and they couldn't go outside and play in the snow, we threw in a bunch of messy games during their free time. This helped them to pay better attention during the sessions, because they'd had a chance to burn off some energy. We added one thing that turned out pretty funny. In the talk that discusses family and different members of the family — we had three paper bags, each one containing multiple articles of clothing. The first was Dad's clothing, the second was Mom's, and the third was baby's (diaper, pacifier, bib, etc.). We asked for three volunteers and then they had a race to see who could run to their bag and dress in all the articles in the bag first. They loved it! And they wore their new outfit for the rest of the session. I think the letters from the parents was one of the biggest hits of the weekend. It was a great first retreat experience for our 6th graders, but our older students loved it too. We used high school students to do all the skits and lead the small groups, and it worked like a charm. Our t-shirts turned out pretty good too — would be glad to share the design if anyone is interested. Thank you, Jesus, for the way you work things out for our kids…to God be the glory.
We just did this retreat with our 6th, 7th, 8th graders and they LOVED IT!! It's been over two months ago and they are still talking about it. Because it was winter time and they couldn't go outside and play in the snow, we threw in a bunch of messy games during their free time. This helped them to pay better attention during the sessions, because they'd had a chance to burn off some energy. We added one thing that turned out pretty funny. In the talk that discusses family and different members of the family — we had three paper bags, each one containing multiple articles of clothing. The first was Dad's clothing, the second was Mom's, and the third was baby's (diaper, pacifier, bib, etc.). We asked for three volunteers and then they had a race to see who could run to their bag and dress in all the articles in the bag first. They loved it! And they wore their new outfit for the rest of the session. I think the letters from the parents was one of the biggest hits of the weekend. It was a great first retreat experience for our 6th graders, but our older students loved it too. We used high school students to do all the skits and lead the small groups, and it worked like a charm. Our t-shirts turned out pretty good too — would be glad to share the design if anyone is interested. Thank you, Jesus, for the way you work things out for our kids…to God be the glory.