Why Workshops?

I did a recent survey of our women, asking what elements of a retreat were most important to them. One of the surprises in the results was that a number of the women listed “workshops” in their top five answers.  One woman commented on this.  She said that she likes being able to select a topic, and “hit some areas of my spiritual walk that I need to work on.”

We don’t always have workshops.  In fact, this year we have chosen to omit them, because we are having to fit a fourth Saturday session into the retreat schedule because our guest speaker has to leave early.  Including workshops would take away from the little free time we do have, and that free time crucial to our ladies.

However, we most often do provide workshops of some kind.  Some years we just have a special break-out workshop (separating married women, single women and teens).  One year we centered on God’s Word (Bible survey, studying techniques, having devotions, memorizing scripture). Other ideas would include:  mothers of preschoolers/elementary age/teens, dealing with emotions (anger, guilt, fear, etc.), prayer, friendship…the list is endless. Personally, I especially enjoy a workshop that has a panel discussions so you get a variety of perspectives on the topic.

One note about workshops:  If you anticipate one being better attended than others (for instance, “married women”), we holdthat workshop in the main teaching area.  To avoid having too many people in one workshop, you can have women choose a workshop and then close the workshop when you reach the maximum number that your room can hold.