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Archive for Retreat and Event Planning

Responsibilities of a Retreat Coordinator

Posted by Debby on July 22, 2014

The position we call “retreat coordinator” may or may not be filled by the ministry leader. In our case, our pastor’s wife is the ministry leader. But she is called upon for many other needs, and it would be very hard for her to coordinate the retreat both in the planning stages and at the retreat. That is why we have a retreat coordinator. She reports to the ministry leader, but does the organization and supervision involved in planning a retreat. It is important to have this position filled by a strong leader.

The best way to really see what the retreat coordinator does is to look at one of our flow charts. She is like the hub of the retreat, and other leaders are in charge of various aspects of the retreat. But everything is overseen by the coordinator.

The coordinator is involved in the retreat from the beginning – determining the who, when, where and what of the retreat. As retreat planning begins, depending on what is most important to you, you book the speaker and date of the retreat, OR you book the venue on a certain date and then find the speaker who can work with you on your chosen date. The retreat coordinator communicates with the speaker throughout the planning stages and works with the venue so that a contract can be signed. Once you have the date, a speaker and a venue, then the fun begins. If your speaker has not already suggested a theme, one of the preliminary planning activities is determining the retreat theme.

Once the basics have been confirmed, the coordinator works with a leadership team who will report back to her and/or she will hold their hand as they go through the process of planning the retreat. The leadership team is given responsibility to oversee the various ingredients of the retreat: registration, greeting, printed material, prayer team, skit, workshops, etc. In small churches like ours, the members of the leadership team often takes on more than one of these responsibilities. But the need for one person to coordinate remains.

Posted in: Developing Leadership, Lessons Learned, News & Information, Realities of Ministry, Retreat and Event Planning, Starting Points in Retreat Planning

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Sweet Resource

Posted by Debby on July 1, 2014

This is a closeup of the little giveaway for our women’s event theme “Singing in the Rain.” It perfectly brought in the elements of an umbrella and “raindrops,” represented by the Hershey kisses. But note the stickers on he bottom of the kiss. Were you aware that there is a place where you can buy these personalized stickers at a reasonable price? We chose our theme verse to put on the bottom of the kisses. However, the products on this website could be used in so many ways to make a sweet giveaway for any women’s event. Check out www.ClassicCandyCovers.com.

Posted in: News & Information, Resources, Retreat Remembrances

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Three Biggest Decisions in Retreat Planning

Posted by Debby on June 17, 2014

If you are considering a retreat this year, you may be getting a bit of a late start. There are three critical decisions that I feel need to have been made by now, unless you have a very unusual situation–or you are very lucky. Normally, we have found that a minimum of two of these three decisions should be made even a year in advance of your overnight event.

Location – retreat centers and hotels are normally booked up to a year or two in advance. Normally we try to schedule our hotel one year in advance.
Date – you may be limited by the availability of your chosen location or the availability of your speaker. If the two don’t work together you’ll have to decide which is more important to you: the date you want or the speaker you want (read more about this decision here).
Speaker – a popular speaker may have limited dates of availability.

In our case, we are preparing for a late November retreat. Our priority this year was to get the retreat location that we wanted and had used last year. We found that they were booked into 2016, with very few favorable dates in 2014 available. So we booked the location and date in December of 2013 and took a risk.

Our decision about a speaker was then limited to someone who could come on that date. We have just finalized our speaker(s). In June, (nearly six month prior to retreat date) we will officially begin planning as a group-assigning responsibilities, determining schedule, and the many other components of retreat planning.

Tags: date, location, retreat centre, retreat planning, speaker

Posted in: Lessons Learned, Location, Location, Location, News & Information, Retreat and Event Planning, Starting Points in Retreat Planning

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Singing in the Rain

Posted by Debby on June 10, 2014

We just held our spring women’s event. It was a dessert for women, ages 10 and up. I thought I would share a little bit with you, as the theme, “Singing in the Rain,” was such fun, and would easily work for any event, including a retreat.

It was a theme we had seen somewhere online…we didn’t come up with it all by ourselves. But what a great theme! Doesn’t the Bible encourage us to “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice!”? There are so many potential theme verses, including Habakkuk 3:17-18 which basically says that even if everything is going wrong in our lives, YET we can choose to rejoice in the Lord.

Our schedule included showing a YouTube video of the song as performed by Gene Kelly in the 1952 movie of the same name. We wrote a short skit for the occasion (check out our new downloadable skit here) and a devotional teaching.

The decorations were such fun. We collected umbrellas and rain boots from our women for use in decorations. “Raindrops” made of beads and/or tissue paper were hung from the umbrellas. Rain boots were used on the tables with flowers and tissue paper. Other additions included ribbon preprinted with music on it, as well as musical symbols that you can barely see hanging from the umbrellas. The pictures below give you an idea of what our simple decor looked like; in person, the decor was much more dramatic…Or at least we thought so!

For the final added touch, the Lord brought a light shower that evening, to make certain that we were “singing in the rain.”

Posted in: News & Information, Skits, Theme Ideas

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Preparing the Pray-ers

Posted by Debby on April 15, 2014

We have scheduled times where women can ask for prayer at every retreat. This gives women a time to respond to what the Lord is doing in their lives, and we also want to support them in prayer for overwhelming personal situations. Sometimes we have prayer circles set up after an evening session where a woman can go to a prayer circle to request prayer. Other times we have had rooms where women are encouraged to go for prayer. We carefully select women who are mature spiritually to be available for prayer. If other churches are joining us, we ask them to have a prayer team available, so that if their women want prayer, they can go to someone familiar if they so desire.

These women are then required to attend a meeting, normally during free time during the retreat, where we review guidelines for those willing to serve in this area. At this meeting we assign prayer partners, pray together and cover a few important reminders.

Here are a few of the things that the meeting covers:

The schedule – when and where they will be praying
Prayer partners assigned – we always have two women in the prayer circle
Confidentiality
Issues of abuse (i.e. should a teenager ask for prayer about abuse that they are experiencing, you are legally required to report it)
Be prepared to share the gospel should the opportunity present itself
Gently cut off lengthy and emotional explanations; the entire situation does not need to be understood in order for you to pray. Help the women focus on their specific request for prayer by saying “How do you want us to pray for you?”
Use of breath mints :-)
Reminder: They are there to pray, and not to be counselors. If their need requires counsel or professional help, pray-ers should encourage those women to set up an appointment with their pastor when they get home.

Posted in: Developing Leadership, Ingredients for a Great Retreat, Ministry at the Retreat, News & Information, Retreat and Event Planning

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