1st Annual Winter YM Team Retreat

Next month we will be having our first annual youth ministry team winter retreat. I'm excited about this weekend. I look forward to the training we will have, the discussions that will launch off each session. I hope it sharpens us as a team when it comes to investing into the lives of students. In the past we have gone to one day seminars and training events. I would really love to take the team to a large national youth ministry conference but due to our size and budget we can't do that (yet). So this year we are going to retreat together. (I have no idea why I didn't think of this sooner)

The plan is a simple one, I'm simple so simple plans work great with me. We are going to gather for a weekend next month in a vacation rental house, a really big one. We will eat meals together, hang out together, shoot pool, watch some movies, and play cards together (some Scrabble) and go bowling. Sprinkled through out the weekend we will have 5 training sessions and some time set aside for each of us to get alone and spend time with God in the Bible and in prayer.

So far the sessions we are going to look at are:

• Developing Healthy Boundaries
• Leading Small Groups
• Living Authentically
• Building Intentional Relationships
• (the fifth one is still in the works)

We will also have a tutorial session on our new scheduling system.

Most of all I really look forward to hanging out with the best YM team around. I love these folks who spend a couple hours each week with the teens in our church. Youth Ministry at NHC is only possible because of our great team. I pity the youth leader who feels as if he/she can do the youth ministry all alone.

We will finish our retreat together over breakfast on Sunday morning before heading off to church.