This MLK weekend is our Senior Winter Retreat at Camp of the Woods (COTW), in Speculator NY. If you have never been to COTW, it’s quite the place – half camp – half resort. It’s sorta like a mega-church for church camps.
This trip to this venue was foreordained by decades of life-long devotees. We have several members of our congregation that have homes here and many more that plan on retiring here and then there is the countless population that vacation here. Add to it that many of our youth group students work here for the summer, and you have legend almost as big as Narnia. I like to joke that for all their vision, imagination, fundraising, and preaching, it is unbearable to live with its completely unoriginal name – “Camp of the Woods”?? Was “Camp by the Lake” already taken? Aside from that, it’s a nice place, with a great staff, and though a tad pricey, it’s been the venue of some of our better memories.
Each year, we put on our own winter retreat program. We use our own worship band, I speak, etc. Sound boring? Shut up, that’s what we do Wednesday nights too. In order for it not to look like Wednesday nights, we go skiing, have a talent show, play games, bring the Xbox and embarrass ourselves to Rock Band and overall, we do our best to create the fun. It helps that we have a solid core group that get into whatever we’re doing. Regarding the lesson theme, we’ve used movies. It’s been tough brainstorming movies that will work for an entire weekend.
My first year at this church we did a safe movie – a little, independent feature, called “The Matrix”. Yeah, it was the “Garden State of ’99″. It was easy, the points connected well, we got a solid response, and for some, it was the first thing I did right. Last year, we weren’t safe and we did the satire, “Saved!” and we themed it around hypocrisy and unconditional love. The discussion groups were excellent. The movie offends, at least mildly, to most people, (as is the point of good satire) but I was impressed that no one thought we should not have shown it. For this and other reasons, last year was probably the best retreat that I had been a part of.
So, as we were leaving for this retreat, I welcomed them to the second-best retreat ever (since we didn’t want to put any undue pressure on ourselves). We’ve changed a few things, trying a different ski resort, implementing some new rules to balance sociability and technology (I don’t ban ipods, but free reign has kept a small minority disengaged), and showing another great movie.
We’re showing “Crash”. It’s an edited version (some parts maybe a bit too much but I suppose the envelope should only be pushed so far) from one of those companies that stay in business for a few months and get shut down.
Our themes will be Justice, Racism, Providence and Redemption and I am excited for this discussion this MLK Weekend. I am using more Scripture than I normally do and am hoping that I am using the language of movies to connect with them, that the language of Scripture will translate too. We’ll see what happens.
Connecting with kids is the greatest investment and possibly, the greatest challenge at times. I find a similarity much akin 2 trying to bathe cats.
Hi. My brother Joe tipped me off to your site. And I thought I’d drop in.
From one ministry facilitator to another, and one’s formative years reared on COW camp, thanks for your work with these treasures the Lord is sharing with you. May He bless you as He guides you through the process of ministry. God remains faithful and hears our prayers for these kids. May you see the fruit of your labor and have courage to keep living out Christ, and speak the truth in love.
Your approach you mention in your blog in using mulit-media to speak to the audiovisual learners is awesome. I’ve found WingClips http://www.wingclips.com/
and GodTube http://www.wingclips.com/
to be helpful on occasion for preparing for or using directly in ministry lesson plans.
However, Celebrate Kids by Dr. Kathy Koch is something new I ran into. I heard the author on a radio interview twice. And had the good fortune from her talk, the tools I needed to help me understand and interact with the different learners in my group who give me the greatest challenges.
Black Coffee, I would encourage you that this site and the information within, is worth digging out because the methods found on the Celebrate Kids website is different and worth the time to learn about the authors very unique insight into how to MOTIVATE them. http://www.celebratekids.com/index.html
Ah, the elusive word in ministry…MOTIVATION.
I warmly find a kind similarity from Dr. Kathy Koch, to teacher, author and speaker, Rafe Esquith. Rafe’s passion for reaching and teaching hard to reach kids in inner city Los Angeles is amazing. You may have heard of him, he wrote a few years back, “Teach Like Your Hair is On Fire” and ever year his inner city kids put on Hamlet or another play just as difficult!! http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6939776
InterVarsity Press has amazing books on small group ministry and does a fantastic job of teaching the art of group facilitation.
I can say the training I received from InterVarsity, and the material I read and was apart of as a college student, helped build the foundation not just for me but my husband as a student as well. God waste’s nothing. And we find we call upon those skills in our toolbox for ministry often.
One more yummy tip. Check out the pod casts of DTS Chapel on http://www.dts.edu/media/chapel/
and Daily Encouragement from http://www.kenboan.org for encouragement.
It’s food 4 UR Soul.
Blessings 2 U fellow sojourner, and may God give you GREAT increase.
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