An Annual Retreat with your Team

Retreats are an indispensable part of the life of a church.  Each ministry team or department should have a yearly weekend retreat.  All the church leadership should also get together for various one day retreats throughout the year to focus on fellowship and deepening relationships as well as training and help in evaluating their ministries and future plans.  Within this “retreat culture,” the pastoral team should also have its own yearly retreat. 

An annual retreat can start on a Friday night or Saturday morning and go through Sunday lunch or the end of the day Sunday, possibly missing the Sunday service.  The retreat can include the following activities:

1. Rest and Relaxation!  The team works all year, so the retreat should be marked by a general atmosphere and special moments of relaxation.  For instance, the retreat leader can bring a choice of movies, some good comedies and some that focus in some way on the topic of working as a team or on the type of ministry the team does.  Let the group choose which they would most enjoy watching.  You might go so far as to watch various movies in a weekend, possibly watching two late into the night, and having a later breakfast the next morning.  If the retreat is at a place that has recreation facilities this amplifies the options for R and R.
   
   
2. Pastoral care, generally done in small groups of 3-4 people.  You may want to give each person an hour to share, each group prioritizing those with greater needs.  If they need more time, the people with less urgent needs can cede their pastoral care time.  The hour can be divided into two separate moments, the first half for hearing the person, and the second half for ministering and praying for the person.  Another possibility is for people with less need to share during meals if the small group can sit together at their own table. 
   
   
3. Ministry focus, evaluating, planning, making decisions.  Normally a list of written recommendations should be distributed, possibly even before hand, so this time can be efficient and effective.  The ideal is not to have a heavy program, valuing other retreat activities. 
   
   
4. Hearing God together, either in the pastoral care or ministry focus time.  We don’t want the ministry to move in a humanistic way, only depending on our resources and human perspective.  See more.
   
   
5. A topic or issue that can help with the continuing education or training of your team members (optional, but worthwhile).  It helps if such a study is a)participative, b) includes a handout; c) allows time for sharing on the topic (possibly in small groups) and d) the group or each individual thinks about concrete follow-up steps.

You can return to the initial proposal for pastoring or mentoring leaders in the local church or go on to the next section of Pastoring of Pastors pages: practical tools for pastoring or mentoring of pastoral leaders.