Leader Retreat recap

Leaders Retreat was this past weekend. There were about 50 leaders there, between Program, Small Groups and various other leaders, for both middle school and high school. A good group of people.
Friday night was some administration - getting information out to the leaders about this and that. Then we did breakouts where 6 veteran leaders did round robin 10 minute sessions to give specific ideas for small group leaders. I ended up doing one, which was good. It was good, but I don't think it quite got the message out. I spent the time talking about our facet of the ministry focusing on service and missions. It went too quick but it was good. It was fun to talk about the ideas that are haunting me lately.
Saturday was a lot of team time... in the morning I had a good meeting with one of my core students and our youth min catalyst. It's always a lot of fun to talk to them both, individually and together. I didn't really have my team there, so it was good to bounce ideas off of them. It made from an interesting dynamic having a student there in the conversation, but she's a senior, so she's really graduated anyway. (I'm kidding.) The afternoon was more team time - in other words, SPACE had a meeting at the pool. This year, I decided that the fam should come with me, which was really good for us. Some of you know, this summer has been tough for us, because we have spent a lot of time separated between 3 mission experiences, the girlies visiting other fam in GA, etc. I think the girlies had a great time, the pool was very nice. The other highlight was our family having a little Bible time this morning, telling a few Bible stories right after the whole retreat did some worship. That was cool.
My purpose for going, even without a team, was fulfilled. I spent a good bit of time just hanging out and building relationships, and hearing about mission experiences that people had this summer. One leader went to Tampa to work with the Dream Center, and she was able to share her vision and short term plans with me. Another one of our SPACE leaders told me all about the DC trip, which I hadn't really heard until now. We then talked about the progression his team will make in the summer of 2005 and how that will work out. It was really good. And of course, I felt like part of the staff team that ran the retreat. So that was good too.
All in all, it was a good retreat. I hope the leaders that went felt like we really tried and wanted to invest in them, as leaders, as youthworkers and as people in the Body.