How to Guide a Teen Leadership Retreat

This question was asked on Reddit:

We created a TeenCore and want to have a leadership retreat for them to get the ball rolling. I’ve already spent a ridiculous amount of time trolling Google’s results, and going through my personal trove of things, but wanted to ask about leadership and even other not leadership activities, workshops, games, etc. that some of you may have done. Even some things the adult core has done that we could potentially revamp to fit the teens. Any help would be awesome!

I think it is great that you are inviting a select group of teens to come participate in leadership within your group. Doing so, you will have a tremendous ally in helping discern both what the needs of the teenagers are, and how to best meet those needs, in light of the gospel. Conversely, these students will have added experience under their collective belts, that will help them grow in their own skills as they move from high school to college to the real world.

You have a limited time to work with them. You are going to want to make every moment count.

Your priorities ought to be: guided prayer, workshop discussions, and then teamwork-building activities, in that order.

Prayer

At the top of the schedule is to allow times for prayer; in particular, prayer for them to grow individually, but also prayer for the group. If you can have mass, great. If you can have early adoration, great. If you can have an extended time where the students can have quiet time, along with some guided questions, that would be wonderful.

It’s these guided questions that would be tantamount to crafting a vision for your group, writing down the needs of the individual youth leader, but also that they believe would be a need of that of the group. It could be anything from growing in holiness, to learning the Bible, to weathering the storm of broken homes, to learning how to date.

Workshop Discussions

You are going to want to tally these responses, and discern what issues are most pertinent to both the teen leadership group, as well as the group as a whole. You are going to want to set aside a session where these results are tallied, anonymously, so everybody can see a bigger picture of needs within the group. And when these needs are tallied, treat every response with respect, as there are no wrong answers.

As you tally these results, you will likely see a pattern emerging that lists what your priorities would be, both with the needs of the microcosm of leaders before you, and that of the larger group. And with this larger list, then, simplify it so that the top issues become prominent goals to tackle.

Obviously, whatever comes near the top needs to be discussed in light of the greater vision of your parish, and of your national youth group (in this case, Lifeteen). Your results need to be tackled in light of the Gospel. Supposing the top issue is learning to date one another: you should incorporate the Gospel with such a topic, like interspersing a teen-friendly “Theology of the Body” in the midst of this discussion.

You are also going to want to pay close attention to the needs of this leadership group individually. Through this process, they may exhibit talents that you are unaware of, and may want to keep an eye on ways that they can grow in these talents. You are also going to want to confirm that they are properly catechized, and discern if there are any knowledge gaps that they exhibit; such gaps may also be a priority in terms of what ought to be taught in the course of the remainder of the school year.

Furthermore, as you build this teen group, you are going to want to find ways that they can grow in those skills, being entrusted into special service positions for the group itself.

Keep in mind how Steve Jobs had run these meetings. When he returned as CEO of Apple in 1997, he had his executives draft out a list of all the projects they dreamed that they should accomplish for that year. And then he whittled it down to a single goal, which they would tackle spectacularly. It was because of this process that the iPod was born, and success followed. Your group does not need to be that stringent, but the lesson needs to be heeded nonetheless.

Teamwork-Building Activities

Lastly, I can understand the need to want to schedule this within the course of the day: you want to break up the tension of these sessions, and give them the chance to unwind after these meetings. I believe that whatever games you employ, they ought to be team-building exercises, not merely the same games that you would normally play in the context of your youth group. The corporate world has myriads of examples of such, where they have an interactive series of races, games and creative activities where, as a team, they learn to work together. The games themselves are secondary to the primary need of having the students discover how to work together in light of their blossoming talents.

I would google “business retreat games” to find ideas; a different type of retreat demands a different set of fun activities.

Conclusion

The bottom line is, this retreat ought to build that relationship between you and the teens, so that you both mutually benefit from each other. That both you and them have a clear vision as to how to personally grow in the coming months, but also attain and strengthening the vision of what your mission is, in terms of the larger group. When you do this, you will have a powerful resource at hand, and a tremendous ally in terms of the teens themselves.

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