A couple of months ago, my younger sister got married in a beautiful ceremony at her church. Our father has pastored this rural, evangelical church for the past twenty-nine years. Therefore, this special place to both of us was the obvious right venue to have her wedding at. After the wedding ceremony, my parents hosted a reception in the church’s activity building. My sister even decorated this large building herself. Have you picked a venue for your wedding, but don’t know where to have your reception at? When looking for the right place to have this special event, consider your personality and the personality of your future mate. For instance, if you’re cowboy or a cowgirl, you probably wouldn’t enjoy a wedding reception at an upscale country club in town. On this blog, you will discover the best places to host a wedding reception at.
Whether you are scheduling a retreat for men, women, or teens, you are going to want to make sure that your guests are comfortable and that the retreat is as engaging as possible. Here are some tips for planning your next church retreat and having it be a rousing, spiritual success.
1. Leave Your City For It
The first step is going to be to plan to have your retreat in a location that is not in your city. It can be one city over, but you need to make sure that you take the people who are attending the retreat out of their element and expose them to a different location. This will help your retreat-goers disconnect from their busy, everyday lives and focus more on themselves, their spiritual connection with their higher power, and the world around them.
To find a good place for your retreat, look for centers that specifically cater to church retreats. These centers will be in areas that have a great deal of different accommodations for lodging and restaurants. These are other necessary characteristics for making sure that your retreat goes well.
2. Have Small Groups
If possible, choose a retreat center that has one large room where everyone can come together and talk, as well as several smaller rooms that you can use to break up the group into smaller segments for more intimate discussions. Small groups are critical to the success of a retreat because they allow people to participate more directly and connect with each other on a deeper level. If you have small group rooms, you will be able to facilitate this more easily and ensure that people are not talking over groups or find themselves sitting on the floor.
3. Make a Plan
Finally, roughly plan out the timeline for each day of the retreat so that you can make sure that you have room for each activity. However, do not enforce time guidelines too strictly. If there is an amazing conversation going on, don't cut it short. However, having a rough structure for each day of the retreat will allow both you and your retreat-goers to relax and know that you will be able to get to everything before the weekend is over. Choose one person to be in charge of keeping time each day and communicating that the time is up to the church leaders. The leaders will then make the decision to change directions or keep the conversation going a little bit longer.
For more information, talk to a center that specializes in church retreats.
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