Q: I’m planning a youth retreat but don’t really know where to start. It’s my first time organizing one and it’s a little overwhelming. Can you help?
A: First of all, can I just say it’s awesome that you’re planning a youth retreat. Times like these can make such an impact in the lives of your young people and can create memories they’ll never forget and relationships that last a lifetime.
We have many posts and resources that can help you and others in your position who need youth retreat ideas:
How To Plan A Youth Retreat
This is our book that goes through planning a youth retreat step-by-step. It covers everything you could think of, so has many ideas and answers to questions you may have.
The book comes with more than a dozen free & downloadable forms and templates to use, including a budget table spreadsheet, timeline checklist, risk assessment template, sample youth retreat schedule and much more.
Check out our How To Plan A Youth Retreat page for more details.
Make a List
It’s vital to make a list of all the things you need to consider when planning a youth retreat, as it’s easy to overlook some kind of important aspect until it’s too late. To help ensure you don’t miss anything, take a look at the checklist on this page that lists different things that will need to be organized. (n.b. Our youth retreat book mentioned above goes into greater detail in all the areas on the checklist).
Aims & Objectives
Setting aims and objectives as early as possible when organizing a youth retreat is extremely helpful, as this will have a big impact on the planning. Use our guides on how to create SMART and SMARTER aims and objectives to help with this process.
Reasons To Run A Youth Retreat
As you’re already in the process of planning a youth retreat, you may have already considered this. Just in case though, here are 10 reasons to run a youth retreat – consider what your own reasons are, as this will affect the aims and objectives mentioned above, as well as what themes, games, activities, etc are chosen.
Themes
We’ve recently started providing free youth retreat themes – in fact, we just posted a theme yesterday for a Christian youth retreat based on the Fruits Of The Spirit.
We also have a list of 40 youth retreat theme ideas to give you some further inspiration.
Games
Pretty much any game you would organize for your youth group could also work on a retreat, so check out this list of possible youth retreat games.
Volunteers
As this is your first time planning a youth retreat, it’s worth trying to build up a strong volunteer base who can take some of the organizational pressure of you. These don’t have to be your regular volunteers – check out our lists of unlikely volunteers: part 1 and part 2.
And in case you’re someone who prefers not to delegate, here are 5 reasons to include your volunteers in the planning process.
Schedule
As this is your first time organizing a weekend away, you might not be too sure how much free time to include. To give you some ideas, check out our post on how much free time to include on a youth retreat schedule.
Payments
It can be a hassle dealing with cash and check payments when planning a youth retreat, so why not consider a simple way of accepting credit card payments.
Question: What’s the hardest part of youth retreat planning for you? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
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