Retreats need to embrace and promote a holistic understanding of the Christian faith.
Adolescent faith has three dimensions: trusting, believing and doing. Too often retreats emphasize only the trusting or affective dimension of faith, neglecting the believing (cognitive) and doing (lifestyle, action) dimensions. The trusting or relational dimension of faith is very important. However, an over-emphasis on the affect can easily lead to over-emotionalism on retreats, thereby inhibiting critical thinking on the part of the adolescents. Young people need to able to express what they believe and what they have learned through the retreat experience. They need to be able to envision concrete ways they can lead lives as disciples of Jesus Christ. Retreats that do not promote these outcomes are not serving young people very well.
Developmentally, Socially, and Culturally Appropriate
Retreats need to be planned around the developmental, social and cultural needs of adolescence, respecting the changing developmental and social characteristics of the various stages of adolescence. This means providing a significantly different content and approach for younger and older adolescents. Too often retreats are not grounded in a solid developmental, social and cultural foundation. This can lead to poor selection of appropriate themes or inadequate design parameters. Programs need to be designed and conducted in light of the ability and readiness of young people. This affects topic selection, as well as learning activities, program intensity, amount of sleep, etc. Planners must ask the question, "What is developmentally, socially and culturally appropriate for these particular young people?"
A Thematic Approach
As significant part of comprehensive youth ministries programming, retreats could be offered each season or year as both an alternative scheduling format for young people and as a way to deepen evangelization retreats. Consider the following faith themes on overnight or weekend formats at least once over several years of youth ministry programming. This will provide young people with attractive options for their involvement in youth ministries.
Faith Themes for Young Adolescents
Church - understanding and experiencing the Anglican/Episcopal Christian story and mission and becoming involved in the Christian community.
Jesus and the Gospel message - helping younger adolescents follow Jesus, develop a more personal relationship with him, concentrate on the person and the teaching of Jesus, discover what a relationship with Jesus means, and respond to Jesus from a growing inner sense of self.
Human Sexuality - learning about sexual development and orientation, understanding the dynamics of maturing as a sexual person (including gender) and discussing sexuality with parents and peers. Any responsible discussion about sexuality needs to include the dimension about sexual violence and abuse.
Personal growth - helping younger adolescents develop a stronger and more realistic concept of self by exploring who they are and who they can become.
Relationships - developing mutual, trusting and loyal relationships with peers, parents and other adults by emphasizing skills that enhance and maintain relationships.
Morality and moral decision-making - applying Christian moral values as maturing persons who are becoming increasingly capable of using decision-making skills to make free and responsible choices.
Service - exploring Jesus' call to live a life of loving service, discovering that such a life is integral to discipleship, developing a foundation for a social justice consciousness, and participating in service that involves, relationships and concrete action.
The Gospels - understanding the historical and literary development, structure and major themes of the four Gospels; and learning how to interpret the Gospels.
Hebrew Scriptures - understanding the historical and literary development, structure and major themes of the Hebrew Scriptures and learning how to interpret the Hebrew Scriptures.
Justice and Peace - developing a global social consciousness and compassion grounded in social vision and solidarity.
Prayer and Worship - developing a personally held spirituality and a rich, personal and communal prayer life.
Methodology
Retreats needs to utilize an effective educational process. All too often retreats embody a deductive methodology. Recall the retreat programs that begin with a talk given by an adult or peer leader, followed by a discussion of the main points of the talk, followed by a creative activity to express what has been learned through the talk and discussion. Such a methodology begins with the Scripture and theological teachings to be impressed upon the retreat participants and then continues to reinforce these teachings through discussion and activity. This deductive methodology does little to draw out the lived experience of young people. It also runs the risk of suppressing the freedom of the young people by channeling their responses to agree with or adopt the teachings presented. Educational retreats need to use a different methodology.
The process of adolescent faith development involves discovering the relationship among the Anglican Christian tradition; God's present activity in the life of the adolescent, family, community and the world; and the contemporary life experience of the adolescent. This process is a dialogue between the life-world of the adolescent, with its joys, struggles, questions, concerns and hopes, and the wisdom of the Christian tradition. Effective Christian education is in tune with the life situations of youth---their language, lifestyles, family realities, culture, and global realities.
One approach, developed by Thomas Groome, includes these steps:
Focusing Activity
The purpose of the focusing activity is to bring the attention of the group to bear on the theme of the lesson or session so that the young people can begin to identify it in their own life, their family, culture, society and church.
The focusing activity can be programmed in a number of ways. For example: group activity, story, poem, rock music and videos, a project, Scripture reading, role-playing, field trip, movie/video, simulation game, creative art, case study, demonstration, reflection or questionnaire.
Movement One: Experiencing Life
Movement One enables the young people to express their own life activity (knowing, action, feeling) or that of their community, ethnic culture, youth culture, dominant culture or society on the topic or concept of the learning experience. Young people are encouraged to express what they already know about the topic/ concept, or how they feel about it, or how they understand it, or how they now live it, or what they believe about it.
This may be accomplished in a variety of ways: presentations, reflection questionnaires, drama/role-playing, making and describing something, symbolizing or miming. Helping young people express their present action needs to be done in a non-threatening way. Always make it clear that the young people should feel free to share or simply participate by listening. Be sure to leave time for silence.
Movement Two: Reflecting Together
The purpose of Movement Two is to allow the young people an opportunity to reflect together on what they have expressed in Movement One about their own experience/activity. This will sometimes be intuitive as well as analytical. Movement Two engages reason, memory and imagination. This is often one by sharing an actual story of their experience or an action they have taken. Young people are invited to reflect critically on the meaning of their own experience, share the consequences of their present experience/action and the implications for the future. An important element of Movement Two is engaging the young people in interpreting their life experience in the broader picture of their families, ethnic culture, youth culture, dominant culture and society. Through critical reflection, young people are able to name the impact on their life.
Movement Three: Discovering the Faith Story
Movement Three presents the Story and Vision of the Christian community in response to the topic or concept of the learning experience. The Story is a metaphor for the whole faith identity of the Christian community. Here the young people encounter the Story of faith that comes to US from Scripture, tradition, the teachings of the church and the faith-life of Christian people throughout the ages and in our present time. The Vision is a metaphor for what the Story promises to and demands of our lives. It is God's Vision of God's Reign. We engage young people in exploring how we are called to faithfully live God's Vision, individually and as a community---at the personal, interpersonal and social/political levels of human existence.
Sharing the Story is accomplished through a variety of means: presentations, guided study (of the Scriptures), media (film, filmstrips, music), reading, discussion, research, field trip, group project, demonstration or panel presentation. We seek to involve both the teacher and the learner in sharing the Story and exploring the Vision. Young people need to be actively involved in Movement Three. We should not encourage passive reception of the Story and Vision.
Movement Four: Owning the Faith
Movement Four provides the young people with an opportunity to compare their own life experience and faith with the story and Vision of the Christian community. Through this dialogue, young people can test their experience and their experience can be informed by the Christian Story and Vision. The Story will confront, challenge, affirm and/or expand the faith of young people. The purpose of Movement Four is to enable the participants to take the Story and Vision back to their own life situations, to appropriate its meaning for their lives, to make it their own. It attempts to promote a moment of "aha" when the participants come to know the Story as their own, in the context of their lives.
There will be as many responses to this dialogue as there are young people. It is vitally important at this step to allow young people the freedom to come to their own answers and conclusions. With this freedom, young people can be guided to see the "why" of the Christian Story and Vision.
Movement Four can be accomplished in a variety of ways: reflection questionnaire comparing Movements One and Two responses with the Movement Three Story; creative expression of one's learning by writing, creating a role-play or a dramatization or a case study; creating an audio-visual presentation (video, slide show); creating a symbol or poster; group activity/discussion; imagination activities where young people envision how they can live the learnings from the session.
Movement Five: Responding in Faith
The purpose of Movement Five is to help bring young people to a lived faith response. By inviting young people to decision, the fifth movement aims to help them translate their learning into a lived faith response. Once again, applying the learning from the learning experience must be a free response. Some young people will be changed by the learning experience and motivated to concrete action, while others will need time to ponder its meanings and implications, and still others will not be affected by the learning experience. We must provide an environment that invites a faith response, a decision for living more faithfully as a Christian, but respects the right of young people to choose their own response, even if it is not the response we had hoped for.
Responding in faith will affect the three levels of human existence: the personal, the interpersonal/communal, and the social. To help young people respond in faith, we need to probe the implications of their learning for all three of these levels of life. We can engage them in developing concrete plans for the coming week (personally, interpersonally, socially); in individual or group action projects that involve them in living their faith (action in the faith community, school, family, community/ society); in prayer experiences that celebrate or draw young people into reflection on their response; and in journaling activities where they can reflect on how they are living their faith.
