Recent Retreats

Lots of retreats these weekends with parishes round Chicago! Firstly a group of High School teens from Mount Vernon in the Northern Suburbs on their annual 3 day retreat in the country. This was a challenge not only for the length of time, but also the fact that retreats are usually for Confirmation kids, but these older teens needed something different. We were able to tackle deeper topics like sexuality, finding time for God, and even Rock n'Roll and Christianity! They seemed to particularly enjoy the small group discussions, and we ended with a Communion Service based on our Teen Mass.

"Refreshing to have this sort of retreat" "It was a fun filled weekend" "Yeah it was fun"

The next day to a parish in Harwood Heights near O'Hare, for the second year running. This was a typical Confirmation group of 8th graders, for whom our retreats are specifically tailored. They still were far more enthusiastic than usual, and seemed to enjoy everything. This was reflected in their Evaluation forms, where most elements averaged 8 or 9 out of 10.

"It was deep and I learned a lot about Jesus" "It was the greatest, greatest, yeah" "I think the retreat wasn't a waste of time and it was fun"

The following Saturday we had 120 7th graders in Plainfield. Coping with the larger than usual numbers was a little challenging. When the kids are not even teenagers, it is surprising how different the maturity levels are, but there were many positive moments. The Youth Minister told me he was surprised to see so many kids up singing in our American Idol skit. Some of them wrote on their evaluations that was the highlight of their day!
"I thought it would be boring but it was awesome!" "This was the best retreat ever. I want to come back again!" "I had a lot of fun & it really taught me something. I liked the video a lot"

The next day we had a 100% Mexican group in SW Chicago, and a Bilingual retreat. All the titles were up in Spanish as well as English, and some songs were sung in Spanish. A small group of kids who spoke Spanish only were given translations of everything and their own small group. This parish recently made a change in their Confirmation program which has resulted in a transition group mixing both 6th graders with 12th! The real young kids had a hard time making a serious contribution to the small group discussions and had to be told to behave during the talks, but they did not cause any major disruption.

"Come again" "Was better than the last retreat" "i was very impressed with your presentations!"

Generally the videos and music score high with the kids, confirming our approach of letting the multimedia tell the story, rather than relying solely upon the spoken word.

You can see video blogs on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=627680526C6967AA