2025 Breakout Sessions
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      Youth Ministry: Camps & Retreats

      2025 Leaders Gathering Breakout: Using camps & retreats to create marking moments and transformation in students.

      Youth Min Camps & Retreats

       

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      YOUTH CAMPS & RETREATS Leaders Gathering Breakout Download

      ADDITIONAL LINKS

      BOTS SPRING RETREAT SCHEDULE

      SUMMER CAMP SCHEDULE

      STORY SHARING

      SALVATION & BAPTISM RESOURCE

      BREAKOUT Q&A SUBMISSIONS

      BATTLE OF THE SEXES (BOTS) RETREAT

      Can you explain more of what BOTS is? And the heart behind it. Battle of the Sexes (BOTS) is our annual spring retreat dedicated to learning God's view on love, sex, and dating. These are impactful weekends for the youth ministry to receive freedom, forgiveness, and identity from God. Youth ministry members spend the weekend in small groups with friends & leaders, compete in Tribe War competitions, and experience marked moments with God in sessions.
      How many kids do you take to camp and the BOTS retreat? We trend towards taking about 60-65% of our regular Elevate attendance to camps & retreats. We also have about 20% who are are families in the community invited by our students to come to camps and retreats but do not attend our church.


      LEADERS

      How do you create/build a team structure to facilitate camp?

      We make it a priority to recruit and train several different types of teams to make camp happen.

      • Small Group Leaders: Responsible for about 10-12 students for the duration of camp. They eat together, sleep in the cabins, participate in worship, etc, with their students.
      • Deans: Support of our Small Group Leaders. Responsible for about 7-10 groups and help the leaders by praying for them, helping them address any tough issues, etc.
      • Rec Team: Runs all of our rec time and competitions for the week( set up, tear down, game management, etc.)
      • Worship & Production Team: Runs all of our services.
      • Creative Team: Takes photos and videos through the weekend and help us identify any stories of what God has done at camp.
      • Safety and Medical Teams: Responsible for keeping students and leaders safe while we're at camp.
      • Operations Team: Responsible for logistics and behind the scenes details to keep camp running.
      Our camps are possible because of the amazing volunteers that are activated and use their gifts to contribute to reaching the next generation. You may not have the ability to have all of these teams in place overnight, and you may have yourself or other leaders wear multiple hats, but it is worth it! All of the work of recruiting, training, writing messages, and having services at a camp is sweeter to celebrate with a team, no matter how big or small!
      How do you recruit volunteers for camps and retreat? And is there a meeting y’all host to equip the leaders for the camp/retreat? Recruiting volunteers for camps and retreats is always a personal ask from our team. We take seriously the weight of stewarding the next generation and want to thoroughly vet and train the people we allow to serve at these events. We have multiple levels of leaders that we train as well. We have leaders that lead students and leaders that lead other leaders (Deans, see previous question for more details). For those that we have leading our leaders, we have a training to invest in them, pray for them, and give them practical ways to win as a dean. For leaders that lead students, we have a separate training but a similar service order: we invest in them, pray for them, have a ministry moment, and equip them with practical ways to lead their group for the weekend.
      What is the role of a small group leader of students? Our general role for the leader is...
      1. PLAY! Build trust to break down barriers. Hang out, have fun, and don't take yourself too seriously.

      2. PARTICIPATE! Leaders go first, and modeling is the highest form of leadership. Participate in worship, taking notes, competition, and more.

      3. PROCESS. Unpack to understand. The goal of small group time is to get to students to open up and process, not for the leader to do all the talking.

      4. PREPARE. Prepare physically & spiritually to be able to lead to your greatest potential.


      LOGISTICS

      How do you get parents on board with the no phones at camp rule? We assume the sale! It's been a part of our church culture since the start, so we thankfully have that on our side. We never say that it's an option.

      If a parent has a very valid reason their student would need their phone (for instance, a family member is in critical condition and they may need to contact their child) we will make an exception. When an exception is made, however, we share with student and parent, and let the small group leader enforce, that the only thing they're using their phone for is the communication needed. The small group leader is the one who holds onto it during a lot of the week still in that situation.
      Do you have teens sleeping in the same bed as each other ever at camp? I. e. Sharing a queen size bed No, never! One person per bed for every camp and retreat.
      How do you handle kids bringing vapes to camp?

      We start this process as much as we can on the front end by telling parents and students what "not to bring" to camp. We make it clear in parent meetings a resources that they are not allowed at our camps. When it does inevitably happens, we take the following steps

      1. Confiscate the vape
      2. Call the parent and gently explain the situation. Not accusatory, but with compassion. For example, "we're sorry that this policy wasn't clear, but we do not allow vapes at camp and we will hold on to it until we return from camp" or something similar to that.
      3. Use the situation as an opportunity to pastor the student, not come down too hard on them. Try to reach their heart and speak to the "why" and what may be going on behind the scenes (peer pressure, or other issue they may need help with)
      4. Have an in-person conversation with the parent at camp pick up. If you have this happen multiple times with the same student, you may consider not allowing them to attend your camp if they continue to disregard the rules. I don't recommend to going this route for someone's first offense, but only for an ongoing issue.


      PROGRAMMING

      Do you always use in-house speakers for sessions or use different pastors/speakers to help in camps and retreats. If so, how? We generally have in-house speakers for all camps and retreats. This is not exclusively our youth team, it could be people on staff in different areas of the church too. Our philosophy in general is that these are some of the most marking moments for our students.

      Our goal isn't to wow students with the greatest communicators in the world. We want to raise up spiritual sons and daughters. And who better to impart into our students than the ones who are with them week in and week out and care about them the most!?
      How do you navigate combing ms and hs camp and how to fill the time that benefits both ages

      There are many creative ways to help engage both age groups at a camp together! I would start by defining what your group of students need.

      For example, we have found with middle school students, they bring the FUN and the ENERGY. But they need to be challenged to have a moment with God for themselves in worship and maybe not worried about what their friends around them would say if they decided to go all in during worship.

      High schoolers crave a worshipful moment with God, but can be challenged to focus on PRAISE to God and not just seeking him to get something from him.

      This is the dynamic we have at our church that has taken years to define and refine to the point we have, and we have a lot of growing to do still!

      Practically, depending on the size of your volunteer team at camp, you could have separate breakout sessions that focus just on middle school or just on high school (or even split guys and girls) during a morning or day time session, and come together for night sessions. Regardless of how you run your sessions, I would highly recommend splitting your students into small groups with a leader and other students in their grade. With the small group dynamic, even though they hear the same message, they will b able to respond and process differently in the setting of a small group with a leader. Another practical thing we do is have time for games and recreation. We do this through assigned tribes (colors and mascots) that compete against each other, but the heart of that is to break down barriers with fun and competition so they are more open to why they are really there: to encounter God!


      SCHOLARSHIPS

      Do you provide fundraising opportunities for retreats & camps? Scholarships? What is the application and approval process for both?

      We do provide scholarships in full for single moms and veterans who are members of our church. We also offer partial scholarships for families who reach out to us and try to serve as many families as possible.

      The grid we think through is:

      1. Are they a member of our church?
      2. Have they participated in the growth track?
      We try to accommodate every family that reaches out to us and help them in some way.


      STARTING A CAMP

      What advice would you give to a youth ministry that wants to start to do their own camp? There are lots of factors to consider, first and foremost: the direction you get from your senior pastor. If your senior pastor wants you to do it, starting to do your own camp could be a great step!

      Understand that you may not have all the same resources or experience that another church has who has been doing it for decades, but we all start somewhere. One strategy (that we did for many years earlier on) is to join forces with a couple other churches that you are in relationship with. Go in together to put on a camp. You can split some responsibilities (housing, rec, sessions, etc) and all contribute in the sessions with combined worship teams and rotation of speakers form different churches. This is not the only way to get started, but many times a great midway step before doing it all on your own.
      What sizes of student pop should you start doing camp? Should smaller churches have both high school and Middle school? There are lots of factors to consider, first and foremost: the direction you get from your senior pastor. If your senior pastor wants you to do it, starting to do your own camp could be a great step!

      It depends a lot on stage of your church and your team. If you're not currently doing a camp and you believe it's the right step for you to take, starting all together may be the best route to go. After getting that down for a couple years, and as you grow, then you could look into splitting between high school and middle school.

      We are big believers in making it as age appropriate as possible in weekly and camp environments, but you can't do everything all at once. You need to take steps to get there!