The best ingredient for friendship is time. All the shortcomings and issues we see in people can be overcome with the time it takes to see them for authentically who they are. Only after the investment of time do we start to see the beauty beneath and the treasure within. 

A catalyst for deep friendship is going on a retreat with your small group. Taking the fellowship to a foreign place without the cage of time and the pressure of hosting, and all the challenges with sticking to an agenda brings forth a freedom of character and boutique of uniqueness that glues and solidifies fellowship like few things do. 

It’s hard work to go on a retreat together as a small group. It takes a lot of planning, time, money, and energy. You may also struggle with being a little uncomfortable with the crowd and cast you’re inviting a long. We’ve put together this guide to planning a small group retreat to help with this process and encourage you to move forward. At the end of the day, and at the end of your life, it’s will be worth it. It’s worth it. 

Step 1 – Pray

It all begins with praying about the idea. Ask the Lord if this is something He wants to do. He is honored when we bring our thoughts and requests to Him and wait patiently for Him to show an answer. As much as I’d to tell you to do it, you should have your direction affirmed from God. 

This will also move the success of the retreat from your leadership and actions to Him. Whatever happens, from laughter to arguments, to encouragement to criticism, all things will be done for the good of those who believe in Him. Praying moves our definition of success from worldly definition to God’s purpose. And through faith we can believe that He will use this for His good. Be ready, and lead, but willing to get out of the way on what will happen. It begins by asking God to prepare your heart, and the hearts of the small group members. 

Step 2 – Aim Schedule for a Couple Months Out

There is something that happens between small group members between the time they newly meet each other to the time they are finally comfortable with each other. We call this process ‘gelling’. They ‘gel’ together. You want to have a retreat until after this gelling has taken place. If you plan a small group retreat to early after just kicking off people won’t be gelled enough to want to commit to this retreat. They will be too concerned about hanging out with a bunch of weirdo’s they don’t know for a weekend away. They opt to stay back. The goal here is to get everyone to attend, everyone. So if one person is too concerned to go, it won’t be as successful. If one person doesn’t go, then everyone else will experience the incredible growth of friendships except the people that don’t attend. And when you’re all back and at a normal small group meeting you will be able to clearly differentiate who was at the retreat together, and who wasn’t. The people standing off to the side not engaged in laughter and conversations are the red herrings. 

So give your small group at least a couple months to gel. You can start planning now, matter of fact that is best, but just don’t go on the retreat quite yet. 

Step 3 – Plant the Seed

You’ve prayed about it, feel good about the retreat and have a date in mind a couple months out. Before jumping into the details of planning you should take the next step of casting the vision and planting a seed. 

You’ll want to show your enthusiasm and excitement for going on a small group retreat together. So take some time before small group to pray and get your attitude right. If you pitch this idea with a gloom look and sad voice, no one is going to want to attend. You need to be fired up! 

I like to pitch it like this, “Hey everyone, tonight I’ve got something to share that I’m super excited about. I think it would amazing if we could all take a weekend and get away together on a retreat. We’ll have lots of food, some worship time, maybe Chris can bring his guitar. We can stay up all night playing games and have a great time together. Look guys, as much fun as this is going to be, the real reason is I think it would be great just to spend an extended time together with the constraints of looking at the clock. I believe that through this time together God is going to amazing things in our relationship with each other and in our fellowship. What do you guys say, are you up for us planning something together?”

When done well, people are going to be excited. Not everyone will answer the question right away, and that’s fine. The best thing that can happen is other people start a dialog about, throwing out ideas, what games they should bring, what food they want to add to the menu. Some people will start asking questions right away. For me this can always be frustrating because I don’t have those answers yet – I was just asking if people are open to planning it together. But that’s just the nature of some people. Just by them asking questions, it means they are open to it! They wouldn’t ask questions if they didn’t want to go right? Spend the next five to ten minutes feeding off everyone’s excitement and let them contribute to the ideas. Conclude by telling them you’re encouraged that they are all excited about the idea. Take the next week and think about it and be ready to give you an answer at the next small group, or they can call you in the meantime. Tell them generally when you were thinking, but you’ll work out the dates together to ensure everyone can make it. 

Kids or No Kids

One really important thing to consider is if kids can come on the retreat. If you’re in a singles small group, or empty nesters, or married without kids small group, you won’t have to worry about this. 

If your small group does have people with chilren, it’s recommended you exclude them from teh weekend retreat. This is sometimes not well recieved by everyone and can require a delicate approach.  The exception is nursing babies. If someone has a new baby that requires them to take care during these first few months, invite them to bring the baby. Other than that it’s recommended people find a babysitter or relative to watch the kids for the weekend. 

Kids require attention and care of parents. The attention and care will require them to detach from the small group and take care of their dependents. Not only that, but it can add to the space requirements of where the retreat is hosted. It might have even impacted any offers that people have made to use their place. Now it’s not only responsible adults but have introduced the risk of children potentially damaging something. In addition, it can also require a bigger investment for room rental. Depending on the rental policy requirements (people per space), or rooms can drive up the cost. This additional cost shouldn’t be shared across the small group like the rest of the retreat expenses will be. 

Get Confirmation & Critical

Now that you’ve given them at least a week to think it over it’s time circle back around. Check and see if there are any critical questions preventing people from deciding. The ask how is willing to confirm they’d like to join on this retreat. Get confirmation back from small group members and ask them if there is anything important to this event like a separate bedroom, or pastel linens or something weird. Address your ability to make that happen. Be honest and up front.

The most common reason people don’t have a good time on retreats is that they had different expectations. If it’s going to be crowded, tell them up front. If the carpet is going to smell like mildew, tell them up front. Most people can look over things if they are given appropriate expectations. And on the flip side, most people will have a hard time getting over things that they were not told about until it’s too late. Not only will it impact how much they enjoy the retreat, but it can also impact the way they think about you. 

Ask the small group members, out of the range of dates to give you all the ones that will work for them. Try to get as many available dates from each person as possible. The more dates you have on your list, the easier it will be to align everyone’s availability with the place you want to go to for the retreat. 

Estimate Cost & Distance

Now that you know some date options you can start looking for a place to host your retreat. Ideally, this should be an hour away to two hours away. An hour away helps people really but priority on the event and detach from the rest of their responsibilities. I’ve seen before when the retreat is only thirty minutes away, people have the mindset they can swing home and take care of something and come back later. That’s a mistake, and they should be committed to the weekend like they are committed to the small group meeting. Having a retreat that is further away will really help them detach and lower the temptation of taking care of other responsibilities outside of the small group. 

Overlay everyone availability and come up with all the possible weekends that will work for everyone. 

Use a website like AirBnB to search for a place. By adding filters for distance, bedrooms, and number of people you’ll quickly get a list of available places for the retreat. Then you if someone mentioned other requirements for the weekend, like pastel linens, you can enter that into the filter. The filters available on vacation properties are endless and can include WiFi, hot tubs, and even if they are waterfront. And although a lot of these features sound attractive, you can save a lot of money by picking a place that lacks all the bells and whistles and focuses on providing you enough space for games and fellowship.

Ideally, during this process of finding a place, you should come up with two to four places that meet the criteria. 

Depending on where you are, it tends to average out to about $100 per person for the retreat cabin or place that you rent. Obviously the more people in your small group, the bigger the place you’ll want to rent, but then more people that cost can be distributed to. 

Ask for a Place

Before making a reservation on a place, ask the small group if anyone has a friend or family member that would consider letting you use their place? Offer to clean when you’re done and take care of it of the place. Sometimes this doesn’t work out, but I can attest I’ve been surprised on how many times it does work and someone approaches me and tells me we can use their relative’s cabin for the weekend. What a blessing. 

The place for the retreat will be the largest cost for the weekend, and if someone volunteers a place, even if it’s not perfect, can save everyone a lot of money. If a place is volunteered, take the time to present it to the small group and see what they think. Is it worth the cost savings? Are there any expectations that need to be shared ahead of time? No matter the outcome, be sure you show your appreciation for whoever presented the offer. 

Plan Weekend Agenda

Now that the big picture of where and when, and who is taken care of you can start planning the what. What will your time together look like? This can be fun to plan. Now that you’ve got the big picture vision cast, the dates, the place and a framework of the weekend it’s time to start asking people to help out with the weekend details. This enables people to be a part of serving. It also makes them accountable to show up. We don’t want any last minute cancellations. We want everyone to show up and have a great time.

If there is anything I’ve learned being in small groups and leading small groups for a long time, it’s that there is a real spiritual battle going on. The feeling of warfare regularly happens right before a small group, or before something like a retreat. People start to get cold feet, second guess why they’re going, and are tempted by other things. By asking people to help with the weekend and making them feel like the whole small group is depending on them, it will give them enough purpose to overcome these last minute spiritual battles. 

Worship

Does anyone in your small group play an instrument? If so approach them and ask if they’d be willing to bring it along on the retreat and prepare a couple songs you all could sing together. Personally, I’ve never been a singer. Matter of fact I really don’t like singing in front of people. But there is something really special about worshiping together with music as a small group in an intimate setting. 

Games

Ask someone to be in charge of games.  There goal is to identify games that will be fun for the group to play. I like to provide the idea of a mix of board games and social games, and maybe even plan an active game (like volleyball). 

Give them time during small group announcements to share their role and propose some ideas. They can also use this time to ask other people for their favorites, and ask other people to bring the games or resources.  

As a bonus, it’s fun to ask them to pick out a couple silly prized from the Good Will store for under $5. Handing someone a trophy that is a porcelain elephant just makes the evening that much more fun!

Quiet Times

A quiet time is a time used to read the word and spend time with God. It can be a very encouraging thing to add to the agenda. It shows people that this is important, and should be staple in their lives, and it also sets an example for those that aren’t currently practicing it. Typically this can be scheduled before breakfast, and allow about twenty to thirty minutes on the back end of this time to meet together and share anything that people were encouraged by. This is a sweet time, and I highly encourage you include it. 

Food

This can be a tricky area to plan. I’ve found some people have the gift of planning meals. Not me. If it were up to me I’d just take care of myself. The idea of planning the meals for all these people is overwhelming. 

You can ask for a couple volunteers to help with this area. Their goal is to make a meal plan, and then put together a list of food that will be required. they can then create a sign up and bring it to small group to be passed around for people to sign up to bring that food for the weekend. 

One thing I’ve preferred to do, is have shared dinners together and have each person responsible for the other meals on their own. This works well for some groups because some people like to eat a big breakfast, some skip breakfast, some like an early lunch, and some people eat six smaller meals a day. I’d start with dinner, and if people want to do more than that, you can move on to planning one group breakfast together. Then you continue to plan more and more based on your unique small group desires. 

{insert sample meal plan and sign up}

Hiking, going out

It’s great to get outside and get some fresh air. An afternoon hike is a great way to do this. It gets everyone out and moving and breaks the feeling of everyone being inside together falling into their comfortable spots. I like to leave this optional, as some people prefer a nap or additional time by themselves. 

Try to find a trail nearby that isn’t too difficult to get to. If one doesn’t exist you can take the time to map out a street route that would work as a walk instead. A walk around the lake is always a good option if a trail doesn’t exist close by. 

This is another area you can delegate and have someone volunteer for. It’s nice if you frame it in. Typically if the retreat starts on a Friday afternoon and concludes on Sunday after lunch, it’s nice to put this in the middle of your time on Saturday afternoon. 

Speed dating

This can sound weird, so you’re welcome to call it something else. But the principle is set up a time where everyone rotates around to different rooms and in those rooms is a bowl with icebreaker questions in them. 

If you it’s a singles group, I recommend having three people in a rotation together. Count off my threes. Have people set their times to five minutes. Three people will start in the first room with a bowl of icebreaker questions. One person will take a question and read it out loud. Each person will take a turn answering. Then when the five minute timer goes off, the number one person will leave and go to the next room. As they leave, a new person that just left another room will enter and join the party. When the timer goes off in another five minutes, the number two person will rotate, and then finally five minutes later the number three person. This should give everyone a change to be in most groups. It creates a ‘speed’ feeling that is a lot of fun and you get to learn a lot about each other in a very short amount of time. Have fun with it by including fun and silly questions, nothing to deep or serious. 

If it’s a couples group, the couple stays together as the move through out the rooms together. Number of by two. So the first couple will be a ‘one’, and the next couple will be a ‘two’, and the next couple will be a ‘one’ again. Set the time to ten minutes with couples. Two couples start in each room (if an odd number of couples, one will rotate out and wait on the coach until rotated back in again). Then when the ten minute timer goes off, couple one leaves the room and goes to the next. Ten minutes later the timer goes off and couple two leaves the room and goes to the next. When you have couples it’s also great if you can do it to rotate opposite directions, so couples one and two don’t continue to be together. 

For a list of Icebreaker questions visit our article:

101 Small Group Icebreaker Questions

Social & Alone Times

Social times and alone times are the things that fill in all the gaps. I like not to schedule them and instead just give people freedom to engage or be alone as they want. Each person has a different desire to be around people more or less. 

You’ll find out who those people are pretty quick at this small group retreat. I find most people spending all the free time camped out on the sofa talking and laughing and telling stories.  If someone wants some down time, give them that freedom to retreat to their room or go outside for a walk. 

So again, anchor the time with milestone events like meals, prayer, games, and worship, and then leave all the gaps between these events as free time to socialize or be alone. 

Conclusion

A small group retreat is an amazing opportunity to bring your small group together and act as a catalyst to develop friends. These friendships allow you get to know each other at at deeper level, adding to the trust and respect you have for one another. Sprinkled with fun and laughter, this will be an event remembered forever. And best of all your regular small group fellowship time will see the benefits of the strong fellowship that has been created by taking this retreat together. 

FAQs

What if someone can’t go?

If more than one person or couple can’t go you should put your plans on hold. If it’s just one person examine why they can’t go. There are very few times someone really ‘can’t’, it more often that they do have a choice and they are making that choice not to go. In this situation you can should move forward with the retreat without them. 

Who should get the nicest room?

There always seems to be one really nice room, and then they go down the line from there to the six foot by eight foot room with bunks in it. As a leader, you should take the least appealing room, and give the nicer rooms to your small group members. For the nicest room one idea is to have a pre-game night to get everyone really excited about the retreat. At that pre-game night let everyone know the winner with the most points at the end of the night will get the master suite at the retreat.