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How to Plan a Youth Ministry Winter Camp from Start to Finish! · Ministry Coach: Youth Ministry Tips & Resources

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today, we're giving you the ultimate guide for hosting a winter retreat for your youth ministry.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: And stick around to the end because I'm going to give you an easy free game that you can play with your youth group anytime.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Ministry Coach Podcast, where we give you weekly tips and tactics to help you fast-track the growth and health of your youth ministry.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: If this is the first time we're meeting, my name is Jeff Lascola, and this is Kristen Lascola.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the perfect time of year to talk about winter camp, winter retreats.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we're in October, just in case you didn't know.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: So today is the ultimate guide to hosting a successful youth retreat.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Parentheses, winter camp.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: That was the idea.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening, right?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's the idea you sent me in our email in my email verbatim.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the tone you read it in when I sent it to you?
• 1:02
  unknown: Apparently.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've never been on live podcasts before.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're gonna talk about because here's the thing it's October.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: My winter camp is in February, and I already have one preliminary meeting under my belt, and we have our next one scheduled for next week, I think.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna take you through like three planning phases of your winter retreat because this is the perfect time of year to be thinking about that.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are like, oh no, what I should be thinking about a winter camp, yeah, find find somewhere.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, just kidding.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's two different ways you can do winter camp.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, three actually, that I have done two out of the three.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So one of them I can't really speak to.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Some of our So for you people, I will just tell you what it is.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna help you with it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Some of our campuses do like a best weekend ever kind of camp where they start and end at the church, they sleep there.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: The church is the camp kind of thing.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: They usually start on a Friday night and do something fun at the church, like a lock-in.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I said fun and lock-in in the same sentence.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: How could I?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next day they maybe will go to some different venues, like near our where we live, there's like um Mission Bay, there's like the roller coaster and the arcade, it's right by the beach, and you know, there's all that to do.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've heard of people going to like an actual theme park, you know, rolling that into the cost, and they just hop around and do all this fun, different stuff.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Then they'd come back to the church and there'd be like a speaker in the evening, maybe some small groups and worship, and then they kind of end with church on Sunday.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're there anyways.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: You wake up and like someone's unlocking the door, and church starts.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's probably pretty cost effective because you have to pay for transportation to the venues, but you're not paying for the venue itself.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you could get creative with food, having like a life, an adult life group, growth group, small group, whatever you call them, bring in meals for the kids, depending on how big it is.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: You could, I did like in and out for my leadership team the other day, and it actually only ended up being six bucks a kid.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was really cheap.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you could do classic little Caesars pizza or something, Costco pizza.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So meals are pretty easy, you know, cereal bar for breakfast.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't even done it.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I am full of ideas.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can do a glow night.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many things.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing I don't like about that one, just about which one?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Glow night?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, about staying at the church.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is there's nowhere to shower.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it's only two nights, but I can go one night without a shower.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Two would be tough for me.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I would maybe run home and then come back or something.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I don't love that.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And junior hires two nights, no showers.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: They're arriving with two showers, not taken the two days prior to that.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's always their socks are awful.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as they take their shoes off, it's over.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're done.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So then the other option for a winter camp would be you go to a pre-packaged camp, which I did for years and years and years.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in Southern California, you probably have heard of Forest Home.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: You used to go with me to that one.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was a blast because basically you just show up and the staff takes care of everything and you're just there and you enjoy it.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: We don't do that anymore only because of costs.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: We just got kind of priced out, but it's a beautiful camp and I wish I could still go.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, what we landed on is actually we rent a conference center, and I get together with three or four of our other campuses, and so that we have this critical mass to rent the whole camp out to ourselves.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you are not at a multi-site church, then you could talk to a few other camp or churches in your area, say, do you want to collaborate on renting out a facility?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you have some critical mass, some people, so you can have the whole thing to yourselves.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I some of our youth pastors at our church even have found some really cool like Airbnbs or VRBOs, where it's like a bunch of different houses on the same property.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like they'll do it for high school, like junior girls and senior girls in this house, senior boys and junior boys in this house, freshmen in this house.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like all in this one area.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then one of the houses will have some really cool backyard or common area.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they it like in Indio, there's like a lot of those kinds of places.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's weird.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, or out in the mountains, you know.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, based on your size, look around and see what would work best for you.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, we do a conference center and it is a camp, but we basically put the whole program on ourselves.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it they they provide the meals though, correct?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: They do.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So there's like a dining room with a full kitchen staff and me pre-scheduled meal times that you show up for, but we do everything else, you know, and that obviously they have the cabins and everything, but we put on the program and all of that.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're gonna do that type of camp, that's what I'm gonna describe of how to plan it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, no matter what winter retreat you're planning, some of these principles will maybe spark some creativity for you or be useful as you plan it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So your first planning phase would obviously be renting the space out.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you have that booked already.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we always like to find our speaker first.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we sit down, we brainstorm some names, and then we start getting to work because people have busy schedules.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't want to be last minute and have no camp speaker.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: I would recommend as the youth pastor, probably not being the camp speaker because you will be busy enough uh without having to engage like on a different level with your message.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And there's always fires to put out, always kids who need help, always someone who's sick or hurt or in a fight or something like that.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So find a speaker and find a worship leader.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: So do you have your date set prior to this?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the place has been booked, the dates have been sent out to parents.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you brought that up because as soon as you know the dates, send that out to your families, the parents.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I always keep it like as the staple at the bottom of my emails.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So every week, you know, when I copy and paste a new parent email, they're seeing winter camp 2026 dates, you know, all the time.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, the dates have gone out, the place has been booked, then you find your speaker and you start looking for a worship leader or, you know, someone who could kind of put together a band would be even cooler because I feel like camp worship has just potential to be pretty epic.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think kids' walls are really down, they're really ready.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: So finding the right person for that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then we like to come up with a theme.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you do high school ministry, I don't think this is as important, but with junior high, we always have an element of competition in every single thing we do.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: It keeps them engaged, it keeps them excited, and it gives them something to kind of rally around and be there for.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So last year we did, I mean, and our themes are really just funny and weird.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: We did the cereal bowl, and it was Captain Crunch versus Lucky Charms versus Frosted Flakes, and they got into it, you know, um, because the costumes were actually really cool.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: So once you kind of have your theme, you don't need to go any further with that.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Just know what it is, and then this is super important.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And my least favorite part of phase one planning is calculate your cost because two reasons I hate it.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Every year it seems to go up because everything's more expensive every year.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm a parent of a middle schooler, so I pay to go to my own camp.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm here, and I paid for a camper to come, which I hate.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, some things to remember when you're calculating your costs.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: What is the cost per camper according to the facility that you're using?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because they usually will have their own cost.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Transportation.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you're taking buses, obviously that's the cost.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you're taking private vehicles, I would just say you need to pay for the gas for those.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be a lot less than buses, which is nice.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then your leader cost.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes camps will give you a discount for adults and sometimes they won't.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to figure out how much it is gonna cost for me to bring adult leaders with me and see if the camp discounts them, and you need to figure out how to roll that into the cost of the student because the last thing you want to do is ask, hey Jeff, come to winter camp with us.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it'll only be$285.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, then no.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we always will take, okay, I'm gonna take 10 liters.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Each liter is gonna cost me$200.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that's$2,000.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, good job.
• 10:30
  unknown: Yes.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then you divide that by your projected cost of campers, and then you roll that into each kid.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So usually it's pretty low.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: It ends up being like$12 a kid or something.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the more kids, the more leaders you need, but it will kind of balance itself out.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk about that in a second.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then you want to pay your speaker.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So add in the speaker fee.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what if you if you go in-house, meaning like if you ask someone from your own church to come up and speak, maybe it's a different youth pastor or uh an executive pastor or your campus pastor.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, someone who's a good speaker on your team or whatever, I think the in-house rate is definitely cheaper than the some guy outhouse rate.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Outhouse rate.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just so keep that in mind.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then you want to put something together for a margin for game supplies.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna talk about program in a second.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, you might need to buy some things for the weekend, whether it's decor, whether it's game supplies, stuff like that.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then one really sneaky, sneaky cost.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you do online signups, you get charged a credit card percentage fee that if you don't roll that into the cost of the camper, uh, you will lose money.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now the 3%.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like Which never seems like a lot when you're making one purchase, but yeah, if you adds up with all those kids.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the bummer like we just prefer everyone pay online because otherwise you're like, well, I paid 3%, but I gave you a check.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And how does that work?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't, oh, okay, well, then the cost for you is only 279.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like it just is easier.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone sign up online, use a credit card, we roll in the 3%.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel like that has been one of the most common areas that our youth pastors have fallen short or been in the red because they forgot about the 3% credit card thing.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, once you've calculated your cost, you know what you're gonna charge students, make sure your camp contracts are done.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Don't just assume like you have some verbal agreement or handshake or something.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you have something in writing with the dates and your projected attendance on there for who whatever you're booking through.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then book your transportation.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So if it's a bus, obviously book that.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: If it's private individuals, make sure you have cleared it with them.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I would always have a backup for private individuals because so, so often people mean well, but they commit and back out last minute.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: It happens literally all the time.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are like tight and it's like, this is only gonna work if every single person doesn't get sick, doesn't have a family emergency, remembers, wants to.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's like very easy to say something like yes to something in October.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then February rolls around.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I can't do that.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it happens literally all the time.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Or like you were saying, there's the family emergency, someone got sick, just can't make it, can't do it.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not always their fault.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's their fault, but sometimes it's not.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's phase one.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any questions?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: No, I do not.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because I explained it so well.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, 100%.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or because you don't care.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit of both.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: A little bit of both.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Second planning phase, engage.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: This one's very important.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Find someone to set up and run your tech if you are doing your own camp.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the camp we go to, yes, it's a facility and they have a soundboard, but it's like they aren't providing anybody to run it.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we really actually bring up all of our own sound equipment, all of our own worship equipment, because ours is better than theirs.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it just like I don't think they're listening.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if they are, just so you know, our equipment's better.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um so there.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And someone to set it up and run it.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: So what we usually do is have that tech person go up earlier in the day and they bring a trailer full of all of the mics for worship, the amps, the soundboards, the lights that we're gonna be using, the laptop, everything that we're going to need, they bring up and start setting up.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so great to have someone who's just in charge of that.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: So when you get up there, you've got a hot mic ready to go, and everything's been tested and up and running.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you're more remote, then we do this at a campsite and we just bring generators and we do the whole shebang.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: We have power, lights, everything that we run off of a generator.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just make sure you turn it off during the day or it will run out of gas.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's happened to us before.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then start planning your program.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are the program is like, I feel like sometimes that's what takes up the most time.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: What are we gonna do?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we kind of follow a formula, and I'll share that quickly with you now.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, Friday, they get to the church, they check in, we load all their luggage on the bottom of the bus.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Luckily, and then we might bring another truck or trailer if we need to.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Once we make sure we have everyone's permission, slips, money, we head up the mountain, we get there, and then the cabin assignments are already on the doors.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Students go put their stuff in their cabins and then meet us for dinner.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: After dinner, we do our first program of the night.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the programs follow a formula, and they're usually always the same.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it starts with, you know, a couple of us MCing, getting everyone hyped and excited, and then we do a group game, like game, uh, like uh sorry, team competition.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I was telling you about the cereal bowls.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it'd be like the teams competing and then worship and then the message, and then they go back to their cabins for small group.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: After that, we invite them to come back into the main room and we do late night fun options.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we bring our gaga pit up.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: We bring last year we had like a cereal bar and like they could come and get any one of those flavors of cereal.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: We had glow in the dark nine square going, castle sports straps are already glow, so it's perfect.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: We had like a video game station set up.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Some sorry, some castle sports straps are glow.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, not all of them.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's the yellow and green, anyway, the like kind of floresy ones.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Total side note, but just letting it be known.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jeff.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then the best part of late night options is the snack shack.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the kids are ready to snack.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we set up a snack shack.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: We go to like Costco, Smart and Final, whatever, and buy tons of candy, soda, only a few chips because we noticed they mostly wanted just candy and soda, mostly Arizona iced teas, too.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: They would drink all of them.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just like this fun.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're selling stuff for like a dollar or two dollars, whatever it is, and we let them hang out till about 11 o'clock, and then they go back to their cabin and go to bed wake now.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how much we try to do, lights out, the boys take their mattresses off the beds and wrestle until two in the morning, and it's a tradition.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way around it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: So then the next morning we I hate this, but they used to want to do like a leader meeting before breakfast.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, this is horrible.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Our leaders just got no sleep.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and now we're asking them meet us here at 7 a.m.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we moved our leader meeting to after breakfast, which is so much better.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we have breakfast and then the students come in for the morning program, and it's basically the same thing, it's just different people leading it now, a different game.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Speaker does message number two.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: We know we do worship, all of that.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then they go and do solo time.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a difference.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: They don't do small groups, we write small our solo time for them to engage with the Bible on their own.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So they're supposed to go to like a quiet spot on their own.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: We give them about 30 minutes and we give them a sh, like they get a booklet the first night where it has like the camp schedule and the solo time questions in it.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: So if they have their booklet, the questions are there, and they get some time just to pray and process on their own.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then we might do something fun before free time, like a color war or something like that.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then field competition.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that's when all three teams come together and we play games down on the field like dodgeball, like I said, color war, some earth ball type games, flag tag, kajabi can can anything like that.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: It is worth pointing out at this point in this episode that we live in Southern California and the chances of snow.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, sorry.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty low.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, maybe one out of six or seven.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Did I really just walk right into that?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Six or seven camps.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, Jeff.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: What a fool.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's about that's about how often you guys actually get snow.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do, it's usually like a light dusting.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: So this is gonna be different, probably depending on where you're at.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have a flooding competition, a tubing competition, you know, something like that.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you guys did do the color powder war one time when there was snow.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it was beautiful because it was like this white background with all these like bright colors.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was beautiful.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, play snow games.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever snow people do.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Snow people.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: They'll have a snowman contest, obviously.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, actually, sounds really fun.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: So then we go to free time, and that's when there's a bunch of different options available through the camp.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: So they have like a zipline, they have archery, they have paintball, um, stuff like that.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the kids get to do that all afternoon up until dinner.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Then we have dinner, and then it's the same kind of thing program, some kind of hype team competition in our auditorium, chapel area, then worship, then the message, then small groups, then late night options again.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: We could change it up a little bit and do like a fun.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: It even though it is Southern California, the it does get cold at night up there.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we've tried to do some outdoor late night games and it was just getting too cold.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you could just do a repeat of the night before.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you add in something a little extra special, like the first night we didn't have cereal, the second night we did, you know, something like that.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or I I've just noticed with students sometimes watching a movie just turns into like popcorn throwing all over the place.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: We did that one year and it was the worst.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was in that auditorium till the wee hours of the morning cleaning up popcorn.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was awful.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next morning, um, yeah, the next morning we basically just have breakfast and then our last program announced the winner, and we have some kind of prize for the winner, like a sticker, a commemorative sticker, you know, winter camp 2026 with the like one year we did it was holidays were the teams, so it was like Santa Claus wearing a Santa Claus.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Santa Claus.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: What did I say?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Santa Claus.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Santa Claus.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and he was wearing like an American flag outfit because that was for 4th of July, and he was riding on a shark.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why the shark.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then he had like For National Shark Day.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's something about like a leprechaun in there, and like they got a sticker of that, like this just silly made up thing.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then we do church debrief, meaning, like, since we've all been together all weekend, we break up into our specific campuses, we talk to just our students, let them kind of share as a large group, like, hey, what did you guys learn?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how was camp?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: What did you like?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this was a time for them to speak up of like how God moved, maybe their favorite memory of the weekend.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Then we load up on the bus and go home.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of it in a nutshell.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing you want to make sure in this phase of planning that you're thinking through who is going to capture this weekend for you.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: So at that point, we would start thinking about do we have a photographer?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do we have someone taking video?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's really cool to have some footage for promotion for the following year.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: If parents are like, where do you guys go?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: What does it look like?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we just put it on YouTube, send them the link, and having pictures available on our website and Instagram for parents to see, you know, stuff like that.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's sort of phase two.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: One more thing in phase two.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you want to start thinking about graphics as well and flyers.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're going to have flyers in your room for students to take, I would highly recommend that because when a new family comes in, you can say, Oh yeah, and we're going to a winter camp.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you can hand them a flyer, preferably with a QR code for them to sign up through QR, which is really nice.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: If if you can't do QR, then at least like the name of the website where they can sign up and you know, your information in case they get stuck or have questions.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you want to create or have someone create a logo for the weekend, you know, we did the cereal bowl and it was obviously a bowl of cereal, and it was really cute.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it served as our banner for online signups.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was some images that we could use on Instagram, images that we could use on our announcement slides when we're doing it live, and images that we could put on the flyers that we have hard copies of in the room to give to people, which is really nice because then they can give it to friends as well if their friends want to go.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's phase two.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, now phase three.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Good, Jeff.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're really paying attention.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: I picked up on that.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was like one, two, and then I'm like, phase three.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Three.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so here we go.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're getting really close.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd want to start thinking of who I can send up early, not you.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because you need to stay with your group.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: What if there's an emergency?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: So a group you can send up early to start setting up things.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: We already talked about setting up tech early, but what about setting up decor early?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: So last year we had, you know, all the logos for frosted flakes and lucky charms and you know, serial stuff and pictures and banners, you know, because we were trying to make the place kind of festive and fun.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: So when the students come in, they're already excited visually.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not just like, oh, chairs in a room with a screen, you know, like put a little money in your budget to kind of make the place themed and hype for the weekend.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that it's amazing how much energy that can produce.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna be tough to do that yourself.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Send someone up ahead of time uh to get that done if you're doing this kind of uh camp.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: You wanna make sure.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's like just making sure you have that, and then begin your signups.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: So get you know your online signups going or whichever method you want to do that, make sure you're getting the word out to promote that your signups are live, whether that's live announcements, putting that in your parent email, putting it on Instagram.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you're smaller, why not even do a mailer?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you're only sending it to 30 kids or something like or less, great, put it in the mail.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then another really hard thing, divide your teams if you are doing the team competition.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you look at all your signups and you start putting people on teams.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: You have your team captains, which would be leaders.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: So one of our leaders dressed up like as Captain Crunch last year, we had Lucky and we had the tiger from Frosted Flakes, and then we had other leaders on the team as well.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to make sure when planning for leaders that you have correct ratios.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: So ratios for students to adults.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: So in California, actually, legally it's one to 10, but you want to check with the camp or the facility that you're using and see if they have a different requirement.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because it really does vary state to state.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, in Texas, the legal ratio is one to 25.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, wow, Texas kids are more well behaved, probably.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because that seems like way too many like adult or kids per kids, you'd have four leaders.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: It would be mutiny.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever you're comfortable with, I'm just saying there is a legal parameter.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: However, you do whatever's comfortable for you.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Just make sure, you know, you can pay for all the leaders.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we get way too many leaders.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh shoot, now we didn't charge the kids enough, you know.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So then you want to do your cabin assignments or room assignments.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's just very helpful that it not be a free-for-all, that you put people where they belong, obviously by gender, but also it's like small group.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like we try to put small groups together as much as possible.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why it's great to have a two-leader system because if the room doesn't house everyone in that small group, then you can take that leader and they can another leader, they can go into another room.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they can do come into the other room and do things together.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: But at least it's not like, oh, I'm just with this random group of girls I don't know at all.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, and then again, confirm your transportation.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's very important because, like I said, things change over the months.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you're going with a professional company, make sure I've been let down by professional companies and by, you know, private individuals.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure you're confirming transportation all the time.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then you want to make sure you've written your content for your small groups and solo time.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I said, on Friday and Saturday night when your students go to small group time, and then on Saturday morning when they have solo time, make sure that's all in their booklet for them.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: And in that booklet, like this is such a great thing to just hand out.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: You want to just maybe put the camp rules, the camp schedule, solo time, and then some blank pages for notes.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can put the camp logo on the front and hand it to students.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Always keep tons of extras.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because they lose them all the time.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, I've seen camps do like points, you know, for that.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you bring your Bible in your booklet, you know, you get a point for that or something to give incentive.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Force home used to do that a lot, um, which makes a ton of sense.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so when it's that's phase three, but then some more tips for when it's actually go time.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you want to prep your leaders and your staff that are going, like cast the vision for the weekend, have a leader meeting prior to camp on the schedule.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: on the procedures, on the vision, on your expectations for what is a leader supposed to do at this camp.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then I some years I haven't been perfect at this every year, but I do like to bring little gifts for all the leaders that do go and leave it on their bed like on Friday night or something, kind of sneak in their room and like put it like just a treat, an encouraging note, maybe a pair of cozy socks or Tylenol or something on their bed just to say, I see you.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for coming, all of that.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, those elements usually make for a really good weekend.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously obviously things happen that are outside of our control, but that is sort of if I could bottle winter camp planning and give it to you as a little free item, that's what I would do.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think winter camp is not quite as popular in most places as summer camp, but put in the comment section below if winter camp is something that you do in the area you're in and actually put the area you're in because it'd be interesting to know how many of you who are in colder winter climates actually will do a winter camp.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that weather can really change a lot of planning and aspects well and our our campuses that would go, because it's just because we're at such a low elevation, California gets a ton of snow.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: So our high school ministry, you know, they go up to Big Bear or something like that.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's all snow.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So what they would do is they and I went to a college winter retreat with a ton of snow.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you could choose to get lift tickets to go snowboarding or skiing or like if you weren't doing that there was another group that would go to the tube runs, you know, and that was free time.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then but all the program elements can stay the same.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was just sort of like that free time and team competition what does that look like?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where you would have to adjust.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah if you're in a snowy climate lift tickets you know people can buy those on their own and you would just have to coordinate the transportation for that.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: But that was really fun.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friend I just wanted to interrupt this episode for a second to let you know about an awesome opportunity for you and your youth ministry.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: So last year we launched our course and coaching program called Youth Ministry Growth Accelerator and the response has been amazing.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we've helped tons of youth pastors grow the size and health of their youth ministry and we want to invite you to be a part of that as well because maybe you're just sort of feeling stuck in a rut, maybe you don't know what to do next.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you just have a vague plan in your mind of what you're doing and you want some real help to get you from where you are to where you want to go.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if that sounds like something you've been looking for go to growyouryoutministry dot com and check it out for more details.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: All right let's get back to the episode.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you guys are looking for some games for indoor like some upfront games we have an episode all about that so make sure you guys check that out.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: All right let's can I give them a game real quick?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: If I what if I said no I'm like can you imagine that I'm like no moving on.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Guys okay it's almost Halloween I can't do a whole episode on just this game because it would be too short.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: But we played it this morning I play it every year and it's so fun.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: So easy barely any prep it's called Ghost Cup Stack Tournament.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we have these white coffee cups that we just draw like spooky little eyes on and they're like the cardboard kind of like to go mug things.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Cups um not mugs.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have handles cups yeah so you bring a table up on the stage like one of those just regular pop-out six foot plastic tables and you bring two people up and you give them each ten ghost cups and they have to you say three two one ghost nice have fun playing that you guys no wait I'm not done and then they stack you know four then three then two then one and then they have to let their hand go to show it stands just for a second and then they put it all back together in one nice neat stack.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you win you stay and you get a piece of candy per round that you stay if you lose you leave and we get a new challenger.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just head to head there's not like multiple people playing at once yeah it's just head to head and everyone's watching and it was so cool because they were always trying to beat each other's like how many rounds they could win and so Saturday night service like the top one was three.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sunday first service this girl won 14 rounds that's and that just shows you how many kids you get to play because the it's such a quick game and so she won 14 pieces of candy and she even beat the leaders it was so fun and then we played kind of fun Halloween music like thriller and this is a winter camp episode though.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah but it's in October and I was thinking today oh my gosh just make it Christmas tree stack.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: There you go it could work for anything yeah so anyways enjoy that game it was so fun and I thought icebreaker look at all this with just 20 cups and a table the kids are going crazy and they didn't want to stop and they were like trying to get on the stage and they were like just I mean they were rioting because they wanted another chance you know to try again oh it was it was high energy so fun.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's a freebie freebie okay this is a community comment of the day this comes from SPL youth who says oh and this is from the episode we did on the full tour of the youth group night um around the church says I really appreciate seeing your space and some of the tips and tricks that you use for youth group I especially appreciate your welcome table that includes mailbox for payment drops as I am always having kids hand items to me during events and trying not to lose them.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that is exactly how that was born I was like they just keep handing me.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: There you go there's that and I'm like wait I have to be on stage in like 30 seconds where do I put this and then I would set it down and then the mom would be like well we turned on it we turned it in and I'm like of course you did but where did I put it so now I never take it out of a kid's hand I just say put in the mailbox put it in the mailbox put it in the mailbox you say it twice or three times probably eight kind of like a parrot.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways I thought that was funny uh thank you SPL youth we appreciate that and thank you guys for watching and listening hope you got a lot of good tips for this winter camp special episode and we'll see you next time today we're gonna give you the ultimate guide for hosting a winter retreat plus stick around for the end for a special free today we're talking today we're giving you the ultimate guide for leading this is the number one reason why you thus why can't you do it?