Come away with me
“He said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while’” (Mark 6:31).
Planning retreats is at the heart of my ministry. I love everything about them—from designing them to leading them. Having a front-row seat to what the Holy Spirit is doing is truly a gift.
Retreats can be designed for almost any age or setting, but my specialty is middle and high school retreats in Catholic schools and parishes. Over the years, I have learned that while every retreat looks different, there are a few principles that consistently help us create an environment where young people can step away from their ordinary routines and encounter Jesus.
Begin with Prayer
Always begin with prayer.
Before choosing a theme, designing a T-shirt, ordering supplies, or planning activities, pray about the needs of the people who will be on the retreat.
What do they need right now? Where are they struggling? Where might God already be working?
Brainstorm the thoughts that come to you in prayer. If you have a retreat team, invite them into this process. Pray together or ask team members to pray individually and bring what they receive to your first planning meeting.
This is also the time to pray about who should be involved. Who will help lead? Who should give the talks? Who has the gifts needed to lead prayer or small groups? Teachers, coaches, youth ministers, and others who regularly interact with the retreatants can also offer valuable insight into the needs of the group.
Practically speaking, begin planning at least six months ahead, especially if you need to reserve a retreat location. Check school, athletic, parish, and diocesan calendars before choosing a date. Once the date is established, begin discerning a theme. A Scripture verse, saint quote, or even one powerful word or phrase can provide a thread that ties the entire retreat together.
But remember: the theme serves the retreatants—not the other way around.
Meet Them Where They Are
One of the most important questions we can ask when planning a retreat is: Where are these young people in their relationship with God?
Sherry Weddell's Forming Intentional Disciples describes five thresholds along the journey toward discipleship: initial trust, spiritual curiosity, spiritual openness, spiritual seeking, and intentional discipleship. Understanding these thresholds can be incredibly helpful when planning retreats.
A student in the initial trust stage may need relationship-building, games, laughter, and opportunities simply to experience the Church as a welcoming place. A young person who is spiritually seeking may be ready to pray deeply with Scripture, spend time in Adoration, or wrestle with questions about God's call for his or her life.
We cannot assume that everyone on a Catholic school or parish retreat is in the same place spiritually.
Meet them where they are, and gently invite them to take the next step.
Give the Retreat a Simple Structure
Most of the retreats I lead are either day retreats or overnight retreats. For a day retreat, I typically divide the day into four main sessions, with lunch after the second session.
Within each session, I use a structure I learned through my years in parish youth ministry with Life Teen and Edge: Gather, Proclaim, Break, Send.
Gather: Welcome retreatants into the session through a game, icebreaker, skit, video, or other engaging activity.
Proclaim: Share the main message. Keep talks focused and relatively short—usually about 15–20 minutes.
Break: Give retreatants time to process what they have heard. This might happen through small-group discussion, journaling, personal reflection, or prayer.
Do not skip this part!
We can be tempted to fill every minute of a retreat with content, but young people need time to process. Sometimes the most important part of a retreat happens after the talk, when a student finally has the opportunity to say, “This is what I am thinking,” or “This is what I am struggling with.”
Send: Bring the session to a close through prayer, a song, a takeaway challenge, or a brief large-group discussion.
The order can change when needed. The structure is a tool, not a formula. It simply helps make sure we are doing more than talking at young people—we are inviting them to participate.
Keep the Kerygma at the Center
For middle school retreats, I have found it especially helpful to focus on the basic Gospel message—the kerygma.
Fr. John Riccardo's The Rescue Project summarizes the kerygma using four words: Created, Captured, Rescued, Response. These four movements provide a simple framework for walking young people through the story of salvation.
One middle school retreat I have used was called EnCOMPASSed by God, based on Proverbs 3:5–6:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own intelligence. In all your ways, be mindful of Him, and He will make straight your path.”
The four sessions followed the movement of the kerygma:
Created: We were created in relationship with God.
Captured: Sin and the pressures of the world pull us away from the person God created us to be.
Rescued: Jesus enters our brokenness and calls us to something greater.
Response: Each of us must decide how we will respond to what Jesus has done for us.
The retreat environment reflected the Garden of Eden, with plants, trees, and greenery transforming the retreat space. The decorations were fun, but they also helped tell the story.
Go Deeper with Older Students
With high school students, we can begin moving toward questions of spiritual openness, seeking, and intentional discipleship.
One retreat I have used for ninth- and tenth-grade students was called Seeking Discipleship. It used the same Proverbs 3:5–6 Scripture verse but approached it through questions teenagers are already asking:
What is love? What is happiness? What is the purpose of life? What is the point of the Church?
The retreat environment included a large Google search bar, and teachers and students answered these questions in short videos that introduced the sessions.
The four sessions became:
Finding Love: God is the origin and destination of the deepest desires of the human heart.
Finding Happiness: Sin offers an illusion of happiness, while true happiness is found in God's love and redemption through Jesus.
Finding Community: We need the Church, established by Christ as His Body, to sustain our faith and draw us together in Him.
Finding Me: Our gifts and talents are connected to our purpose, mission, and call to follow Jesus.
The environment and activities changed, but the goal remained the same: meet young people where they are and lead them toward Jesus.
Leave Room for the Holy Spirit
Perhaps the most important lesson I have learned from planning retreats is that we can plan everything—but we cannot plan what God will do. We can choose the perfect theme. We can write beautiful talks, organize small groups, decorate the room, prepare music, and make a detailed schedule.
And then we have to leave room for the Holy Spirit.
Build silence into the schedule. Allow conversations to run a little longer when something important is happening. Give young people opportunities for Confession, Adoration, Scripture, and personal prayer whenever possible. Do not be afraid of moments that aren't perfectly programmed. Sometimes the moment we didn't plan becomes the moment a young person remembers.
Our job as catechists is not to manufacture an emotional experience. It is to prayerfully create the conditions for encounter and then trust that Jesus desires to meet our young people even more than we desire for them to meet Him.
Begin in prayer. Know your retreatants. Keep the Gospel at the center. Create opportunities for relationship, reflection, and prayer. Then give God room to work. After all, the retreat belongs to Him.
