Things Youth Pastors Should Stop Wasting Time On: Retreat Booklets

The first retreat I ever led was about authentic relationships. I spent HOURS prepping every aspect of this retreat – including hours on a retreat booklet for participants. The retreat booklet contained cartoons, quotes, the Bible passages we were using, and journaling prompts.

For the next six years in youth ministry, I produced similar booklets for every retreat I led.

I thought that's what youth pastors did. For something to be considered a retreat, I was convinced it had to have a corresponding booklet that teens could take home, treasure, and keep as a remembrance.

Eventually, I started noticing that when I'd do my final cabin walk-through to make sure no one had forgotten anything, I'd find a stack of retreat booklets in the trash.

Apparently, my teens didn't treasure them quite as much as I did.

I brushed it off, thinking that if even one teen looked at the retreat booklet again, the time and effort I'd spent making it was worth it.

But then I started noticing the volume of retreat booklets I'd find in the vans after we returned home, discarded and forgotten.

Once, a teen even asked me why I “wasted so much paper” creating such “silly booklets”. She accused me of hating the environment and then said, “It's not like anyone ever looks at these again.”

That's when I vowed never to create another retreat booklet.

In the seven years since, I haven't. And you know what?

No one has missed them.

Don't believe me?

Try it and see.

To be clear, I'm not opposed to giving teens a spiritual souvenir from their retreat. I just think we should utilize ones that don't take us hours to prepare.

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