July 15, 2003
FSM 381 CM/FM January 2002
Special Action FSM #15
National and Regional Retreats
By Tommy, São Paulo, Brazil
The national retreats for friends, contacts, and Active members have become a major tradition here in Brazil, strengthening the follow-up work both on a local and national level. Brethren visiting from other countries have testified that at first it can be bit overwhelming; any event with 500 or even 50 participants over a period of four days is, until you get some experience! Here’s a bird’s eye view of how this phenomenon started and has developed. We will attempt to break this large event down into digestible little pieces, so you can see for yourself what it entails, and maybe take the plunge and organize your own.
Our retreat clientele has grown from 75 in 1996 to nearly 600 in 2001! This has been a gradual but steady growth rate of about 45% yearly! It was new for all of us, but I think the main thing that has kept us going and growing all these years—and the obstacles haven’t been few—has been the fruits! We have seen that the investment each year has definitely been worth it, as the Lord seems to outdo Himself year after year, until the recent climax of having King Peter himself with some WS staffers here with us for the last retreat!
Here is a list of what a retreat can offer:
* An opportunity to bring new sheep to the fold and see the expanded Family at its best.
* An opportunity to have personal time with the sheep that you bring, as you literally live with them for a few days under one roof.
* Increased spiritual growth of the sheep, as they get a high Word intake, and at the same time a clearer overall vision designed specifically for them. This helps the brethren, as their sheep are so happy. Happy sheep, happy shepherd!
* An opportunity for the sheep to have dramatic personal breakthroughs in their spiritual lives. Every year we have an optional prayer of deliverance. Doing it with experienced shepherds who are prepared for this task creates an atmosphere of confidence. The sheep are often more willing to open their hearts to the Lord and get major deliverances over bitterness, anger, pride, and other spiritual problems when the Spirit is hot and heavy, as it is at the national retreat. Also, their sense of shame back at home often inhibits them from confessing to their local shepherd or before the local sheep, but at the large retreat away from their usual surroundings and where more people are doing it, it seems easier. Some have commented that people grow in three days at a national retreat as much as it would have taken six months or a year to grow on the local front with weekly Bible classes and our other activities.
* A time for us all (CM, FM, AM, young and old, shepherds and sheep) to get away from it all and refresh our minds and spirits. It’s a time for renewal of purpose and vision, for rekindling of enthusiasm, for learning, for making new friends and contacts, and for growing.
* An opportunity for those who have struck gold in a certain ministry or have a lot of experience (be it follow-up, CTP, support, opening a Church of Love, leadership training, or planning) to have a platform to share the know in the various practical workshops held each year. Everyone wins!
* A sense of belonging is passed on. For example, King Peter’s address to the Active members this year gave them clear citizenship as legitimate Family citizens. (Editor’s note: More on the Family membership of Active members in an upcoming GN!)
* Unity of sheep and Homes around the Activated vision and the era of action.
* Recognition of the fruits of the era of action and the strengthening of the Activated vision.
* Exposure to new ideas and how follow-up is done in other cities and regions.
* A local post-retreat growth burst. This has been a consequence of the national retreat, as most Homes report that their groups doubled in numerical terms within one month after returning from the retreat. Their sheep were simply so inspired and full of the vision, they started a witnessing explosion in their areas. Enthusiasm, inspiration, and a re-filling of the Spirit breed a witnessing explosion!
* A witnessing explosion right happens in the city where the hotel is located. The Lord has used this day of Pentecost to open doors for the work to get established in smaller cities where we don’t have Homes. Activated hits full force with subscriptions and groups opening, where this normally would not have happened.
Here is a simple list of fruits specifically from the national retreats:
* An opportunity for the shepherds to get together and discuss the victories and problems and help each other.
* An opportunity for local situations to get aired, at least through prayer and fellowship, and also through counseling if there’s time. Often just the exposure to the body is a solution in itself, as many get isolated and inward-focused in their local situations, tending to strain at gnats and swallow camels, getting critical and picky, etc. At the national retreat, you can sit back and see the big picture, which helps tremendously to get things into perspective.
* An opportunity to experience unity and integration between the generations. It’s amazing how the national retreats have brought together FGAs and SGAs. As we behold the fields white unto harvest, it seems the differences and difficulties become trivial.
* The dissolving of class barriers. As Ahlai from Mexico observed, It’s just ‘OBHF’! (One big happy Family, ha!)
* Friendships and partnerships are formed or renewed between those of like minds, ministries, needs, and vision. For example, what started out as a regional initiative among friends has now become an informal board with a lot of responsibility and has grown into an evangelistic road team that helps the different cities set up their local follow-up works and, if possible, get them to the consolidation stage.
* Strengthening belief in the Family’s future and ministry, as our potential is seen collectively. The power of the Lord’s Spirit in these events is overwhelming, and everyone there testifies to this impact for months afterwards. It is a powerful confirmation of everything the Lord is showing to our shepherds Mama and Peter regarding the era of action and how our place and ministry in the Endtime is anything but fantasy! It’s right there before everyone’s eyes and causes profound reflection on everyone’s part as to what the future holds for us as a Family and for our Active members.
Suffice it to say, we feel that the sacrifice and work involved continues to be worth it.
Together We Can Make It Happen!
However, there is quite a high price for these good fruits to be produced—and it all starts with the formation of the committee, or as we now call it, the board. We firmly believe that the new board vision is the Lord’s foresight to accommodate the growth and expansion He is sending our way. In our case, He used our friendships to get the ball rolling, in an era when most everyone was discovering their own ministry and level of faith. Here is a description of a few of us who had worked for years together here in follow-up and media, were friends, and acted as a team to put together the first national retreat:
Jeremias: VS, Brazilian national with a lot of experience as our national media spokesman. At the time he lived in Brasilia, where he had a lot of contact with the follow-up ministry and the brethren directly involved with it.
Faith: formerly known as Tabita, Brazilian, former mate of Tiago, and one of the original pioneers of Brazil. She, along with Jose, Maria Provisioner, Davi, and others have worked with many veteran Active members from Rio over the years. At the time all four of them lived together, then later separated into four Homes in the Rio area, each one with a group of Active members out of the original group.
Tommy and Juan: In São Paulo we started a Discipleship Group with Active members in early 1996, as was described in former testimonies. We later coordinated the first three national retreats.
None of us will forget the first small retreat that was held in the country house of an Active member disciple back in 1994. It occurred as life was starting to head back to normal in Brazil, after the Argentine persecution died down, during which many had been involved in helping and in receiving our dear Argentine Family members after the battle of ’93. At that time, our old São Paulo Media Team and the Rio Ministry Home were still somewhat intact and Jere was just starting a media work in Brasilia.
The basic trust and friendship we shared allowed us to relax when our sheep would get together, and one thing led to another. This created an atmosphere of love and friendship, a social circle that sheep could feel comfortable in and could join into. Though we lived in different cities spread out over quite a large area (southern and central Brazil is huge!), we kept in touch and invited one another to the various events that happened in the Rio-São Paulo-Brasilia circuit.
At one of these events (a Christmas benefit with the teen show group in São Paulo) in 1995, we toyed with the idea of holding a large retreat for all the sheep of the central and southern Brazil area. We were under the inspiration of the moment, after just having held a large benefit dinner with 200 sheep and friends, and seeing the good fruits in the sheep, we thought, Why not? It was kind of like saying, Let’s gather the tribes together and see what happens! Kind of like Woodstock! (As you’ll notice, Woodstock only happened once! Ha! Well, they did attempt one repeat decades later, but it wasn’t like that first one, and our having successful retreats year after year is a testimony to how the Lord’s helped us pull it off!)
It must be remembered that our core group of follow-up folks have been friends over a long period of time, and although we may have had a few disagreements along the way, we basically know and trust one another. This chemistry has definitely helped to smooth over the rough times and difficult decisions. Each of us has felt free to speak up if we felt something was being forgotten, not emphasized enough, poorly represented, etc. Although it is difficult to make everyone happy, when there have been problems we have been able to work things out, forgive one another, get up, and do it with the Lord’s help one more time.
One of the basic ingredients to our team working fairly well together over the years is our common burden to see our sheep grow and become fruitful co-laborers along with us. Just seeing our sheep become disciples and Family members through greater exposure to the expanded Family has led each of us to share our sheep in a common pot atmosphere, even encouraging new friendships and partnerships to form. As long as we are in counsel as to changes, suggestions, sheep getting in touch with one another, and similar situations, things have gone well amongst us.
From the editors:
Creating a circle of love and fellowship that we can draw sheep into may be easier to do with Family members who we are already friends with. However, many of you have changed Homes or fields, and may not be close to those in your new location. Others may be battling long-standing problems in getting along with people in your area. Any obstacles to an atmosphere of love and affection between us are not too great for the Lord to overcome. As we learned through the prophecies in the recent GN [The Dangers of Division! Conviction versus Compromise, Part 2, ML #3362, GN958], it is of utmost importance that we forge ties of unity and deep love for one another. Being able to have fun together and share His love in happiness and friendliness is important not only for our own well-being, but to create a feeling and experience of the Lord’s love that others will want to join in on.
So if you are not presently working with your fellow Family members in an atmosphere of friendship and obvious love for one another, please ask the Lord to give you this kind of love. The sheep need to see it and it can be a real drawing card. As people see how we enjoy being with each other, and they realize it’s the Lord’s love that binds us together despite our various backgrounds and despite any difficulties that arise, this is a wonderful testimony.
Have fun together and enjoy one another, for the Lord’s sake, your sake, and the sake of the sheep who the Lord wants to bring close to us and make a part of our Family fellowship. As John wrote in 1John chapter 1: That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full (I John 1:3-4 KJV).
The Lord showed us to launch the discipleship challenge in March of 1996 at our first national retreat (as we shared in the testimonies in FSMs 362 and 363). Here is a year-by-year summary of the national retreats from then until now:
1996: Discipleship—A New Challenge for Live-outs
Held in a tourist town three hours to the northeast of São Paulo, this retreat was attended by 75 people from the cities of Rio, São Paulo, Brasilia, and Curitiba. It was an experiment that came about after several small local retreats had been held successfully in the Rio and São Paulo areas. Those early baby steps were keys to later taking the bigger step of a national retreat.
The Lord led us to divide up the teaching of the classes among those with the gift, burden, and experience, and to have good representation from the various cities. Our first planning meeting was actually about as informal as you can get, held in a restaurant next to the bus station with just four of us. It lasted only three hours, but such small beginnings are probably where you’ll start, too!
The Lord miraculously supplied a beautiful country hotel about three hours away in a small resort city. In Brazil there is a four-day holiday every June, the only long weekend of the winter. This timetable allows a full day for travel back and forth before and after, as well as two and a half days of classes, and has become the traditional date of the national retreat. Once we held the first one, the Lord did the rest every year, as there was a good list of satisfied customers.
Main classes:
Following are the classes we gave at this first retreat, which were based on the subject it seemed the Lord wanted to focus on first—discipleship.
1. So You Want to Be a Leader?—The difference between a member (someone who is following, but from afar) and a disciple. This was illustrated with various hilarious skits depicting the need to be faithful first in that which is least before having a big showy ministry—learning to serve tables first, then gradually growing into spiritual responsibilities.
2. Discipleship: If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them (John 13:17). This was an encouragement for the live-outs to participate more actively, based on James 2:26, Faith without works [action] is dead. They were challenged to help the Family more actively as our support team, in the style of the Early Church.
3. Why discipleship?—The challenge to become a live-out disciple, and later start small groups of believers with a vision to grow as a church. The vision for multiplication was based on our experience in May of ’96, when our Discipleship Group invited their friends and sheep to a dinner where we presented them with the vision to join a Bible study group, and we had our first multiplication explosion. Since then we have done a few more of these harvest events and they have all brought about gradual growth.
The vision to multiply is important to get across right from the beginning, as otherwise things tend to cool down when people go back to business as usual after the excitement of the retreat dies down. Clear and simple strategies for growth and expansion are thus good to suggest and teach at the national retreats. But the first step for us was to form a solid core of disciples, and then secondly to determine what was to be expected of them.
4. Open forum with questions, testimonies, proposals, and goals. This resulted in the production of an Active member news bulletin, future retreats, partnerships in various projects, discipleship materials, etc.
Nighttime activities:
Our nighttime activities were the following (and we have followed this pattern every year):
1st night: Welcome, keynote, and credits to those who helped make the event possible (60 minutes).
2nd night: Talent and testimony night (two hours). This night has become quite a tradition where the different musicians (CM, FM, AM) and groups from each city can make contributions (new CDs, new skits, even cute rap songs they come up with, etc.).
3rd night: Dance and game night (three to four hours). This is the grand finale where we celebrate the victory. Lately we have had a time of Loving Jesus songs, then break into gypsy songs, and then have a variety dance night (FTTs and Latin music, finally slow).
The fruits of this first retreat were historic. Besides the explosion of inspiration and fellowship on an unprecedented level, there was a clear vision for the future. At this retreat we officially offered our friends and contacts the challenge to become disciples, and shared that the Lord saw them as the future pillars of the work, in fulfillment of the prophecies the Lord gave about the work in 1996, The Year of Consolidating Our Gains.
Our Active members could see they were now insiders and therefore trusted. To this day, the Active members who attended this first national retreat refer to it as the falling of the Berlin wall—when for the first time they were considered disciples and partners in the work, even if they weren’t living in our Homes.
In short, they could now see their future in the Family, that they would have a clear and key role to play from then on, which would allow them greater growth and also greater responsibility.
1997 - The Lord’s Commission to You
The theme of this national retreat was the same as that of the Family Feast of the year. It was held in a different hotel in the same city and 110 attended.
Main classes:
The main focuses of the retreat were the following:
1. Loving Jesus. This was presented in a pretty DFO way, to prevent blowing away those who were brand new. In explaining this, we have used the expression intimacy with Jesus, which has gone over well. We use music, even just playing tapes of loving Jesus songs, in order to transmit the spirit of this concept. People love this side of us, but it does take a bit of prayer in order to go as far as you can with the concept of intimacy, without getting too descriptive.
2. Gifts of the Spirit. Prophecy was highlighted in this class. If we were to do it today, we would probably use the Get Activated booklets God’s Gifts (the part on the gifts of the Spirit is excellent!) and Hearing from Heaven on prophecy, as they are simple, clear, and, above all, anointed!
We asked the retreat attendees to fill out a brief self-evaluation form to help them discover their gifts, talents, burdens, experience, and heart for people. This form helps motivate them to not only exercise their newly acquired gifts for themselves and their own personal situations, but also for others and for the good of the overall work. We explain that it’s a responsibility to have these gifts, and that we are accountable before the Lord as to how we use them.
3. Inner Healing (Keys to Victory). We have seen that many of our sheep have serious NWOs that can be strengthened through a course for spiritual growth, which we have called inner healing. It deals with deliverance from deep-rooted bad habits, vices, bitterness, and other negative attitudes. Since most people in the System are very active in the physical, they often don’t realize how lethargic they have been spiritually, and how much negativity they have harbored that will come out eventually in their personal relationships if not addressed and forsaken. We use the simple three-step process Peter laid down in How to Recognize and Get Rid of Bitterness (ML #3170, Vol.24). (See FSM 363 for more details on this Inner Healing course.)
4. Effective Witnessing. This was a dynamic class, full of skits done by the Active members themselves about real-life witnessing situations, closing with a heartfelt prayer for our hearts to be touched with deep love and empathy for the Lord’s sheep, and a powerful prayer of deliverance from the spirit of lethargy and self-satisfaction.
5. Our Family Structure. It is vital for our sheep and Active members to have a very good idea of who we are, how we started, what we believe, our methods, and our structure. Sharing this information gives the Active members a sense of stability and of our openness that has made this class an institution at every national retreat. The use of a multimedia projector allows a beautiful presentation with pictures of works around the world, of local CTP projects, of Dad and the early days, graphs of progress with Activated subscriptions and growth of the church, etc. Through this class we try to establish for our new Active members a connection with our roots, profile, and leadership. This class fully communicates the vision and direction of the greater Family, something which isn’t always so easy to communicate locally. (The PR brochure is an excellent tool which can be downloaded from the GP Web site and used to explain the greater Family.)
6. The Endtime Race. This was a fast-paced class and update on the signs of the times, with a simple demonstration as to how the Active members themselves can circulate our powerful Endtime videos Countdown to Armageddon, Millennium Dawn, The Final Stand, etc. (We continue to encourage our Active members to use these highly credible tools, especially in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in the U.S.) This Endtime class has also become a yearly tradition as we get closer to the End. Each year, it seems the Lord uses the world-shaking current events to increase our credibility as the Lord’s Endtime prophets.
Workshops:
There were also several practical workshops held on the last day—short meetings that weren’t for everybody, but specifically for those interested in these particular topics.
1. Witnessing. This was a dynamic show and tell class conducted by some Active members themselves, with the coordination of their local shepherd (David). (At this time the national retreats were geared to giving more training to our Active members—they weren’t GP-oriented as they are now.) Most of the 75 minutes consisted of scenes of typical witnessing opportunities and how they were either seized or missed. There was a brief powwow at the end of each skit, to determine what went right or wrong.
One of the frustrations of many Active members is the fact that many of their old friends and relatives aren’t necessarily receptive to their witness, at least at first, so they need to gain confidence in their ability to be an effective witness through every means necessary. It is important to be sure they are filled with the Holy Spirit, as this is the key to success in personal witnessing.
We often have them write out lists of friends and acquaintances they would like to witness to, and break them down into two categories: Type A sheep (receptive) and Type B sheep (skeptical). We emphasize the fact that most people don’t respond well the first time (one source says that the average is seven witnesses before they say yes!), so it’s important not to get discouraged. We have tried each one win one lists and each one win ten lists, where you start by having intercessory prayer for the toughies and pray for opportunities to witness to five or ten sheepies.
Any of these strategies is good; the main thing is to encourage them not to get weary in well doing, as the Lord always answers prayer, and when that is mixed with Holy Ghost power and boldness, the harvest will naturally follow. We’ve found skits and goals are keys in helping Active members over the hump as they start witnessing!
2. How to Join the Family Full Time. This is an important topic to touch on periodically with your Active members, as some of them, mainly the younger ones, are definitely called by the Lord to full-time discipleship. Actually, about 15 have taken the plunge over the last six years, and all have shtuck, thank the Lord!
This workshop consists of reading the first few pages of the Charter, where the responsibilities and rights of a CM disciple are listed. Then there is a question and answer period, with a testimony of a former AM who became a CMer, how they did, the adjustments they had to make, etc. There is no pressure in these sessions to drop out, and attendance is on a whoever is interested basis in typical workshop fashion, so usually only those who are either called or curious attend. If those present don’t ask many questions, then the coordinator can have a list prepared of questions about joining the Family full time to get the ball rolling.
3. How to Start a Greater Victories Inner Healing Group. We try to encourage at least a couple of CM/FM representatives from each area to come to this class, as though they themselves may not have a personal interest in this ministry, they can at least collect info for others in their area who may not have been able to attend the retreat. Then those attending pick up the handouts, samples, etc., and share the know with others upon returning home.
Most people think they need to be very prepared to help people get the victories they need. However, in reality all you need is to confirm that it’s the Lord’s will to have such a group after hearing from Him in prophecy, and to follow Dad’s and Mama’s counsel in the Word on how to help people through to victory over their deeper hurts, problems, or weaknesses. (Editor’s note: In addition to the Word already published on helping people with their NWOs and deep-seated hurts or problems, more information and helpful counsel will be coming out in upcoming pubs on the Inner Healing course and ministry as used in Brazil.)
We also share how-to tips regarding location, price, duration, material, training, etc. All this helps those attending count the cost and pray about whether this particular ministry is for them and their sheep.
This ministry is not for everyone, just as marriage counseling is not for everyone, but we have seen tremendous fruits and lives changed as a result of focusing on people’s hurts and helping them through longstanding problems. Although this inner healing circle may seem a bit like a hospital, we have seen that it can be quite efficient to group those with special needs together. It gives them a little bit of personal time, but the main focus is on the group as a whole, helping them to learn how to share lessons and pray together just as we do in our Family Homes. Everyone benefits, gets to pour out, and gets united prayer; in this course it’s on the schedule, so it happens.
4. How to Establish a Consider the Poor Ministry. At this retreat Sam Apocalipse shared how he started a successful CTP program in his city in the south of Brazil, where he has seen the project grow to phenomenal proportions. Just having him available to tell the story was a tremendous blessing for Active members interested in this ministry-many are!-as well as for the CMers and FMers in attendance. This show and tell workshop is extremely practical and gathers a large crowd of satisfied customers.
5. Administration and Growth of Bible Studies. Dear Spanish Juan gave this workshop, based on experience and trial and error over the years. He explained many of the principles we have covered in earlier FSMs: how to start a group of beginners, then move them to spiritual maturity until they join a discipleship group. The process is simple, but many have questions if they don’t yet have one solid discipleship group, so this helps demystify things.
6. Your Child Is Your Disciple! We try to have at least one class or workshop every year (or at least every other year) dedicated to the subject of children and teens. We certainly have no lack of experience or material on this subject, and the Raise ’em Right book is an excellent resource, as all of the Active members’ problems with their children are answered to some degree in one of those articles.
We have found that most Latin parents have very low expectations of themselves regarding being spiritually responsible for their children, as they are used to someone else caring for them. So it is extremely important to show them that they are responsible for the spiritual training of their children, and that we have a ton of material that can help them do this.
The open-forum atmosphere of a workshop on this subject helps parents get over feeling condemned for their omissions, and offers them clear support for not only their children, but for the children of their sheep.
1998 - The Endtime Olympics
This concept was one of the main themes in the Family that year. Held just outside São Paulo, this national retreat had 179 people in attendance (113 Active members, 60 CM, 6 FM). From as far north as Natal (3000 km) and as far south as Porto Alegre (1200 km), Family members came from over 14 cities.
Main classes:
1. Power of Prayer. This was an Action Through Prayer class that could now be easily supplanted with a class based on that GN series of the same name, together with the GP Get Activated booklet Prayer Power. Especially as we enter into the era of action and are learning to use the keys of the Kingdom, this kind of class hits everyone right between the eyes and is a reminder that only through the power of prayer can we rise above and expect the Lord to do miracles.
When this subject is given to a large group, you can mix in healing testimonies and songs that fit, and it can be an unforgettable experience, where the Spirit moves and people actually get healed on the spot, according to their faith. We have seen the Lord do miracles in these situations, especially if we expect Him to. The spirit of expectancy is contagious in these meetings and we need to walk in full of faith, ready to call on the keys. United prayer changes things!
2. Prophecy: Hearing from the Lord Step by Step. This class was based on the GNs, especially the one of the same title (ML #3149, Vol.24). Now we have the new Get Activated booklet, Hearing from Heaven, which is an excellent foundation for this class. At the end of the class, we have opened up the floor to hear from the Lord. We’ve learned that it helps to choose channels beforehand, as otherwise it can get pretty wild. It has borne good fruit to put the Lord and everyone on the spot and actually attempt to practice a bit of what is taught. It’s the clinical method and a bit like Dad used to do in the Light Club with the early leaders, even getting together in prayer and prophecy with relatively new people. As long as you are really united as a team and hear from the Lord ahead of time about the strategies He wants to employ, it seems the Lord blesses the bolder approach of expecting miracles. If something goes off track a bit, things can be corrected later if need be. The key is to have a strong leadership team that is on top of the situation.
3. How to Recognize and Get Rid of Bitterness. This was based on the Peter Letter of the same name. At the end of the class, everyone wrote their list of resentments and bitterness, and the people they needed to forgive. Then after a powerful united prayer for deliverance, everyone took the symbolic step of breaking from the past by tossing their list into a pot where we had a fire going. Many people were crying and making a serious commitment to change.
We have learned the importance of offering this opportunity in some way to everyone each year at these national retreats, as the atmosphere is appropriate for having a real revolution in your own spiritual life if given the opportunity. So we have an altar call or two during the course of the retreat, with a prayer for deliverance either in a united class or in a workshop.
4. Unity: Together We Stand. This was based on the Letters from that year on the subject of unity. As Mama has so clearly pointed out in the current Conviction vs. Compromise series (The Dangers of Division, ML #3362, GN 958), many of our Active members have been affected negatively when seeing our own internal discord, not to mention the difficulties they encounter among themselves. It is a subject that needs to be addressed, so they know we know that it is a problem that does exist and we can’t ignore it. It is another excellent opening for someone to tell a personal testimony of their own battle and victory. (Do make sure they do have a good degree of victory before letting the mike get into their hands!) You can also offer the opportunity to get prayer for a miracle-the miracle of unity, as the Lord put it.
5. Overcoming the Financial Crisis. This is one area where our Active members, many of whom are facing extremely difficult financial stress over a long period of time, need to believe in the power of the Lord to deliver them. Held as an open forum of Active members who are heads of businesses, in this class testimonies were shared as to how the Lord has helped them through to victory in their companies, helped them find financial stability, blessed their tithing, and led them in financial decisions, etc.
The moderator, Pedro from Brasilia, was sure to point out that we find ourselves living in the Time of the End, and we need to warn the world of imminent events as predicted in the Bible, and expect them ourselves, including the economic crash.
The subject of finances is very delicate and has so many aspects, but the Active members are happy we address it, as it is on their minds most of the time. We even include it in the Day of Miracles Is Not Past category, just as much as healing or spiritual deliverance. If they walk out of this workshop with faith that the Lord will supply all their needs (and ours through them!) until the Endtime events accelerate, then it was a success.
This is another place for powerful united prayer and the releasing of the power of the keys! Go for it! Miracles will happen! And once our Active members behold the power of God, things are never the same! Giving goes up, spiritual growth is accentuated, and barriers to faith fall to the ground, even in the financial arena!
6. The Endtime Olympics. This was made up of several skits with David’s team, a very dynamic class where everyone had to choose which athlete they identified with-the fat, lethargic guy, stuffing himself with a Big Mac and reading a porno mag; or the trim and slim AAA (Active, Alert, and on the Attack) Endtime athlete, who watches his diet and stays in shape, ready to head into action when duty calls! Very funny, but extremely sobering at the same time.
One of the Active members gave a 30-minute class on the Endtime conspiracy, along the lines of John Todd’s testimony, only updated and with clearer insight into the coming one-world economy and Mark of the Beast. It has incredible impact when it comes from a well-informed, successful economist who also happens to be an Active member! They love to get up there and let it rip in their area of expertise; their knowledge backs up the Word on the subject.
7. Establishing a Church of Love in Your City. This was a practical class on our experience setting up the citywide Church of Love-the vision, the desperate prayer for the Lord to do the miracles and open the doors, including the Active members on the staff, and the slow but steady growth.
We have seen that the regular local COL is an excellent training ground for the veteran Active members to learn the ropes and play an important role in the expansion of the greater Family church. In this class, every ministry and responsibility is mentioned, in order to communicate the need for all to actively participate. When things grow, it becomes too big for just the CMers to administrate! It becomes time to kick the fat birdies out of the nest! As long as they feel somewhat prepared and trained and all have the same common goal, our dear Active members can really shine, even giving the Sunday messages, leading the singing at inspiration, working at the greeting desk, selling tools and Activated subscriptions, and helping talk with and witness to newcomers.
8. The Spiritual Health Revolution. This class is based on the GN of the same title (ML #3184, GN 789), but we specifically used the article at the end of the GN about how to make your Quiet Time with the Lord a habit, with specific tips and steps on kicking bad habits and starting new ones, such as daily time with the Lord.
The more you can leave them with practical solutions they can apply to their hectic lifestyles, the better. We try to read a half hour from the GN, as this is the powerful New Wine on the subject, then spend a half hour sharing tips as to how they can apply the counsel and actually integrate it into their daily routines. Again, personal testimonies can really be a plus during these times when everyone is convicted, yet at the same time wonders if anyone else (besides the missionaries) has already taken the plunge to obey! Ha!
Everyone received a medal as a token of having participated in our own version of the Olympics. A highlight of this retreat was the prophecy sent from the Folks’ Home that they received especially for the Active members here in Brazil!
1999 - The Great Harvest—Unite and Fight
This was the subject of the GN specially directed to Latin America that followed King Peter’s visit to the CM Family just three months before, and became the battle cry for this year’s retreat. It was held in a beautiful tourist resort in the hills outside Rio, and was organized by the Rio brethren. There were 250 in attendance—more than half from Rio! Holding the retreat this year closer to Rio was a blessing for the work there, where we have the largest concentration of Active members.
Main classes:
1. The Day of Miracles and the Great Harvest. Peter’s first visit to Brazil had just happened when this retreat was held, and he brought the new GN about an incredible harvest in Latin America, which was obviously the cherry on the cake this year. It did have a sobering side to it, as well, with the unity issue once again being addressed.
In the first class there was an outpouring of the Spirit to get things up and running. It was beautiful, with brethren receiving strong messages in tongues and others getting the interpretation, reminiscent of our early days or of 1 Corinthians 14. Music mixed into the class added tremendous impact. God bless our musicians, who really give it their all to let the Lord use them to minister at these mega-events!
2. The Discipleship Code. What exactly does it mean to be an Active member disciple, Previously termed what is a live-out disciple, the FAQ on this topic has become a regular class as the movement spreads and grows—and rightly so.
The São Paulo discipleship group opened the class with a hilarious skit based on a local comedy program about a classroom situation where the teacher is continually trying to establish order, but to no avail, as the group is full of every type of extreme. They had their new age disciple, their conservative Catholic disciple, the flatlander businessman disciple, the sexy but scandalous disciple who is provoking all the boys, the intellectual disciple who still reads all his Freudian trash, the bohemian disciple who still has a few vices on the side, the goody-goody perfect student who memorizes all her verses with perfection but drives everyone insane by being so SR, and the list goes on. At the end of the confusion, the teacher looks at the crowd and asks: Will the real disciples please stand up?
Then the skit goes into the reading of a Discipleship Code we put together, based on the Charter. Everyone laughed so hard they were crying! However, no one missed the point and the skit helped prepare everyone’s heart for the class.
This Discipleship Code is a list of responsibilities for our Active member disciples, which we agreed upon here in São Paulo together with our Active members, in an attempt to standardize this issue even among ourselves. It is based on the first 18 pages of the Love Charter, where the responsibilities of a Charter member are spelled out in point form. We adapted these a bit, mainly taking the emphasis off of dropping out, but basically keeping the rest, as these points are simply what the Bible says a disciple should be. We also used several paragraphs from the Charter Responsibilities GN by Peter, where he details what it means to minimize ungodly influences (ML #3197, GN 803).
Although this code may seem meaty for someone who doesn’t live in one of our Homes, it is vital for the spiritual life of our Active member disciples, as they are faced with greater pressure and temptation than we ever will be as long as we live in our Family communities! Our Active member disciples really like to know what the Word says about limits on TV watching, over-spending, too much worldly input, etc.
After going over the Discipleship Code, we asked those who felt the Lord was asking them to become true disciples—even if they couldn’t live in a Home—to sign on the dotted line, make a personal commitment before the Lord, then talk with their local shepherds and group about putting it into effect. It seems that some kind of an Active member document helps give seriousness to the discipleship commitment, just as it is helpful for us when we verify our commitment by signing the Charter Member contract.
Although there is no way to effectively enforce these discipleship guidelines, it seems to establish order when our Active members know that there are clear circles of discipleship, a process in which they feel more and more included! (Editor’s note: Standard requirements and guidelines for the circles of discipleship and membership other than CM and FM will be forthcoming from WS.)
3. How to Build a Local Work. We also opened this class with a skit: The local shepherd is trying to figure out who would really be ready to help him establish the local work. One by one, his Active members come by and try to encourage him and even offer to help with their particular gifts and talents, but the shepherd doesn’t catch on to what the Lord is doing until the very end. It finally dawns on him that the Lord has already supplied a team of co-laborers with complementing gifts and abilities to form a strong base for the local work. He just hadn’t realized what he had in his hand. The Lord finally put it all together in his mind and he starts praising the Lord!
Then everyone comes back out on the stage with a different letter on their chests (which they had on all along, but it just seemed like alphabet soup at the time). As they group together, the letters spell Local Work. It was an interesting way to communicate how it is the Lord Who puts together the local work, with each member handpicked by the Lord Himself to get the job done.
Juan then gave a class on the concentric circles of followers and how it is a challenge to constantly be moving the new people into commitment, the committed people into spiritual maturity, and the mature veterans into leadership. It was a beautiful, simple class clearly diagramming the way toward the expanding of the Family and the local work in each area and city. It’s a never-ending job that requires the patience of a farmer, slowly but faithfully bringing forth fruit.
4. Heavenly Helpers. This was a class to help clarify our beliefs regarding Who said they’re dead?, spirit helpers, and Dad speaking. In Brazil spiritism abounds and the Devil has a real heyday by deceiving people into thinking that demons and familiar spirits are angels or beings of light. Our beliefs along the lines of communicating with the departed are often questioned by those with evangelical backgrounds, while they intrigue others who are curious. This class—based on the Heavenly Communications compilation for the GP—helps answer these questions and many more.
This type of class may not be necessary in other cultures where spiritism doesn’t have such an influence, but here we find it in our better interest to clarify that our heavenly helpers are indeed good spirits and can in no way be compared to the demons that are so common in local heathen religions, many of which are simply demon worship, disguised as legitimate African/spiritist religions. This helps some of our questioning Active members to not be skeptical and gives everyone the chance to get the added spiritual help they all need.
5. Training Mature Harvesters. This is a class on the need for training. If a new recruit doesn’t get some basic training, how can he be expected to go to war? Although some Homes have more established training tracks than others, everyone agrees that training is needed in order to administer the coming promised harvest.
6. The Great Harvest. The icing on the cake! Not only were we inspired to hear the prophecies in the New Wine regarding the coming harvest in South America and the world, but we all had the privilege of seeing our precious King Peter share some personal words to all the Active members (then live-outs) in Brazil via video! The Active members felt so special to receive such a royal message and encouragement to keep up the good work! What a treat that we’ll never forget!—Only to be surpassed by the king’s actual presence two years later!
We also made a public apology to our Active members for the problems we CMers had been having regarding unity. They greatly appreciated our honesty, and we had a prayer for deliverance all together.
7. Changed Lives. We had seven of our Active members chosen from all over Brazil share personal testimonies of how the Lord and the Family changed their lives! This was one of the high points of this year’s retreat, as it was the proof of the pudding!
(Note: These testimonies were recorded on video and the video is available in Portuguese, but if there is enough demand it can be translated into English. It is used by us and our Active members on a regular basis to show to friends, Bible study groups, etc., demonstrating the power of God to change lives.)
Workshops:
There were also six workshops, each lasting 30 minutes, focusing on how to put the new weapons into practice in our daily lives:
1. Loving Jesus. This was the workshop that received the most comments, as it truly conveyed the spirit of loving Jesus. Juan (as Jesus) and Virginia carry on an up close and personal conversation that everyone attending eavesdrops on. Wow! Hot stuff! At the end of each workshop, everyone practiced saying words of love to Jesus as they felt led. It was a moving experience and portrayed the type of intimacy the Lord desires to have with us. Most everyone walked out with red eyes from crying.
2. How to Receive Prophecy. A how-to session, also with a closing demonstration.
3. Prayer and Praise. An inspiring workshop with practical how-tos, using Family praise CDs.
4. Spiritual Health. John and Ester had the inspiring idea of putting together Word menus, according to various individuals’ needs, personal burdens, and interests. They dressed up like chefs and added a little bit of salt here and some special sauce there—all specific Word studies designed to keep you spiritually healthy. This was a real hit, as most Active members don’t have much of a notion of feeding themselves, but tend to depend on us spoon-feeding them.
5.Y2K Prep. At this workshop we tried to make the Active members aware of the millennium bug and how to prepare, mainly by witnessing and making friends with their neighbors. We tried to make it clear that we weren’t sure if this would be as serious as what many were predicting, but that it was definitely a step in the direction of Endtime events, and it was better to be prepared and not need it rather than need it and not be prepared!
It was amazing how well educated most of them already were on this subject, and they helped explain things regarding the Y2K that we didn’t have that clear, at least on the technical side. This once again is the confirmation of the beauty of the AM/CM marriage!
6. The Activated Program! This was actually the first introduction, as there were not any magazines yet, but it got everyone’s mouth watering. It was good to at least talk about things to come.
2000 - A New Day of Love
The theme of this retreat was revealed by the Lord in prophecy as He showed us that these retreats were now to be directed to a GP audience, thus officially changing them from being Christian leadership training (more DFO and even CM) to a harvest event (GP). The Lord told us that there would indeed be a great harvest here in Brazil and that He would be initiating other events to help with the training of leadership, but that for now He wanted us to open the doors and encourage our friends and Active members to invite their friends and sheep, thus better accommodating the trend toward growth.
Over 360 people attended! We held it where the whole thing started—back in the hotel in the first resort city, only this time there were five times as many as at that first event in 1996!
Main classes:
1. The Family—Who We Are. Jere and Faith did an excellent job of portraying the Family’s history, both in the entire world and in Brazil. Faith dressed up like the hippy she used to be when she joined in Amsterdam in ’71, and shared about the pioneering of Brazil back in the early days. She did an MS Powerpoint (computer slide) presentation with photos from those early days that blew everyone’s minds, including the Meninos de Deus singing in Maracana (the world’s largest soccer stadium, in Rio) for a full house, and other scenes.
Fernando, our producer back then and now an Active member with three of his children (also Active members), gave his testimony of how he joined, and how the Family rocked Brazil in the ’70s. He shared how our influence is probably responsible for much of the current revival atmosphere in Brazil, as the Lord mightily used the Family in Brazil to help revolutionize the spiritual landscape here. Many of our veteran Active members came up after this class exclaiming: This is the class I’ve been waiting for for years! Thank you!
It’s so important for our Active members to understand our roots and how we’ve matured over the years. It also helps them to understand why we have been persecuted. It was a beautiful class, spiced with songs from each of the Family eras in Brazil.
2. Greater Victories: The Process of Spiritual Growth. This was our yearly plea for a straight and narrow discipleship path. Spiritual maturity is a continuous process, but it helps to know where you’re headed and where you’ve been! In this class we tried to help everyone identify their point of spiritual growth on the Mountain Man Chart, so they could plot their path onward and upward. (The new 12 Foundation Stones course is a tremendous help in establishing a clear and stimulating path to climb.)
We were sure to clarify that spiritual growth is not guaranteed by doing the course, but by living the Word and bearing fruit that remains. We used a lot from Dad’s Letter Why the Family? (ML #752, Vol.6) to communicate the Lord’s vision of the Family being like a school for officers’ training.
3. Call to Arms: Avante (Onward) Christian Soldiers. Our yearly class on the effectiveness of the new weapons and how to use them in your daily routine.
4. Getting Activated! The mags are here! Wow! It’s really happening! The Activated desk team had a huge stand at this year’s retreat and put Contato stickers on all of us! It was good for our Active members to see the seriousness of the Activated program.
5. The Era of Action. This class was given by David and was based on a historical approach of how the Lord has led all of His men of faith into their own era of action. An unforgettable Word class giving a panoramic vision of how this final era of action will be the crescendo of which the prophets and apostles dreamed.
6. A New Day of Love. The greatest of these is love; Without love, we are but as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal (1Cor.13:13b,1b). Since the Lord confirmed that this year He was leading us to offer a more GP retreat in order to extend the borders of our tents, He showed us to go for a more GP-style title and emphasis—love! Pedro and I (Tommy) ended the retreat with this love message, Pedro sharing some sweet testimonies about how loving Mama is.
We based the class on the intro to the Love Charter where Mama makes it very clear that the Charter is meant to bring love, not law. We also drew a lot from ML #3011 (Vol.22), A New Day of Love. We then prayed for the Lord to anoint the shepherds for this harvest of love, with the laying on of hands. Then we shepherds turned around and laid hands on the precious Active members to truly represent the Family and be filled with His wonderful Spirit of love. There was a real outpouring of the Spirit that day that no one will ever forget! Talk about revival!
Workshops:
1. The Family Today. Update of new policies, expansion, the FCF, Activated, CTPs around the world, etc.
2. The Activated Program. Update on latest news, tips, and suggestions on how to get out subscriptions to friends, relatives, and contacts.
3. The Lord Is My Deliverer (Prayer of Deliverance). For this workshop the meeting room was packed out with people seeking a powerful prayer of deliverance. This has become a yearly tradition, and now with the keys of the Kingdom for further authority over all of the Devil’s imps, the cleaning process has become even more thorough!
The Active members need this key almost more than any other in their early stages of spiritual growth, it seems. They usually come into our fellowship carrying heavy spiritual and emotional baggage that needs to be dealt with. The answer and the freedom from the past is just a prayer away, but pray with authority, knowing there will be a struggle in the spirit. Call on the keys!
4. Welcome to Your New Life of Love! Growing in Love for New Converts. This workshop covered the basics: salvation, being sure you’re eternally saved, the Holy Spirit, the Word, witnessing, and the Endtime.
We sometimes forget to review the ABCs of the faith, but we’ve learned that in a continuous harvest situation, you can’t get back to the basics enough! At least always be aware that there are many who need to have their basic faith consolidated. The Activated mags and booklets offer excellent grounding in the Word.
5. The Harvest. Another practical workshop on personal witnessing. It is good to reinforce their training in this at our yearly retreats because it is often a weak area.
6. Developing a Training Track. As already mentioned, the veterans need to have a sense of being headed somewhere, and being able to bring others along in the same direction. We hit on the need for having more one-on-one discipling relationships and the need to consolidate well what we already have, before thinking too much about expanding big time. Once the explosion comes, it won’t be easy to call back any faulty products. It’s better to develop a good training track first, so that our Active members will all be headed in the same direction.
7. How to Start New Groups. David taught this very important subject once again. You’ll probably notice that some of these workshops seem repetitive, but we’ve found that we need to go over certain key areas and then go over them again until our Active members actually catch on and start taking on the challenge to work with us side by side. If our veterans aren’t opening new groups under our supervision, that means that either we’re stagnating or that we CMers are carrying the whole follow-up load on our shoulders and we’re about to cave in! There’s nothing worse than overworked, stressed-out missionaries going out every night to their groups, while the Active members just watch them! It’s high time that the veteran Active members start new groups—and the good news is that they are!
Workshops like this one show them we are serious about training them, but also that we don’t plan to just throw them into the deep end of the pool without knowing how to swim. They dread not being able to answer the questions of some wise guy in the group who wants to know how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. Once they realize they don’t need to worry about answering stupid questions, but rather need to simply love, feed, and shepherd the sheep, they take off!
Many of them are already managers and people-handlers; they just feel a little shaky as spiritual leaders. Walk them through, and they’ll get the hang of it. Keep giving classes, seminars, and workshops on the subject and they’ll eventually see we mean business about them taking up the slack in the expansion program of the Family.
A wonderful attraction this year was another beautiful message from the Folks’ Home. This time it was a message from Dad himself, commenting on how this Active member revolution is his dream come true, and how he and the Lord consider the Active members to be true soldiers, trustworthy members of His Endtime team! When we read it, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house! We had special prayer over the Active members at the end, to anoint them to go forth and conquer!
It has been interesting to note that each year the Lord has added to the church just as in the early days of the Family, with a steady growth of between 40% to 50%! And it hasn’t been like we’ve used any super strategy. People just keep coming if we keep having them over! We are in the era of action and there’s nothing more we can do—just yield! Ha!
2001 - Rise Above
This year we drew the line at 500 adult participants (this meant another 100 children). It may have been the last official GP retreat held on a national level, as it is hard for us to imagine how we’ll be able to administrate an event with over 1000 people! We will probably hold regional retreats (one for the north, another for the south, and another for the Rio/São Paulo area), which will be more manageable for the organizers. (The schedule and events of this retreat were described in FSM 374, Rise Above Retreat!)
Planning the national retreat involves a great deal of effort on the part of many people. The growth of the yearly retreats has caused us to unite and fight for the sheep with the creation of a National Retreat Committee, and all the accompanying departments and responsibilities.
Planning should begin six to twelve months in advance to ensure the forming of the retreat team, selection of the hotel (most hotels require at least six months advance reservation, especially if you plan to hold the retreat on an important holiday weekend as we do), and adequate time for organization. Following are responsibilities for staff help that we needed, and some of the projects undertaken to make this large-scale retreat a success.
Retreat Coordinator
The first and most important person to secure is the retreat coordinator (what’s everyone’s job is nobody’s job). He or she should be someone who is spiritually mature, organizationally competent, whose leadership abilities are tried and proven, who has the time to devote to such a large project, and if possible has experience in this type of event. Since no one here qualified for this post, we decided to form a committee! Ha!
Retreat Committee
This can be five to ten people who have had some experience in events or retreats or at least have a burden to get the national (or regional) retreat off the ground in your area or country.
It’s helpful if the committee is made up of a variety of people, e.g., those with the gift of organization, good teachers, an inspirationalist (or someone who can mobilize the musical side of things), a childcare-oriented person, nationals, those with strong Active member works, men, women, youth—or at least a smattering of as many as possible from different segments of Family society.
By pulling together a good committee, you have already expanded the number of people who will feel that they have a stake in the national retreat, and thus increase the possibilities of the retreat becoming a tradition in your field, regardless of changes, personnel moves, and difficult circumstances.
The more people who know how to reserve the hotel, organize finances, work on the pubs needed, etc., the better! We have seen that it took about three years of pioneering before the retreat was able to run on its own. At this point, I believe the Active members here would organize it themselves if for any reason we CMers were unable to do it! Ha!
After six years, there are many who have participated over the years and this practically guarantees the continuity of the event. This is not only for inspirational purposes, but also to give everyone a clear picture of where the Lord is leading the overall Family each year. This renewed yearly fellowship and input has become a pivotal point for the growth of the whole Active member movement all over the country.
The retreat coordinator and core team will need to pray about the overall theme of the retreat, decide on the location—both important factors that determine many other things—and they will also need to recruit help from the Homes to coordinate various aspects of the retreat. In addition to teachers, shepherds, and inspirationalists to make the retreat work, you will need people to direct such ministries as publicity, reservations and payment, and emceeing.
Finding the Right Hotel
As well as finding a hotel in pleasing surroundings with adequate accommodations at a good price, be sure that it has a good meeting room, as this is where everyone will be spending most of their time. We have even sacrificed a bit on accommodations at times in favor of hotels with better convention rooms. Don’t have a room that is too small or too big. You don’t want people to be cramped; neither do you want them to feel lost in the room.
Also, reserve breakout rooms for the small groups and workshops. We usually have four workshops going on at the same time for people to attend during that practical part of the retreat, so you’ll want to be sure you have all the space and chairs that you need.
Publicity
Each year we have invested more in retreat publicity, thus requiring a bigger team. For the 2001 retreat, we did a four-page color brochure with a collage of pictures from past national retreats; a brief info blurb regarding the subject of the retreat (Rise Above); pictures of the hotel accommodations and conference room, heated indoor pool, and recreational facilities; a map showing how to get there; and the payment plan. We also put in a full-page advertisement for the Activated mag.
If the Lord leads you to print a promotional brochure, make sure it contains phone numbers that people can call for information. Answer the basic questions of who, what, when, where and how much. Check out other events’ brochures to see how they did it and then design your own.
We knew that our Active members themselves would do most of the inviting for the retreat and we would need a high-quality presentation for them to pass out to their friends and contacts.
We took these brochures with us on a three-month road trip through Brazil for distribution, and promoted the overall Activated follow-up vision at the same time. This tour with brochure in hand advertising the national retreat was a key factor in gaining the participation of new sheep and brethren. Until we did this more elaborate and aggressive publicity campaign, those going to national retreats were only those who were already plugged into the follow-up vision, without many brand-new people. The tour and the brochures changed this.
For this aspect we have found it is helpful to have a coordinator and small graphics team, and possibly a provisioner for print jobs. God bless our anointed tekkie, Japes, who did the layout design. Dear Pedro and Joyful provisioned the printing and we only had to pay for the photowork.
For our expected crowd of 500, we printed 3,000 brochures for distribution over the five months prior to the retreat. The brochures were launched at a leadership retreat in February where they were distributed to those most involved in the Activated vision.
Print copies for eight to ten times the number of anticipated participants. This large quantity allows you to distribute your brochures freely, even all over the country if you have a traveling Activated promo team. Also, printing costs for 750 or 1,500 are practically the same here in Brazil, and maybe in your area too.
We did need to be careful that the brochure didn’t go out wholesale, as we certainly didn’t want our enemies to know about the retreat if we could possibly help it. The retreat coordinator can oversee the distribution of the brochure, possibly along with a promotional tour for the retreat and Activated, as we did here.
Reservations and Payment Plans
As the event has grown, so has the job of making reservations and handling the payment system. God bless Cristina (a.k.a. KK) at Juan and Eden’s Home who did a tremendous job of handling this mind-boggling responsibility this year.
In early years, we got away with our traditional Family informality, but we all have memories of how stressful this part of the retreat was. We didn’t know exactly how many people would be attending, which ones were couples, how many children to expect, etc. There were so many last-minute decisions and surprises that we usually ended up pulling our hair out by the time the retreat was over. Yikes! It was common for us to come up short financially, leaving the Homes of the retreat organizers a bit disillusioned. All that work—usually at least four months, with a huge push in the last two weeks. Not recommended!
Now things are different, thank the Lord, as the sheer numbers have forced us to professionalize little by little. We now plan the event much more in advance and with a bigger team.
This year we used a four-month payment plan—similar to the plans implemented at other conventions and events this size. With this plan the first payment is made two months in advance, the next one month in advance, the third payment at the door, and the fourth payment a post-dated check for one month after the event. This plan was published in the brochure and was usually the first thing people turned to when they looked at it. How much is this going to cost me? We learned that if we can get them to use the payment system, it’s easier for them and for us. They just need to deposit their payment into the bank account for that purpose.
The recent retreat with the advance payment plan was the smoothest year to date, as all the rules were well established ahead of time through the publishing of the brochure. This has helped us all to get over our bad habits of rule-bending and leaving things to the last minute. We just aren’t used to planning so far in advance. But we can now say with utter conviction: It’s worth it to plan ahead! The more we grow, the more we need to plan.
We are now at the point where the national retreat is even paying the staff for its long hours of work as well as allowing for the main speakers and musicians to attend for free! With volume increasing, there are lots of headaches, but there are also benefits and we are thankful we can recompense the Homes and individuals who sacrificially give so much. We are not talking about getting elaborate or fancy in what we share with others from the retreat income, but merely keeping up with rising demands, making it so Homes are not reluctant to pitch in and help, and also setting aside for a fund that will continue to make future events of this size possible.
To sum it up: We would advise charging so that all your costs are included, as well as planning on actually coming out ahead financially in order to ensure the continuity of future events like this. The cost should include the communication costs, brochure layout costs, printing costs, equipment, traveling and food expenses of the staff, childcare, advertising, a few subsidized musicians and shepherds, as well as a compensation to the Homes investing most of the time and personnel in the actual execution of the event. At our last retreat, we actually brought in enough money for the four main participating Homes to have considered it a blessing to their Home’s income, funds that were more or less the equivalent of what they would have received if they had been working in their normal ministries, PTL!
It took a few years to get to this point, but we recommend that you start to charge appropriately right from the beginning, so that the Homes who invest the most don’t get discouraged about being involved. A lot of work goes into these events, so it should at least pay for itself and for the workers!
It takes a while for everyone to get into the swing of paying ahead of time in less painful installments, especially in the beginning when the reputation of the retreat is not yet established. Once you do it a couple of times and everyone is happy with this method, you’ll see that people will get better and better at paying ahead of time.
This early payment system is the key to success for the finance department, as well as for relations with the hotel management. When the money starts to flow to the hotel—especially as the numbers grow—everyone seems to enjoy working together a bit more! Ha!
We’ve found it’s helpful to have one full-time experienced phone receptionist full of information and details regarding the hotel who makes reservations, as well as someone to help with banking.
We also found it helpful to have a bank account for the exclusive use of the retreat. As participation grows and there is more of a cash flow, we need to be more and more transparent in our accountability—also a fairly new concept for us!
As an added stimulus for the brethren to press in and invite their people, we work out a deal with the hotel to give one freebie for everyone who brings 12 to 15 attendees. The Activated team also awarded a free pass to the retreat for the Shiner Home in Activated subscriptions for Brazil—more incentive, PTL!
For next year we are considering the possibility of hiring a person at the hotel itself who would handle reservations and payments. This would free us completely from this growing responsibility and leave it in the hands of professionals who are paid to do this with no partiality. We often find ourselves in the crossfire of sheep and brethren who all want a special deal or a special room or something special that is absolutely mind-boggling to handle at that point, considering the volume of participants. We are starting to feel this responsibility may actually be better handled by a third party who wouldn’t even know who is who, but just works according to the rules.
Emcees
Emceeing is a serious responsibility, and those doing the emceeing need to have the ability, be in tune with all of the protocol, and above all have the Lord’s anointing to communicate. A large retreat is an opportunity to help everyone feel like an insider, and this is the true goal of the emcees—to make everyone feel part of the greater Family.
It is good to have a pair of people who have a good presentation, not necessarily married, preferably nationals and from different areas of the country, folks who don’t have many other responsibilities at the retreat as emceeing can require their full attention, especially as the event grows. This year Jere (Rio) and Joyful (Brasilia) were the emcees and basically just did this.
The emcees continually break the ice, making everyone feel at home, while at the same time keeping things on the up and up, reminding everyone of the vision and goals of the Family and the focus of the retreat, etc. It is important to know where the Lord is leading the flock and to keep everyone focused on those main points through little sound bites, jokes, stats, and even direct challenges throughout the retreat.
For example, if one of the main objectives of the retreat is to up Activated subscriptions, the emcee needs to have this on the tip of his tongue throughout the retreat. If there is a secondary objective or theme—like that of being more committed to unity and to the Family—then this too needs to be prayed about, agreed upon and then put on the reminder list of the emcees. Many things will happen during a three-day retreat and the emcee really needs to be in tune with where the Lord is moving.
You don’t need to be like Billy Crystal to be a good emcee, but you do need to prepare a basic script, brush up on your public speaking a bit, know the flow of the retreat program and preferably even be on the actual retreat committee to know about the inner workings and details of who will do what and when.
Also important is for the emcees to know of any dignitaries in the crowd who deserve acknowledgement, as well as anyone who traveled from afar, or anyone else who needs special recognition. (On the other hand, although it is often inspiring to see who came from where and the emcees are the ones to call attention to this, it is also important not to get people comparing.) It’s good to give special credit to those traveling the furthest, as well as pray for those who are staying back with the children (who are in reality making the event possible).
Teachers and Shepherds
After you know who your teachers and shepherds will be for the retreat, it’s good to give them an outline of what the Lord showed you as a team about how the message and goals should flow. For example, at our last national retreat, the Lord showed us to build our classes around the latest Word and even to give the participants copies of the New Wine edited versions of some GNs (available on the MO site) on which the classes were based. We gave participants a lit pack including this New Wine, the overall schedule, a welcome message, and a few other odds and ends.
Sharing the general game plan for the classes and the literature kept the retreat package echoing the same vision as what was covered in the classes, so that the teachers actually looked like they had things planned! Ha! In the past we have had experiences where the classes, though very well delivered, didn’t flow well with our overall theme, and we recommend that you learn from our mistakes! Ask the Lord for His view and His input on how the material presented should flow, and then pass it on to the teachers.
In our retreats, each class has lasted 75 minutes, including two or three introductory songs and possibly a brief skit or two. We have found that people’s attention span rarely goes for more than 50 minutes of one talking head at a time. The teacher’s challenge is to keep the ball rolling in order to maintain the public’s attention, and for this reason we encourage skits, a timely song, etc.
Although you want to include a wide variety of speakers representing different areas and strong points, it is important that the speakers or teachers are somewhat experienced in public speaking before large groups, or are willing to get a little coaching if they’re new at it.
In the absence of good speakers, you may wish to play videos of other retreats.
A Retreat Market
Now that the Activated desk actively participates and several Family members bring their locally produced CDs, T-shirts, videos, Sunday school lessons, small group courses and lessons, etc., our national retreats feature a small market section! Every year there are new CDs—some produced by some of the Active members themselves—so the participants are sure to bring along extra funds to be able to pick up CDs or tapes of their favorite local artists, etc. The Activated desk usually has a splashy display of all the latest goodies (books, CDs, mags, etc.), which is a real blessing to get everyone, CM, FM, and AM, plugged into pushing the subscriptions!
The committee in our case agreed to charge a 20% fee on all income from these sales, to help bolster the overall retreat income, guarantee a recompense to the main workers, and assure continuity of the event.
Speaking of local contributions, at our retreats people are invited to mount photomurals of their local work in the main lobby area of the hotel, so several cities are usually represented there for all to see.
Retreat Materials
Each person who attends can be given a packet of retreat materials with his or her name and city location on the front, as mentioned earlier. This helps the participant feel welcome, and can include classes, schedule, handouts, outlines, ground rules, nametag, etc. Song sheets are also helpful. You may want to have a booklet or book of classes printed out which you present attendees in the packet as well. Some workshop materials may also be important to prepare.
Banners with the title of the retreat (The Family Welcomes You to the 6th National Retreat: RISE ABOVE!) add a special touch to the event. These are not too expensive and well worth the investment, as all your Active members will use them as backgrounds for their photos, etc., and it will help to etch the event into their memory forever.
Good planning is the best antidote for the stress that is common to these mega-events. As you plan your own national or regional retreat, you may want to consider the following sequence:
Eight to Ten Months Before
Eight to ten months before your retreat you’ll want to do the following:
1. Pull together a team to pray, hear from the Lord, and brainstorm. (See earlier description of suggested retreat committee, pg. 20)
2. Decide on the location, audience, and date of the retreat. Which weekend would be the best for all, what location (considering transport, distances, space and resources available, cost, etc.)? Do you plan to invite shepherds, teachers or inspirationalists from other areas or countries? Is it to be directed to brand-new sheep or to be used for leadership training of Active members? Who does the Lord indicate should be your audience—brand-new sheep, supporters, veterans, or all of the above as has become the case here in Brazil?
Powwow the last retreat or event; share lessons, victories, and do an honest evaluation of how those experiences could benefit the organizing of this year’s national retreat.
3. Start gathering material. You can gather materials from past retreats, FSMs, GNs, the Winepress, etc., to get ideas for what to present as the theme and what Word to use.
You can also get together brochures from the potential hotels, church retreat centers, etc., to help your committee decide on the best location.
4. Develop a strategy to stay in touch by e-mail with other team members regarding any new developments, problems, expenses, etc.
Six to Eight Months Before
1. Determine your main subject and speakers. Start praying more seriously about this, and ask the Lord for His specific leading, to avoid leaving this important point for the last minute.
2. Confirm the date, the location, and schedule of the retreat. Pray about the schedule that will be best for you. We have traditionally had two and a half days of classes, usually two classes (or workshops) in every morning and afternoon slot, with a two-and-a-half-hour break between the morning and afternoon sessions for lunch, fellowship and get-out. Nighttime at our retreats has usually been for relaxation and fun—either a talent night or a dance, or both.
Confirm that the planned hotel or location has adequate facilities, with a good meeting room as well as smaller rooms for the workshops, and secure your reservation.
3. Determine the cost, and finalize the payment plan you intend to use.
It is important to pretty much nail down the hotel about the payment system at this point.
4. Decide on (pray about) whether to provide childcare, and begin organizing it if the Lord leads that way. In our case many of our sheep have wanted to turn the retreat weekend into a family affair, so having a childcare setup is a big plus and draws many of them closer in. Our retreats usually have 15% children in attendance, and as the numbers grow you will need to have an entire department taking care of this.
If you plan to have childcare available, you will need to be sure there are rooms in the hotel as well as enough helpers for this. (For more on this aspect of the retreat, see the article on Childcare at National Retreats on page 29.)
5. Determine your sound system and videoing arrangements. You may want to record the sessions, inspiration, etc., as this is always an interesting souvenir for the participants to take home or be able to order easily. (It can even become a good little source of income for funding retreats as time goes on.)
Also, it is worthwhile to invest in an excellent sound system.—Don’t skimp on this!
6. Determine whether you will have sales of tools and other products at the retreat, and plan accordingly.
7. Determine your promotion and advertising, as already described earlier.
8. Keep up communications and network with those on the staff (board).
9. Plan promotional tours to the Homes to promote the Activated Vision and the national retreat simultaneously. We did this before the last retreat and it bore tremendous fruit, as we had brethren from every part of Brazil in attendance, with their sheep.
Three to Four Months Before
1. Design a brochure and registration form with the payment system made clear.
2. Confirm your speakers (teachers) and help them prepare, as described earlier.
3. Determine your backup staff, the team who will be actually doing the sound, the filming, the office, the reception, the finances, the PR with the hotel, the childcare, the music, etc. Although you may have already known or had an idea who these people would be, by now it would be clear who can actually be free to occupy these posts and you should try to bell the cat as much as possible at this point to eliminate last-minute stress.
4. Assign who will take care of the materials needed, such as banners, folders, nametags, etc. If you have more than 50 people, it is good to have everyone wear nametags with his or her name and city, to help facilitate interaction.
5. Check to see if your hotel accommodations are going to be enough, in view of the people who have reserved by now. You will need to do a realistic estimate to see if you will be able to comfortably receive the number of people who have made reservations, keeping in mind the tendency for last-minute attendees to show up. We have adopted the policy of warning everyone—and it’s written right on the promo brochure—that we are not responsible for accommodating people after a certain cut-off date (about two weeks before the actual retreat date), to encourage people to reserve ahead of time so that we don’t end up without enough rooms or beds. We now also tell people they can pay a price for just the teaching sessions if they can stay at a local relative’s house, etc.
As the numbers grew for the last national retreat, we realized with about one month to go that we were going to have to reserve another hotel (besides the two we had already reserved) in order to house everyone. Thank the Lord, we had already been aware that this situation could arise and had let the main hotel know, so they were able to get a sister hotel to help cover for our last-minute need.
At our last retreat (2001), we had a total of 568 participants, of which 495 were adults and 73 were children. Of the adults, 174 were CM or FM and 311 were Active members!
Eight to Ten Weeks Before
1. Check on how many of your promotional brochures you have left and print more if necessary.
2. Check on how many are coming, how many have registered, and stay in close touch with the retreat team and the brethren who are participating.
3. Have training sessions if you plan to do workshops, and prep brand-new speakers. If you plan to have a time for a prayer of deliverance for those attendees who would like it, prepare a team that would take care of that.
4. Recruit other volunteer help as needs arise.
5. Do checks with staff members to see if they have secured all the needed equipment for their respective areas (sound system, children’s activities, etc.).
6. Check on preparation of the retreat materials to be given to attendees.
One to Two Weeks Before
1. Start seeing what attendees are confirmed and try to pray your way through the confusion of the last days! Remember, He who hath begun a good work shall perform it!
2. Verify all rooms to be used. Make sure your staff people and the hotel staff are aware of your needs!
3. Organize a prayer and praise and prophecy meeting! Well, actually we should have this at every phase of the planning, but be sure to have one now, in which you commit the retreat to the Lord and praise Him for the results! It’s His plan, so He’s got to do it and make up for our lacks.
The Day Before Opening Day
1. Arrive early (preferably a day early) and set up sound and decorations well before the crowds arrive!
2. Test sound equipment.
3. Have retreat packet ready to give to all the pre-registered participants, which includes their nametags. (Note: Most people prefer to write their own names on the nametags.) These packets, which are prepared according to the reservations, can help as a filter and give at least a semblance of security to the event, as they show you who did not reserve a spot.
If you are planning on giving or selling each person a book, make it available at this time.
4. Have registration materials available for walk-ins. You might anticipate doubling the number of pre-registrations with walk-ins the first night. In other words, if you have 50 pre-registered, you could conceivably have up to 50 more show up at the last minute, especially during the first years of holding retreats when attendance can be more unpredictable.
5. Start preparing the certificates, if you have them, with the names of each participant, as this is always a hit, even though an added expense. Don’t leave this for the last minute unless you have only a few in attendance.
By Phil, Rio, Brazil
(written after the Brazil 2001 National Retreat)
As a teacher, teen shepherd, and VS in the Rio area, I have helped with organizing and monitoring the childcare structure at our national retreats. Our primary goal has been to keep the children happy, safe, challenged, and occupied so that their parents (who are Active members, friends, contacts, or newcomers) can give their full attention to the meetings. By doing this we have found that we can share love and the Spirit of the Lord and the Family in the way we go about caring for and helping with the children.
Because the national retreat that we hold here is always on the holiday weekend of Corpus Christi, the children are out of school, it’s a holiday, and they come expecting to have fun. They are not really coming prepared to sit down at a table and have a class or Bible studies or anything like that.
The children also come with varying degrees of closeness to the Family themselves. Some of them are very well versed in Family ways and attend Sunday schools at Family Homes, held for them during the Church of Love. Others barely know the Family or what we do and who we are and all of that, so because of the varying levels we have to take a very GP approach with them as a whole.
Preparation Pointers
To get set up and organized it’s important, number one, to try to include a childcare-minded person on the committee that plans and prepares for the retreat. This person would be able to see to it that there is a childcare structure built into the planning, possibly even going to and helping to choose the retreat site with an eye to children’s needs and being able to care for them there.
If not helping in choosing the site, the childcare representative on the committee can at least go to the site ahead of time to see what the place is like. Then he or she will be able to set up and adapt the situation to meet the needs of the number of children that are expected. On site, the childcare committee representative can see what type of facilities are available for outdoor play, and what is there for inside games or recreation. Is there a swimming pool? Are there game tables? If it’s a hotel, does it have its own monitor structure? (Often hotels in Brazil will have staff trained in monitoring, doing games, telling stories and spending time with children. If available and the Lord confirms, these monitors can be incorporated into the body of Family childcare people who are part of your staff, in order to meet the children’s needs.)
Secondly, it is so helpful to know roughly, if not exactly, how many children are coming. This year’s retreat went quite smoothly because we were supplied with a complete list of all the children that were attending, with their names, gender, ages, parents’ names, etc. This helps greatly in organizing your groups ahead of time, because then you know what to expect and can get childcare people that are best suited to working with the different age groups you are going to be dealing with.
On many occasions people have shown up who haven’t previously reserved, but if it is possible to have the information ahead of time about what children to expect, that minimizes a lot of guesswork, confusion, and last-minute preparation. You already know who will be there and you can plan and prepare accordingly.
We have learned that it is difficult to have children under four years of age in the groups we care for at retreats. Children three and younger are not used to being with just anybody and they don’t attend school yet. So it’s really difficult for those less than four years old to participate in a group and not be whiny or unhappy. We found from about four years on up to about eleven years is what we can take. Above eleven they are old enough to participate in the meetings.
At the last retreat we had 47 children between the ages of four and eleven. Actually this is the lowest number of children we have had. At the retreat three years ago we had 70 children between four and eleven. Anyhow, having all the information ahead of time really helps; you can organize them into groups, and assign the right people to the right group. You’ll even know how many monitors you’ll need in order to be with those children during that time.
Fun and Word
We have found that having lots of outdoor play, sports, and activities is a very good way to interact with the children, show them the Lord’s love and the love that we share as a Family. At the same time this gives them fun and helps them burn up some of the energy that they come with because they are out of school.
Then usually towards the end of the day we are able to put some Word into their schedule. For the younger ones we use flannelgraphs or Bible stories, and for the older ones some type of Word-based activity. By then they have had a lot of fun and have gotten to know you a little bit. They do know that you are missionaries, so they are not surprised to be having some type of spiritual and religious instruction. But we have found that putting it at the end of the day really helps, because by then they are willing to sit down, listen, and do something a little bit more calm or laid back because they’ve had a full day of activities.
We come prepared with pencils, paper, and for smaller children photocopies of Feed My Lambs to color, flannelgraphs, Bible storybooks. I usually bring a big sack with board games, chess, checkers, things like that, so that we’re prepared to have indoor play, rainy day games and activities. I also bring a sports bag with baseball bats, softballs, footballs, basketballs, soccer balls, in order to do a variety of outdoor sports and games to keep them pretty busy playing the whole day, running around and having fun.
Scheduling Our Time
As much as possible we try to have a pretty good ratio of our childcare people (plus hotel-provided monitors) to the children. It seems you always feel or wish you could have more, but in the hotels where we have monitors, we have to pay for each individual who helps us, so we try to make do as best we can with a small team.
The retreats are usually three days long, but they are three extremely intense days. It is good to have some backup available to step in and give someone else a break or even let someone else go and attend a meeting or a part of a meeting at times.
We try to post information for the parents as to times and places where they can drop off their children, depending on which age group they are in. For example, we usually separate the age groups: the four-to five-year-olds are with two of our girls, the six-to eight-year-olds with another girl and then the nine-to eleven-year-olds with another boy. Then I have acted as a coordinator and pivot man and would step in here or there, or be the one who would go get things or relieve someone if they needed a break, which turned out in itself to be a full-time job.
The parents dropped their children off each morning at 8:30 (since the morning meeting is at 8:45), and we would be with them until 12:30, at which time they would go with their parents for lunch and a break. Then at 3:30 we would take them again so that the parents could participate in the 3:45 afternoon meeting. We’d have them until dinnertime, which was around 7:00, when they would go with their parents again. Usually the childcare people would be free in the evenings, and the children accompany their parents to the evening activities. We try to keep this in mind so that the evening activities are quite festive with lots of music, skits, dancing, and a good part directed to the children so they can participate too.
Now it’s feasible that if there is a very important evening meeting there could be some type of set-up for the children, so the parents could participate. That could be a good time to have a video for the kids to watch.
The Lord Provides
The hotel this year had some unique factors in that it didn’t have any outdoor space whatsoever for the children. We just knew that the children would not make it through a full day staying inside the hotel! So a dear girl who works with our youth ministry in Rio went with another provisioner to various tourist sites in the city and arranged special discounts, so we could take all of the children attending the retreat on excursions each day. And then we asked for a donation from each of the parents to be able to take their children on these excursions.
So for the three days, the children had an outing each morning. One day they visited a park with natural fountains and a playground. The next day they took a train ride around the city, and the third day they visited a place that has go-carts for children and little cars for them to drive around. The last one was quite expensive, but the girls arranged for the payment to be made in tools, videos, and CDs. The man in charge was very receptive, and signed up for Activated! Our group was able to pretty much have free access to the facilities there all morning.
Care and Safety
We brought a roll of colored ribbon to use on the excursions, which we would tie around the children’s wrist with their name and the hotel where they were staying. As it turned out, we didn’t need it, but it was there in case one of them got lost while we were out; they could then be brought back to the hotel. It’s also good to have a first aid kit.
It’s a little different working with children in this capacity than working with Family kids. You have to really use a lot of persuasion and some of these kids are not that used to obeying or being in a group. It takes a little bit more to win them and be patient and get them to follow along with whatever it is you are trying to do.
The Effects
Over the years we have formed some really good bonds with the children. In fact, some of the children—after participating in their first national retreat—became interested in attending one of the local Family Sunday schools.
It was exciting for the kids and a good sample for the parents to see that emphasis was placed on meeting the children’s needs and being sure that they were well cared for during the retreat. Some of the parents who attend the retreats are more concerned about their children than they are about themselves, and if the Family has proven to be good for their children, then they figure it’s good for them as adults also. I wouldn’t doubt that in some cases, adults have come closer to the Family as a result of there being something positive and constructive for their children also, so that aspect of our witness is not to be underestimated.
By Tommy, Brazil
Each year as these retreats expand, we wonder if we can handle any more growth, any more planning meetings, any more of all that these mega-retreats entail. But when we experience the provision the Lord sends to make the event possible, hear the wonderful testimonies of changed lives, and see the growing maturity and strength of our extended Family, we end up concluding that it is worth it all!
As long as our team has stopped to hear from the Lord each step of the way, He continues to lead and we just follow along in His wake! We have been seeing the era of action fulfilled right before our eyes, and it helps us have more faith to use the keys of the Kingdom, as we really couldn’t do it without them! This is not something anyone should attempt to do in the flesh! It could be fatal! Ha!
It seems that the retreats are a method He is using to strengthen the troops—CMs, FMs and AMs—while we can still enjoy the freedom to meet together in this way. There is just something about being there at Pentecost that is life-changing! Try it! You’ll like it! You’ll take a step into the future and you’ll never be the same!
Captions:
Happy attendees of the June 2001 National Retreat in Brazil, Rise Above!
Witnessing in the city where the June 2001 Brazil national retreat was held
Classes at the June 2001 Brazil national retreat
Dance night!
A workshop at the June 2001 Brazil national retreat
Audio and video recording preserve the event.
Banner with the title of the retreat: The Family Welcomes You to the 6th National Retreat: RISE ABOVE!
Retreat market!
Retreat packages handed out when attendees arrive
Want to make contact (Contato—Portuguese for Activated) with me?
Photos by James (Brazil), Jenna (WS), and Kayla (WS).
Copyright © 2002 by The Family.
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