Tuesday, August 11, 2015

ProFILE, retreat # 2

To keep with the same tradition of photo-blog for the ProFILE retreats, this blog is also a photo story of the second leadership retreat. I blogged about the first ProFILE retreat here. These are all photos that I took over the weekend. We had a good group again, and have all the congregations in the country represented except 4 and many of the mission congregations!

This was the ice-breaker activity. This activity was one of mine to plan for the weekend. Since this group was almost all the same people from the first retreat, the activity was to introduce someone else. I passed around everyone's name-tags to the wrong person, and they took turns introducing the person whose name tag they had. Here is Christian (left) introducing Julian (right). 


The theme for this leadership retreat was Lutheran confessional. Before the retreat we spent a lot of time creating a game incorporating Lutheran Theology, Lutheran history and fun. The idea was to create an environment where people could learn as well has have fun, and help people to understand the depth of the theology, Martin Luther, and history of IELCO. Here is one of the group playing, left to right, Sonia, Nancy, Carolina, Martin (the guest presenter from Germany), Mauricio, and Abelardo. 

Here is Martin Hoffmann leading a conversation about Lutheran confessional.The group was very interested and took many notes. I think he gave them lots to think about, what it means to be a leader for the church, the leader's role, what isn't the leader's role, etc.  

After the last retreat we gave all of the participants homework, to replicate the first retreat (or a part of it) in their own congregations. Each church had to come to this retreat with a presentation of what they had done, and how it had gone. It was really fun for me to see the activities that we had planned last time being replicated all over the country! In this picture is Carolina (left) and July (right). They are both from the same region but different churches, their churches are about 5 hours apart. However, Carolina is the only one from her church participating in the program, so July went to Carolina's church to help her lead the training there. Both of these young women are 17 (wow), and extremely dedicated leaders within their congregations. 

During the presentations the rest of the group was in charge of giving feedback - one positive comment, and one thing they could improve on. We color coded everything to make it easier (and also prettier). Each church will now bring these suggestions back to their own churches and, hopefully, improve their leadership. Upper left is Enrique and Tatiana from Emaus in Medellin, and bottom right is Sergio and Mauricio from Vida Nueva in Bogota. 

Another activity we did was decorate the Luther Rose. Everyone go one of these pieces of paper along with whatever craft supplies we could dig up from around the office. This was a good mental break after some intense sessions. As you can see from the photos everyone got really into the decorating. Top row (left to right): Maria del Pilar, Maritza. Middle (left to right): German, Henry. Bottom (left to right): Carolina and Julian. 

Here are the leaders of ProFILE after the second retreat. This retreat was in the region of Boyaca, at a retreat center just outside of Paipa. Everyone looks happy and a little tired. It was another good retreat. I continue to be excited about the future of this church, especially in the hands of these amazing people!