Why It’s Critical to Make Time for Stories
I’m regularly asked if the Story Retreat matters. I hear things like, “My mentees are busy…” “We don’t have time to get out of town…”
I also often hear from leaders that the Story Retreat was the most formative thing that happened in their groups. Their mentees share things like, “I’ve never told anyone this before…” “I thought I was the only one…”
Confession time. In one of my mentoring groups, instead of doing a Story Retreat, I spread their stories over our first three months of meetings…and I had serious regrets.
Yes, all my mentees shared their stories and heard everyone else’s stories, but our group’s growth was hindered because I didn’t make stories a priority. John Maxwell said, “The speed of the leader is the speed of the team,” and I couldn’t agree more.
We say often that the mentor sets the tone. It’s true in regards to the homework, and memory verses, and especially true with the Story Retreat.
Having a retreat specifically to share stories stresses the importance of our stories and allows the group to bond quickly. Not doing so has the opposite effect, the stories become just one of the activities you complete, instead of maybe the most important element, and the group takes longer to come together because the significance of that shared experience is lost.
The authors of The Cure describe, “A place so safe that the worst of me could be known, and I would discover that I would not be loved less, but more in the telling of it.” This is the Story Retreat defined…where the group forms trust and grace shows itself in the faces of the people gathered there.
A mentor from Tulsa, Oklahoma describes the retreat this way…
“Once I created the vulnerability by sharing my story, I was surprised by the amount of vulnerability that came back at me through my mentees and their stories – there is just a lot of brokenness out there. I was shocked by some of the revelations mentees will share. They felt safe because we created a safe environment. People are looking for a community like that.”
In the Radical Mentoring resources for the Story Retreat, we offer three possible agendas: a weekend retreat, an overnight retreat, and a story day. We created three distinct options because we don’t want your group to miss out on what we believe will be a divine appointment for your mentees.
Challenge: Yes, your mentees are busy, and you are busy. That won’t change. But trust me, make the Story Retreat a priority. If it matters to you, it will be important to your mentees.
This post originally appeared on radicalmentoring.com.
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