Truth or Dare- a new retreat experience

I was walking through the main hangout room at this year's New Student Retreat when I suddenly heard a string of curse words. Pockets of students were playing board games and hanging out after the main session was over - and apparently the last round of Catchphrase was particularly disappointing for a few of them.

Here at Duke we're starting to see a pretty significant number of non-Christians commit to our community (some of them have even come to faith, like Louisa who shares her story here). Their presence is influencing a lot of our decision-making and communication as a community. I'd like to share a few reflections about taking a retreat with a high(er) number of non-Christians. It is important to note that some of these folks grew up in the church and could therefore be described as nominal Christians, but some of them are completely new to religion in any form. Both exist on your campus, I bet.

First of all, make no assumptions during the content time. It is slowly becoming a habit for us to not just talk about the context of Scripture we're using, but also to talk about the particular type* in a way that is easily translatable. Obviously, this is good for Christian students to hear, too. I also explain the book, chapter, and verse organization of the Bible early in the weekend and take a swing at explaining the difference between the Old Testament and New Testament.** It's surprising how often people don't know how the Bible is divided up and that we use chapter:verse to note that.

Second, pay close attention to free time. Make sure there are a few Christians in charge to maintain influence. I'm not sure if this is specific to just our chapter, but it seems to me that many times non-Christians are pretty influential socially. When we don't plan good activities for free time and have strong believers present, sometimes free times degenerate into Truth or Dare or a super competitive game of football. These things aren't inherently bad of course; but left unchecked, they can take on too much power in the flow of a weekend. Plan good activities that are fun and inclusive. Pick leaders that aren't afraid to intervene if a game/activity starts to feel...unChristian - or don't be afraid to step in yourself!

Final thought: do what you do! Weekend retreats are excellent windows into the power of a Christian community at work. I've heard non-Christians marvel at how everybody serves each other and is generally pretty friendly over the course of a weekend. This is actually true of many of our communities. Don't be afraid to show it off a bit over a weekend away, together.

* epistle = letter to early church, gospel = biography of Jesus, psalm = poem, etc
** "The Old Testament is all about God preparing the Jewish culture for Jesus. The New Testament is all about what happened once Jesus got here." -- take Systematic Theology at NISET for true brilliance on this
Allison King, Duke staff