MOPS Retreat

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend our local MOPS retreat. MOPS stands for Mothers of Preschoolers. "MOPS International exists to encourage equip and develop every mother of preschoolers to realize her potential as a woman, mother an leader in the name of Jesus Christ." (This is their mission statement). The group is open to any mom with kids from birth through kindergarten.
Since we moved from Pittsburgh this is actually the third MOPS group I have been a part of. I couldn't imagine life without being a part of MOPS. I've met some of my best friends at MOPS.

Some of my MOPS friends have actually moved out of the Pittsburgh area to. After posting a few pictures this past weekend about our retreat I received some message wanting to know a little more about our retreat. I thought I'd write a blog post describing some of the fun details.

In the past we have held our retreat as a one day affair at the church where our MOPS meeting are held. This year the coordinator really wanted to get the team better connected with one another. As the table leader coordinator I also wanted more of a team feel.

We were lucky as our coordinator used to be camp counselor at a local Christian camp. We got to go away for less than 24 hours and spend some time with some awesome women in a beautiful setting. We also didn't have to break the bank to do it. Another perk was that most only had a 30 minute drive from their homes. It felt like we were far away but we were really close.

Friday night we started in the chapel. This was such a great place to meet and perfect for our 23 person steering team.

Our coordinator kicking things off

 

We started the night with introductions. We have many new members on the steering team this year. I think that this in fact was the best part of going away.  I got to really know some women who I only talked to in passing.  With a large group like ours it is hard to meet everyone during meeting times. you really get to know the ladies at your table but not the others in the group.

 

Our only goal for Friday night was to come up with a mission/vision/goal statement for our group. We started out listing words that we felt described MOPS. Then we moved on to writing our goal statement. This was such a rich discussion. 

What one word do you feel describes MOPS?

Using those words what do you think our goal should be for the year?

The videos that MOPS international gave us this year were really well done. So we actually used three of these throughout the weekend. One was about setting goals so before we jumped into writing ours we watched the video. It was fun to hear everyone tweak the wording and then come up with a sustainable and achievable goal for the year.

Friday evening was spent relaxing in our lodge. We had the whole lodge to ourselves which meant we each had our own room and we have a great grate room to hang out in. We just chatted. It as so nice to sit and talk to someone without having to say A get off of there, Where is C, B please quit interrupting, etc. IT was a very freeing feeling to really just be ourselves and not have to be mom for a few hours.

Saturday morning started off with a grab and go breakfast and a quiet time devotional on what is bravery and courage. This year's MOPS theme is Be You Bravely. We spent some time discussing what this looks like for each of us.

We then exchanged names of steering team members to prayer for over the course of the year. The coordinator and I made 3.5x5 magnets with the Steering Team members names to put on the refrigerator. This way you can always see who you should be praying for for the year.

Our creative activities director this year is awesome. She came up with the idea to make cards. We spent about 45 minutes making 125 cards. Each Steering Team member got to take 6 home. Then they can use these cards to bless other members.

Then we did our break out sessions. I led the table leader session and we discussed our table leader handbook. The Coordinator led the rest of the Steering Team discussion.

Lastly we had lunch. It was the perfect amount of time away from the family. I cannot wait to do this again next year!