What is STRETCH?

STRETCH is our summer event designed explicitly for middle school students. The purpose of STRETCH is to connect students with peers, our ministry, and ultimately God. This event isn’t designed to cause a conversion experience, although that happened for some students last year, but is designed to get students interested in God. In our area students embrace many of the stereotypical thoughts about church: it’s boring, irrelevant, and a waste of time. We try to program an environment to shred those beliefs.

This years theme is "Out of the Box" and breaks down for the three days as follows: Day 1 - the box your peers put you in (dealing with the pressures to fit in), Day 2 - the box adults place you in (believing in yourself despite being stuck between childhood and adulthood), and Day 3 - the benefits of allowing God to take you out of the box. Here are the top things I would recommend when hosting a middle school camp:

Promote it
We created flyers, placed door hangers in the community, and continuously sent out emails to our people. Utilize your web-site and create a MySpace (ours isn't utilized to its potential)!
Involve Others - Your event will not be great if it rests on your efforts alone. Events are the best way to find new leaders for your ministry because you get to observe others in a short term volunteer commitment. Events are also a great way to allow your current team members to STRETCH their leadership potential. Obviously this allows for specialization in ministry areas allowing for great success.

Bring on the WOW
This event needs to take your normal programming to a much higher level. For example, we always provide an hour of free time for our students to get involved in activities. For STRETCH instead of the normal games and regular fun stuff, we are bringing in inflatables, a laser tag course, makeover station, dance instruction, video game room, etc. Do things for as many groups of students as possible. You need to have awesome elements (countdown timers, opening songs, funny media). Everything is a WOW!

Get a Speaker
If you are the point person and key coordinator for your event I would strongly discourage you from being the key speaker. I am the MC for the event and have plenty of stage time to allow students to know who I am. There is just too much going on right now and too much exhaustion setting in to speak at a high caliber for this event. Last year we used Jeffrey Dean (awesome!) and this year we are going with Travis Crim.

Utilize Local Talent
Last year we brought in a comedian for all three days but this year we did a local talent search. We are using a fire eating, uniclyclist, juggler for day 1. A illusionist/comedian (lot's of box tricks) for day 2. For day 3 we are having a local karate team come in and break stuff (they're doing it for free)! This allows for "themed" variety and keeps cost down.

Bring in a Ton of Food
Enough said. PS - Get a donation specialist on your team!

Bring a Friend Contest -
For each day of the event we give a $50.00 Credit Gift Card to the person who brings the most friends.

Give Stuff Away
Each day we are giving away something to keep the excitement of the event alive. Day 1 - Temporary Tatoos and Wristbands, Day 2 - Carabiners, Day 3 - Bouncy Balls.

Get Them Back

The week following STRETCH we show a highlights video during student ministry and give a STRETCH t-shirt to every student that attends the following week. This has been great for bringing students back to regular youth group nights and that's the point of the event!

Here is the schedule for the event along with the key elements:

• 5:45-6:30 - Registration - during this time students will be arriving, signing in, and permitted to do some of the free time activities.
• 6:30-6:42 - Students enter the building - In order to create a high energy introduction, we open the doors to our lobby area but keep the auditorium doors closed. In the lobby we will have a countdown timer as well as some funny Youtube videos looping in the background.
• 6:42-6:45 - Doors open, fog machines are kicking, and countdown video is playing with the sound system cranked. You cannot underestimate the energy created by a cranking coundown timer. Last year we did a movie collage but this year we went more of a computer generated feel from five:am productions. I know these guys personally and they are top-notch and do not charge near enough!
• 6:45-8:00 - Programming - The opening song is cranked and the kids are going nuts. We then transition into three worship songs which take students from highly energetic, to medium, to serious and focused. We then do some announcements, give-aways, games, and bring out the evening talent. The last thing of the programming segment is the main speaker.
• 8:00-9:00 - Free Time - This is when students have the blessing to be themselves! We try to have something for everyone.
• 9:00-10:00 - Optional Free Time - For those whose parents want to expand on their date night.
• 10:00 - Clean up!

If you would like any additional information or have specific questions about our event please don't hesitate to email me at matt@moviechurch.com. Please also take a moment to pray for this event being held on July 20th - 22nd.