Becoming a Facilitator

It's difficult to find great facilitators. I've been in the business for many years and still have trouble finding people who can deliver a high level of professional service while working with small groups.

Developing into a successful facilitator takes many years, but the rewards are many if you commit to it, like most things.

The Benefits

  • Learning: Our training programs are like graduate school. You learn technical safety skills, small group dynamics, human behavior models, secrets to organizational health and more importantly, how to impact the lives of people in ways we may never know.

  • Service: It's not all about you. A facilitator has a distinct purpose. It's not climbing, or being in front of a captured audience. It is about understanding the group and making adjustments on the fly to help them accomplish their goals.

  • Ministry: If you take the path of integrating faith-formation in your facilitation, your function moves across sectors in to fellowship, discipleship, ministry and evangelization. Ministry is about being open to outcomes so the Holy Spirit can freely enter the process with your small group...and you.

The CostS

There is definitely a cost, both in time and money. More importantly is the cost of remaining disciplined to the process.

  • Time spent researching where you want to use your challenge course skills once you're training is worthwhile. You'll need to spend a few hours poking around the Internet to find local courses at camps or schools. Then contact the director or challenge course manager to talk about joining their team.
  • Money is always a concern. Fortunately in our program, what you initially pay out, you can recoup within a few months. Initial 40 hour training is about $500.
  • A period of practice time spent "shadowing" a trained facilitator occurs after your initial training.
  • Once you have been "authorized" to facilitate, you may join a team to co-facilitate in order to get "checked-out" by the challenge course manager. This is like a stamp of approval to then work solo.
  • As a facilitator working on our home course at Pecometh Camp and Retreat near Centreville, MD, you will make between $75-$150 per day as a Level 1 staffer.
  • After 2 years and 200 hours of facilitating at Level 1, you become eligible to pursue Level 2 by taking a 40 hour Advanced Training. This cost is around $500. Pay is typically $200-250 per day once you've been verified at Level 2 by the trainer.

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