When Kokomo Zion UMC came for their team building experience won through their 2024 Derby Ball silent auction basket, we were excited! Our Narrow Gate team was so eager to serve a local church who has seen and supported the cause of helping at-risk youth.
Six church staff approached our stalled horses. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and the horses stuck their heads out of the doors to say hello. As our team welcomed them, we were expectant, as we always are, but unaware of what the morning would bring.
We have served businesses with our Leadership and Team Building program, but this, this was our first church.
It was its own special honor.
We gathered in the observation room to sip coffee and explain a little bit about how the next three hours would work. Then we took the church members to a gated area in our arena for our first activity. Herd observation is so insightful and sets the tone for each subsequent activity. The horses give us lots of interaction as we help visitors discover different ways horses communicate and why. This church was observant and perceptive in their interpretations and understanding about the horses. Our second activity was revolutionary.
After the members left their gated area to greet and connect with the horses, we removed 3 of the 5, leaving only Bambi and Reno.
These two proved to be perfect partners for this church team.
The team was asked to identify one obstacle they faced together as a church and then to build an obstacle to represent that. The obstacle had to be one that the horses could go over, under, or through.
Kokomo Zion built an obstacle that represented their church building with an open door. Their “church” had different obstacles in it that represented different things to them. Their challenge was to get the horses into their designated area.
Reno proved an eager and willing participant. He wanted to be a part of their group! Bambi, however, was a different story. With her back to their “church”, no amount of persuasion or movement would entice her.
How do you lead a horse that doesn’t want to be led?
As the team brainstormed, they came up with a very biblical idea, “Let’s go to her!”
The team worked on ways to bring their “church” out and include her. Bambi represented to them a demographic of people who were possibly busy or stressed out and weren’t sure how to add attending church to their life.
What was awesome to the NGHR volunteers was that as they worked to include Bambi, Bambi demonstrated that she wanted to be included by moving in towards the group’s originally designed area. What a beautiful example of the gospel at work!
We, as a church, go to where people are and meet them where they are at.
One of the gifts of working with these horses is to challenge our thinking patterns.
How can I lead an unwilling horse? How can I reach a kid who is shut down? How can I accomplish what seems an impossible task at this moment?
Bambi invites us all to challenge ourselves and keep thinking through our goals. God, himself, helps us to do that. I know that in my own experience, and I watched him help this team. I stood there unsure about what I myself would do!
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
Isaiah 52:7
*Check out more about our Team Building and Leadership Programming here.