Developing Leaders in the School of Adventure Leadership

How HoneyRock Forms Leaders through Wilderness Experiences

By HoneyRock Center for Leadership Development

February 18^th, 2022

HoneyRock’s School of Adventure Leadership Training (SALT) is a three-month program that equips participants with the necessary skills to be adventure ministry professionals. Participants gain a strong foundation in wilderness leadership, adventure ministry, and faith formation through industry-standard training and real-life experience.

The outcomes of the School of Adventure Leadership Training (SALT) sound compelling in theory, but you may be wondering how these outcomes are facilitated in practice. How does HoneyRock actually develop leaders in SALT? How are foundations of faith, community, and wilderness skill built in real, concrete ways? Some recent SALT participants distilled the ways they have been cultivated as leaders through their experience at HoneyRock.

We Lead and Are Led

HoneyRock develops leaders through intentional mentoring and discipling. High school and undergraduate SALT participants are trained and poured into by experienced program staff. SALT student Olivia shared, “I learned from people who have a lot more wilderness knowledge, information, and practice - those who are a lot older and wiser than me. Those people recognized the things that I can do well and affirmed them, and also taught me the right way when I did something wrong, and affirmed me when I changed.” As a result, she believes she’s grown a lot as a leader. She says, “I’m a lot more confident bringing others into this space. Before, I felt like I was fully competent in caring for myself in a wilderness setting, but now I feel a lot more equipped to bring others into it.” The care and expertise with which Olivia was trained equipped and empowered her to put her newly gained leadership knowledge and experience into practice with her future campers.

Developing Leaders in the School of Adventure Leadership

New leaders aren’t the only ones learning and growing, though. Program staff members also gain priceless leadership experience as they train, guide, and mentor. As a graduate student in the Outdoor Adventure Leadership program, Terik’s job is to train SALT students to lead their own wilderness trips with campers, and this has enabled him to grow as a leader in numerous ways. He said, “Getting to be the coordinator for the 2:22 program and SALT while I’m getting my degree is very exciting to me. HoneyRock gives you a bigger position than you can handle and then walks you along the process and helps you accomplish the goals…they’re willing to allow for leadership and learning through their process of leadership development.”

We Apply What We Learn

The intentionality of the training program is a crucial component to leadership development at HoneyRock. SALT participant Nate explained, “HoneyRock does 6 weeks of training for 4 weeks of camp. That ratio is really staggering and cool. They prepare us really well to receive campers…this seemed like the best opportunity for me to learn how to lead better in my own life and pour into the people around me.” The fact that HoneyRock engages in such extensive training reflects its overarching goal of developing leaders. Olivia added, “HoneyRock is willing to make an investment in us and take a lot of time to teach us. It would be so easy to just say, we’re going to take a few days and teach you these things, but that wouldn’t be as effective as experiential learning.”

HoneyRock recognizes that leaders must learn by doing. Once new leaders are trained at camp and on wilderness trips, they get the opportunity to put what they’ve learned into practice in real time, with real youth, in real scenarios. This makes HoneyRock a true “laboratory” for leaders, and their experiences in training have a significant impact on how they lead their campers. Nate explained, "I’m excited for whitewater with campers – it's an 8-day trip and I have 8 guys, so I’ll canoe with a different camper each day. This will allow me to get to know each one. In SALT training, I got to know the people I was canoeing with really well, so now I know I’ll want to do this with my campers.” In preparation for taking on the role of leadership with his own campers, Nate reflected on his experiences in training and used them to shape his approach.

"...This seemed like the best opportunity for me to learn how to lead better in my own life and pour into the people around me.”

We Make Mistakes

HoneyRock recognizes that leaders are not perfect. Maturing leaders must be willing to make mistakes, learn from them, and grow. Therefore, leadership education and training are marked by opportunities to make decisions and live out the consequences of those decisions. Students are given safe spaces to make the wrong call and then refine their processes so that they can develop wisdom through experience. Emily, SALT participant, said, “This trip served as a really great reminder of checking everything before trip and refining our pack-in and pack-out process so that the trips over the summer can go smoothly.” The opportunity to make mistakes in training ensures the production of more competent, experienced leaders when it really counts. Terik shared, “Out here, we’re in more of a wilderness setting than back at HoneyRock. That means there are higher consequences, so things have to be taken more seriously. It makes it a lot more practical to tell them they have to pay attention to navigation out here because if they get lost, the consequences are higher – they can’t just walk through the woods and get picked up.”

Cade, another SALT participant, added, “I was challenged not always knowing how much we were supposed to know…I responded by getting as much information as possible, talking with my leader, and figuring out as much as I could.” Cade wasn’t given all the answers in his leadership training on purpose. Not knowing allowed him to recognize his own blind spots and figure out how to take initiative to problem-solve effectively. As a result, he is now able to say, “I feel like I could do this trip again and be comfortable with it.” See pictures of him leading his own trip below.

We Explore New Approaches

At HoneyRock, leaders are developed from the inside out. Program staff at HoneyRock draw new leaders’ attention to ways of approaching ministry in a wilderness context that they may have never thought of before. SALT student Courtney said, “We were told before the trip that the wilderness is the great magnifier, and I think that really stood true for all things.” Her trainer framed their trip with a specific idea - that wilderness is the great magnifier - and as a result, the leadership training Courtney received was marked by deeper significance and impact. She learned to see Creation differently, which developed her ability to lead well in that context. Courtney was also impacted by the philosophical principles and approaches to wilderness tripping that her trainers modeled. “I was surprised by our general willingness to approach interruptions as opportunities for engagement and learning to occur. There was a level of ‘let’s stop to engage’ rather than just trying to get to the destination.” Experiencing the value of this attitude towards interruptions helped Courtney develop her personal wilderness tripping priorities and philosophy as she prepared to lead her own campers in the coming weeks.

“I was surprised by our general willingness to approach interruptions as opportunities for engagement and learning to occur. There was a level of ‘let’s stop to engage’ rather than just trying to get to the destination.”

We Get Out of Our Comfort Zones

HoneyRock develops leaders by drawing students out of their comfort zones. Through close-knit communities and rigorous wilderness trips, everyone encounters discomfort of some sort during their leadership training. As new leaders face unfamiliar and uncomfortable situations, they are forced to get to know themselves better and discover their growth areas. This is necessary because one can only lead others as well as they can lead themselves. SALT participant Zach says he was developed as a leader when he had to wrestle with social dynamics on trip. He says, “I’m someone who can be very straight-faced and determined to overcome a challenge or obstacle, and I can tend to neglect relationships. But I really love how surprised I was to see how well I could come into a team that embraced me, and I embraced them.” Initially, a team environment was out of Zach's comfort zone, but leaning into the discomfort allowed him to recognize his social tendencies and grow in response to that knowledge. This strengthened and informed his ability to facilitate a strong, encouraging community of campers when he led his own trips down the road.

We Learn How to See God

Spiritual formation is a crucial component of leadership development at HoneyRock. Terik described this concrete way he invites future leaders to connect with God and develop their faith in a wilderness context: paying attention to “Macro Wonders” and “Micro Wonders.” Macro Wonders are the things that stop you in your tracks, like a blazing sunset or a powerful storm rolling across the landscape. Micro Wonders are the details that you have to intentionally lean in to notice, like the unique pattern of a snowflake or the flecks of color in a hawk’s wing. Romans 1:20 tells us,

“Since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”

Therefore, at HoneyRock, all natural wonders, big and small, are honored as reflections of the Creator and viewed as potential conduits for spiritual formation. We also recognize people as part of Creation, which is why community is such a crucial aspect of leadership formation. We value close-knit teams and mentorship at multiple levels because it celebrates the ability each of us possess to communicate who God is to those around us. Taking it even further, it is the responsibility of leaders to call out the unique reflection of God in each person they are responsible to care for and guide.