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The Ordeal
The Ordeal
The induction ceremony, called the Ordeal, is the first step toward full membership in the Order. During the experience, candidates maintain silence, receive small amounts of food, work on camp improvement projects, and sleep apart from other campers. The entire experience is designed to teach significant values. All candidates for membership must complete the Ordeal.
Candidates may complete their Ordeal at any Ordeal weekend. Call-out ceremonies are optional recognition events at district camporees, summer camp, or other events and are not a required step in the inductions process.
It is a weekend in Spring or Fall, four challenges are to be faced, each symbolic of ‘the challenges a leader often faces’. They might not have returned home Sunday fully aware of the meaning of everything through which he has been this weekend . I want to share with you about these challenges so you can help them to understand and look ahead to how they can better serve their unit, their school, their family, and their community. The four challenges of the Ordeal are…
A Vow of Silence: The candidates take on a 24-hour vow of silence. Hours spent in thoughtful silence helps us make the right decisions, more than many days of talking. Silence helps bind us all together in brotherhood .
Sleep Alone: On Friday night, the candidates slept alone on their groundsheet underneath the stars (actually, not 20 feet away from anyone else, but in the dark night they didn’t know that). This challenges the candidates to be steadfast as the polestar, self-reliant and undiscouraged.
Scant Food: During Saturday, both the breakfast and lunch meals were smaller than a typical meal. Through this form of fasting, sacrifice, and self-denial, we learn that a cheerful heart is lively even under hardship.
Arduous Labor: The day is spent working in service of the camp, as a day spent in cheerful service, is consistent with the Order’s purpose of seeking to serve and being faithful to the high ideals of the Order of the Arrow.
Being an Arrowman
Being an Arrowman
Once candidates complete their Ordeal, they are invited to attend future events such as Section Conclave in September, Fall Conference in October, and Lodge Leadership Development in December. Six months following the candidate’s induction, they are invited to seal their membership by completing their Brotherhood, the second “level” of Order of the Arrow membership. Any Arrowman may complete their Brotherhood at any Spring Conference or Fall Conference. Additional information is available in the New Member Guide.
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