Not Everyone Learns the Same

Not everyone learns the same.

We recently returned from a camp in which we were trying to teach about serving God by serving others. I have preached or taught a lot in the past about how we need to be serving others. Now I wanted to give our students an opportunity to learn by doing.

We went to Nashville and served at the Nashville Rescue Mission. We sorted clothes and other things in their warehouse to help their various ministries that they have there.

We went to a ministry called Hope House in Bowling Green and helped in their thrift store as well as their back room. The guys got sweaty and dirty while moving a ton of garbage for them.

Then we spent an afternoon helping with a ministry called Curbside Ministries. We played with kids and talked with them about life.

Overall, our students each participated in over 6 hours of community service while we were on our trip.

Something interesting that happened was that one of the students told my wife Janell that he had been in church a lot during his lifetime. He had heard a lot of sermons about serving others. But that he never really realized what we meant by that until camp this year.

My takeaway from this is that sometimes it takes experiential learning. It takes doing something rather than just hearing. It takes seeing it in action. When we say to “love our neighbor,” often, we need to exhibit that and model that for students. We cannot simply rely on telling people that Jesus loves them or that they need to do certain things or make specific changes, we need to help them actually do those things in order for it to sink in deep to their very being.

My prayer is that our camp experience will help students have a heart for others and see what it means to really, truly, love God with all their heart, strength, and mind. And what it means to love their neighbor as themselves.