Teaching with props and object lessons is a key aspect of outdoor ministry. Object lessons are the basis for experiential learning. I’m always looking for creative outdoor ministry curriculum for the outdoors. Object lessons and props bring learning to life and increase participation in the learning process.
God uses outdoor ministry to make you something. We want to empower others to leave a legacy and a lasting impact on the world by submitting to the anvil of discomfort from time to time. As facilitators we help people realize that the whole time during the experience, as stressful as it may have been, that all that time we were under the Potter’s hand. He wants to make us a vessel for noble purposes.
We want to hear God speak to us. We daily need his guidance. Yet, the clutter, busyness, and noise of life at times makes us feel like God’s still small voice is being drowned out. Do you ever freak out a bit and say to yourself something like, “I don’t care what anyone else has to say, I just want to hear what God has to say about this situation.” Well, if you have ever reached that place, then you are welcome member of the human race.
Why to so few experiential learning educators look to Jesus’ as a model experiential educator? This is like taking William Shakespeare or Charles Dickens out of an English Literature course. It can be compared to MBA program not mentioning Steve Jobs or Peter Drucker. For experiential learning advocates and outdoor education specialists, trying to avoid looking at Jesus as a model master teacher is just as ill-informed as an architecture professor neglecting to draw attention to Frank Lloyd Wright or Fredrick Law Olmsted. I believe that Jesus is not often mentioned as a master experiential learning educator because of an inadequate awareness of the facts.
The wilderness is a great leveler that will prepare people to open up. But you don’t wake up one day and automatically know how to facilitate discussions with a diverse group of people. If you want your group to discover the meaning of a biblical text and apply it to their lives without you spoon-feeding them, then the soft skill of writing well-crafted questions is a must.
