MAKING AN IMPACT: Mode

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (in the third week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

We have spoken about our purpose at Impact Campus Ministries; we exist to make disciples who make disciples. In light of this, we started with our definition of disciple and the method of discipleship. We want to allow people to become submitted to Jesus by inviting them to imitate a mentor who is imitating Jesus.

We have spoken of ICM’s mission statement: to pursue, model, and teach intimacy with Christ within the context of Christian community on the American university campus. This led us to taking the time to define those three terms — pursue, model, and teach. We spoke of pursuit being the way we intentionally engage in spiritual practices. We spoke of model being the way we pursue God in front of others so they can physically see what it looks like. Then we talked about teach being so important, because as we instruct our students in furthering the discipleship process, we are enabling them to do so much more than simply mimic the actions — we are allowing them to possess the truths for themselves.

When we speak about imitating a mentor who imitates Jesus (our purpose), we see that road map of imitation laid out in our mission statement.

In the most recent post of this series, we began walking through the idea of message, mode, and milieu. This is what enables us to become more effective in chasing our vision — Impact the U, Impact the World. Hopefully the reader can see how these are building blocks that allow us to create an approach to ministry that is more and more effective in reaching our goals. One of those things is message; this is the idea that we need to be able to understand the narrative arc of the Text as just that — a narrative.

The next word that shows up for ICM is MODE. Gifted to us by our last president, Bill Westfall, and the work he did during his dissertation, the idea is simply this: Young adults (particularly college students) learn much better when we can stimulate their mind, heart, and body. On some level, I feel ill-equipped to write about this idea as Bill was the one who did all the research, but the idea makes perfect sense to me and resonates with my experience as a teacher and campus minister.

I’m not sure if this has been true for all generations or not. I have a hunch that on some level, this has always been true. And yet, the research concludes this is even more true with this generation than was typical in the past. There are many hunches as to why this is, from the impact of technology on our culture to the very physiology of our children. But the truth remains: If you can holistically engage the learner, simultaneously impacting every part of their self, the learning is deeper, more retentive, and more powerful.

One of the best ways I can talk about this personally is describing my biennial trip to Israel and Turkey. Every other year, I take a group of students to wander around the Middle East for a few weeks. All the things you would expect to happen are going to happen. We are going to take lots of pictures, learn lots of information, and see lots of famous places. But the trip is so much more than a tourist experience.

On our study tours, my goal is to help students experience the lessons that the biblical story is trying to teach us. A great example is the time of Israel wandering in the desert. I take my students and drag them into the Negev and Paran deserts of southern Israel. I purposely take this trip in August so it is as hot as it will be all year. (I have been in the Negev with students in 117-degree heat.) I do this on purpose because I want to teach them (intellectually, this is the mind) about the Negev and the experience of the desert. I want them to feel (physically, this is the body) the heat and the thirst and the hopelessness of it all. I then want them to connect with the struggle of those ancient Israelites as they cry out for water — and then make the connections to the deserts they have experienced in their own lives (emotionally, this is the heart).

If this is done correctly, the student will learn a lesson, have a mental image, and experience a heart tug that will forever change their walk with God. We attempt to do this over and over again, multiple times a day, day after day for three weeks. I can speak from personal experience to how effective and life-changing this learning style is. I have been with over twenty seminary-trained and graduate-level participants who all said they got more out of two weeks in Israel then in four years of seminary.

Why is this method so impactful? Because it engages the whole person and doesn’t just pursue a transfer of data. It instead creates a complete learning package where nothing is wasted and everything is loaded with potential.

Realizing we don’t drag people around the world every day, we must do the hard work of figuring out how to pursue this kind of engagement in our day-to-day environments. It is difficult, but it is also very rewarding when it’s successful. May we strive to settle less and less for classroom-style teaching (although it certainly has its place) and emotionally manipulative moments. May we create big, holistic moments of learning where the entire student is engaged in the lesson.