Updated 3/9/12

I can’t remember where,or when, I first heard it… but it was a statement that changed how I did/do/and will always do ministry in the future:

‘Thoughtful reflection is the final 33% of any meaningful experience.’

Think about that for a minute.

Thoughtful, intentional reflection on an experience is the final 1/3 of the overall experience.

Or put another way: without taking the time to intentionally reflect on an experience you only get 66% or 2/3 of the FULL experience.

In grading terms we’re talking about a ‘D’… which is only 6 percentage points away from failing. Most of the students I know would NOT be happy with this kind of experience [or grade].

Revisiting Edgar Dale’s ‘Cone of Learning’ one more time, it seems that even one’s‘participation in the real thing’which stands atop the cone as the most actively engaged way for us to learn – must include some form of intentional reflection component in order to yield a 90% retention level.

And as pastor-types who are working with college students, we want students to do more than simply ‘remember’ their experience/s… we want them to be transformed by them!

We have 8 teams that have been away on a spring break‘immersion trip’ this week. By design, their experience has included elements of:

• Daily, informal opportunities for reflection and discussion.
• Nightly, more formal opportunities for sharing and prayer
• Journaling and ongoing conversations about what God is up to — and what it means for them as they prepare to return to campus.. 

It is amazing to see how God can use the comments of one student to seemingly open a new door of knowing for another student.

Or how one students words can precisely summarize what another student had been struggling to articulate.

Or how one thread of a conversation can lead down a path that unlocks something in another person’s heart or mind that had been previously inaccessible.

Yes,there is power in the process.

But when meaningful, intentional processing accompanies the process – the power unleashed isthe kind of thing that God can use to change a life forever!