The Thrill of Discovery

A few of us are out here in California attending training in experiential learning and facilitation. Yesterday we got to practice our newly acquired skills on some college kids at a low ropes course. At the final debrief, one of the gals in my group said it was so neat how I didn't seem to have an agenda, but simply asked questions and allowed them to think through the issues for themselves, rather than giving them answers or even forcing them into certain answers.

It was so interesting to see how it worked. As our instructor encouraged us, to "trust the process." I was surprised how much discipline it took on my part to listen to the young people and tailor my next question or comment based on what they were saying, rather than thinking so hard about where I wanted to go that I didn't even hear them. Yet I found with patience and true listening, the insights they came up with were as good or better than content I could have delivered. Their excitement of discovery was enormously higher than if they had just received content from me. And the cool thing was that my enjoyment of hearing them come up with these insights actually was higher than the enjoyment of delivering the info myself.

It is good to be reminded that the One who had all knowledge spent three years giving teachings in the form of parables and often in the form of questions. Talk about content! He could have spent all three years lecturing and still not covered half his content. But instead, He lead the disciples (and us) on a journey of discovery. So often we forget this as we consider training and discipleship.