Buck Brannaman, “The Horse Whisperer,” is famous for training horses without ever using force. It’s almost like can talk with them. He also survived tremendous childhood trauma. After he and his brother were taken from their abusive father, they were placed with foster parents who owned a large ranch and immediately put them to work. Sometimes it’s hard to know how to help children who have experienced hard things, but Buck is clear that his foster father’s care brought him out of a very dark place, saying, “I didn’t need his pity, I needed a job.”

Sometimes moving our bodies helps produce momentum in other areas of our beings. Words that were previously stuck somewhere in our bellies or chests or shoulders get dislodged and begin to move their way upward to our throats and mouths and even past our lips. When we are able to speak the words that have previously been too painful to release, those words and feelings are freed to become something else. We can become curious about them. They can become great teachers. If we can mention our pain, we can manage it.

Talking about the pain and difficulty of this past year is going to be very important to all ages within our churches. But, how do we guide people to mention their pain?

The job of Christian educators during this time is to guide learners in making those words nearest to our hearts mentionable. In student ministry at the Highland Church of Christ, we assume that young people need meaningful work at our church and that such work might even metabolize stuck pain.

Our adaption has taken the form of greatly reducing the informational content we deliver on a weekly basis to make room for more experiential learning. We believe that learning Scripture “on the job” will not only guide our young people to participate in the mission of God at Highland, but will also be the kind of movement they need to begin mentioning the painful experiences from the past year. The following is an ongoing experiment with experiential learning.

Our learning communities (called huddles) gather once a week, are organized based on grade, and are hosted by several trusted adults. On the first week of the four-week rotation, each huddle watches several five-minute scriptural, teaching videos. The students in the huddle then decided which of the three principals from Scripture they would like to experiment with for the next month. Then, they decide on a two-week individual experiment they will all commit to practicing. For instance, if we are studying the Beatitudes and one of the groups decides to focus on “blessed are the peacemakers,” they may commit to a two-week experiment where they agree to change the subject every time a peer begins speaking negatively about someone else. Or, they may ask if there is anyone they’ve hurt and to whom they could apologize.

The next week, students report back on how the experiment is going and decide if they need to make any changes. This is also a good opportunity for huddle leaders to ask students what they are learning about themselves in the process of trying to be more like Jesus.

The third week, the group does a final report and analysis of the experiment and then, based on what they are learning, plans a group experiment for the next week. On the fourth week, they usually don’t even meet at our building but gather somewhere else in Abilene to practice the way of Jesus. Finally, they take several moments to reflect on what they learned before they start again the next week.

Here is one of my favorite examples of what this can look like. Our junior huddle was studying the names of God and decided to experiment with the name “El Roi,” or “The God Who Sees Me” from Hagar’s story in Genesis. They asked themselves, “Who does God see that others might overlook?” And, “How can we develop eyes like God’s to see the marginalized?” What they came up with was beautiful and inspiring; all because the adults in their lives trusted them to move.

Two years prior, these young people tragically lost a dear friend during their freshman year. They spent weeks compiling all the pictures they ever took with him, printed them out, and created a scrapbook. On his birthday, they showed up unannounced to his house and delivered the scrapbook to his family because they wanted his family to know God sees them and so do they. The young man’s family was deeply touched by their thoughtful gift. I was so proud of them.

It is moving to see teenagers acting like Jesus and doing something so incredibly compassionate and thoughtful. Though we should also note that a group of trusted adults gave young people a meaningful task and they were able to process the death of a friend by practicing the habits of Scripture. They were able to form words that were previously unmentionable. In the process, they reminded our church what it looks like when El Roi moves.

I wonder, how can we get our people moving? How might that movement unlock the conversations from this past year that must take place?