The Impact of a Ministry Experience on the Personal and Academic Development of College Students

The purpose of this study is to seek out how a ministry experience can be a developmental tool for academic and student development professionals to cultivate growth in the personal and academic areas of students’ lives. Rooted in the academic literature on service-learning and college student spirituality, this study asks how a ministry experience affects students, what part of the experience has the effect, and how students view and understand this development. By interviewing students in a ministry practicum at a small, Christian liberal arts university in the Midwest, themes were drawn out that identified core processes of the ministry experience that caused growth in the students. Through this, a grounded theory was established, proposing that spirituality acts as a moderator to the service-learning experience to impact both the personal and academic development of the participants. The implications are that spirituality (as a common passion among students) can be used to enhance their educational experiences by connecting their learning to something in which they are already investing their energy