What Does it Mean to be a Multi-Sensory Learner?

A few months ago, I was at a conference in Washington D.C.  A few of us from the staff went, joining about a thousand other people for this event.  And at one point, Beth, Susan and I were walking around and I made this observation, out loud: 

"I think we are the oldest people here!"

And I wasn't kidding.  Every church leader in that room was in their 20's, it seemed.  These were pastors and worship leaders, student pastors and children's pastors.  They were staff and leadership from churches all over the region...and they were all young....and I felt pretty old.

It wasn't a 'young leaders' conference.  It's not like we missed the memo or the fine print and then realized that we shouldn't have been there.  But somewhere along the way, the way the promotional material was done, the lineup of the speakers, the naming of the worship band, even the location - all of this must have communicated 'cool'  'hip'  'groovy'  'out of sight'  (see, even my attempt at superlatives dates me!)

As the speakers made their presentations, it was clear to me that I could learn a lot about the way younger folks learn by observing the audience and the teaching styles.  And something I noticed blew me away:

Almost always, there were multiple things happening at the same time.

One time, during the entire time when the speaker was talking (and he was an excellent communicator), there was - at the same time - a guy drawing on a white board a few feet to the speakers right.  The artist never said a word; never looked at the audience; never reacted to the speaker's jokes or anything else.  He just...drew.  

It drove me nuts.  I thought, "that is distracting and downright rude."

During the music, there were multiple things happening at the same time.  Moving backgrounds behind the words, moving words, the screens all had different things playing on them, there was over the top activity on the stage - it was like somebody spiked the coffee with steroids and the creative team was going nuts!

Even the way the room was set up felt like total chaos - it was so overstimulating for me - and I'm a high energy person!

But then I remembered, it's not about me. (have you ever heard anyone say that before?)

I grew up, like many of you, a mono-sensory learner. (or maybe the word is uni-sensory...I don't really know).  I learned in one 'mode' at a time, using basically one of my 5 senses at a time.  When the teacher was talking, we were to focus on the teacher.  Period.  No distractions.  When we were listening to music, we were focused on the music.  When we were doing art, we were focused on our painting.  

And we learned that it is a breach of social etiquette to not give someone your complete attention when they are talking to you...so doing multiple things at once sends a message that you don't really want to hear what they are saying.

The world has changed!  People under 35 grew up or at least grew into adulthood with the regular practice and social acceptance of using multiple senses simultaneously.

• Through the IM phenomenon, they learned to have multiple conversations at the same time, and not get mixed up about who you are talking to.

• They can text message like I type.  My daughter can text on her phone without looking and as fast as I can type.  So, she can talk to me and text on her phone at the same time - and she can keep both conversations straight in her head.  Further, young people today can have multiple Facebook conversations, be texting with 4 friends, watch TV, study their schoolwork, and have a coherent conversation with you all at the same time!  I don't have to understand how it works, but I can't deny it.

• People under 35 have been taught that effective learning environments stimulate multiple senses simultaneously.  The artist drove me crazy that day, but everyone else in the room really got it.  They learned through it.  A speaker speaking with no visual accents, and no other stimuli is generally boring to a young person, even if the speaker is a gifted communicator.

So, what does this all mean for the church?

The church must create multi-sensory learning environments in order to engage with 18-35 year-olds.  Those of us who are older must accept and live in this new reality so that we can reach these folks, or we risk becoming irrelevant.  I don't want to say what other churches have said.  You know, something like, "they should learn to be respectful" or "they should adapt to our way of doing church".  Attitudes like these are why the church in America is dying.  They are selfish and are blatant refusals to understand another generation's perspective.  And we won't be adopting these statements, I promise you.

So, one of the changes you will increasingly see is a move over the next few months to multi-sensory Sunday morning experiences.  We'll use technology, space, talent, and all of our creativity.  But we will also invite people who are younger to help us craft services so that we can most effectively communicate with that generation.  (we've already done this, by the way).

It will be fun...and is one part of the next phase of our adventure.