I remember listening to a successful pastor teach a church staff about what to do when people gather to worship. He emphasized the importance of expository teaching of Scripture and described methods of communication that focused solely on the spoken word. (He never once mentioned using PowerPoint, film, art, interactive responses or anything else besides the actual words of preaching.)

Everything he said was great and extremely informative, but he forgot something quite important: People have different learning styles.

Studies have found that there are three basic learning styles that are established by the time we reach sixth grade. Here’s the breakdown for every 10 students:
• Two students are auditory learners (who will love the successful pastor’s expository approach);
• Four students are visual learners (need to see);
• Four are tactile/kinesthetic learners (need to feel).

What this means is that if youth leaders care about their students, they have to care not only about detailed Bible studies, but also about how they present and teach their learners.

I am more of a visual learner. I still give 40-minute sermons, but I include visuals as I speak. If I am talking about the story of Jonah, it is so easy to do Google searches and find art pieces with various parts of the story of Jonah in it. Some are cartoons that I use to show how cartoonish we have made this serious story. When we came to the part about Jonah going to Tarshish and not Nineveh, I was able to put up a map and show that God told Jonah to go one direction and that Jonah went the opposite way. When I spoke of ashes and sackcloth, I was able to find images of those and show them on the screen as I spoke. I still taught and used plenty of words, but I also was able to enhance the auditory part by adding visuals.

When I recently taught about Jesus’ warnings about judging others, I spoke about the church’s reputation for judgmentalism. I Googled the word preacher to find images of scary-looking, finger-pointing preachers. I showed the images and explained that this is how some people perceive churches and pastors. The images enhanced the teaching and message and kept kids’ attention. Never underestimate the power of using images as you teach.

A master of this approach is Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple. If you Google his name and watch his talks online, you will see him weave images into his message as he speaks. He uses images of computer products, as well as images of other things that illustrate his points. He uses images in powerful ways.

You are not restricted to still images when you teach. You can find clips on YouTube. What works best are movie clips that aren’t just fillers but actually help you teach.

You also can create interactive learning as you teach with words. I will explore that in greater detail in my next column.

As I close here, my question for you is: Do you teach only with words? If so, is it because you are someone who learns best by words and assumes everyone else does, too?

If we care about students’ learning, then we must pay attention to the fact that not all of them learn best through words alone.

Teaching in ways that reach visual learners requires adjustment, but it doesn’t take too much extra time. The main thing required is a commitment to help students learn Scripture and biblical principles in the ways that are most effective for them!