4. The “Now” Learner
Now learners are those who want to take action now! They don’t want to waste time thinking about theory or ideas; they want to make something happen right now! They’re the kind of people who live for the moment, who love experiencing life and who enjoy being spontaneous. They think that experience is the best teacher, so why waste time learning a lot of theory or steps? All that matters is the next step.
Which means that if you want to connect with a Now learner, you’ll want to challenge them to do something right now—not in the future. If you don’t tell a Now learner what they need to do immediately, they won’t be engaged. They’ll simply tune you out. Note: The Now learner fits the SP temperament best.
Using the Four Learning Styles
Since all of us have a propensity to want to communicate in our own preferred style (i.e. “What” preachers like to give a lot of content, “How” preachers like to give lots of steps, etc.). I think the simplest construct or system to use to remember that not everyone listens or learns the same way we do is, “Write at the top of your message notes/outline the four questions and then answer them.”
Then, as you organize your message, make sure your message as a whole fits the four styles (Intro = Why? Body = What? Application = How? and Conclusion = Now?). Even better, I’d encourage you to use all four learning styles throughout your message.
For example, if this week you’re going to give a three-point message, make sure each of your three points has all four styles built into it. Point 1: a. Why does this matter? b. What content would be intellectually interesting about this point? c. How can I lay out concrete steps that someone can use to live this point out? and finally d. What should someone do right now/today in relationship to this point?
If you do that cycle three times, plus your intro and part of your conclusion, you’ll cycle through all four learning styles at least four to five times this Sunday—which means you’ll keep more of your people engaged more of the time.
So if you want to keep more of your congregation engaged more of the time, here’s what I’d encourage you to do right now. Take out last week’s message and see how much of your message was in your preferred learning style (you might be surprised). Next, evaluate how much was in each of the remaining three. Then figure out what you could have done differently to engage more of the people in your congregation whose primary style was/is one of the other three styles.
Finally, make sure you not only write out the four styles on your message outline each week, but that you consciously remind yourself, week after week, that if you want to keep more of your people engaged, you have to frequently go outside of your own preferred style. If you do that, I’m confident you’ll see a significant increase in the engagement of your congregation. And the more engaged they are, the higher the probability that you’ll see more of their lives changed.
