One of the justifications for using visual presentations in church is the fact that people learn in different ways. Traditionally, three principle principal learning styles have been identified: visual learners, experiential learners, and aural learners. Some learn by seeing, some learn by experiencing something, some learn by hearing.
Eddie Sharp, who now preaches down in Austin, did an interesting experiment a few years ago. He intentionally varied his language from sermon to sermon. In one, he used lots of “visual words”—what we see in this passage, the image presented, etc. In another, he focused on feeling words, emphasizing emotions and empathy with the characters in the Bible story. In a third, he focused on “hearing” the word of God. After each sermon, a different group of people came up to say how much the sermon had impacted them.
Eddie’s experiment shows that you don’t have to have a projector and a screen to appeal to different learning styles. It also reminds me that just using a presentation won’t necessarily appeal to different styles either. When putting together a sermon with a presentation, appeals to different learning styles should be kept in mind. Our services have traditionally rewarded those who liked to learn by hearing (hence the term auditorium and the arrangement of our seating), as well as those who preferred highly rational, non-emotional worship.
[As a side note, back in the 1980s, Flavil Yeakley wrote an excellent study of the discipling movement in our brotherhood. The best chapter in the book was “What We Can Learn From the Discipling Movement.” There he spoke of how our traditional evangelistic style appeals to introverts more than extroverts. That may have changed in twenty years, but it was interesting then.]
I favor the use of presentations largely for this reason, the need to reach out to other learning styles. It’s not the only way to reach out to them, but it can be an effective way.
When preparing a presentation for use in an auditorium, think big. In some places the light isn’t good, in others the equipment isn’t what it should be. Even when conditions are ideal, you’re dealing with different people who are looking from varying angles, distances, etc.
As I commented to someone following the last post, I sometimes get requests for my “PowerPoint” after I present somewhere. (Especially true when I did a seminar at a preacher training school last year) I always cheerfully comply, but I warn them that unless they took good notes on my presentation, the slides won’t do them any good. Even I look back at old presentations without being sure what each slide was about.