How People Learn Today (2004)

From Bill Easum

People learn differently today. Yearnings are more important than their learnings. Today people learn while they do. The two cannot be separated, that is why most seminaries are a waste of time. Pastors-in-training need to be working in church staff, learning while they do, instead of concentrating on head learning. We need to concentrate on life learning which always starts in the heart, the inner spirit, our value systems. What one knows today is not as important as what one is feeling and can do with those feelings. The way people learn today has fundamentally shifted and that is why school systems are failing, sermons do not connect, and seminaries are mostly a waste of time. However, what the Beeson school is trying to do is connect learning and doing. That is why they take young pastors to see the best of the best churches throughout the world. People learn best today by seeing it in process. That is why in 1982, we brought computers into the classroom and wrote primitive software around bible study. Children played together in groups on a machine for hours trying to save the queen in a spiritual version of dungeons and dragons. Having fun is also essential today for learning to take place, especially people under 35 years of age. If it isn't fun, people won't learn!!!!

The younger a person is the more they tend to learn through visuals and sound. Effective sermons are now more like experiences, with the whole service becoming the message.