I am from an American home-grown church movement that officially began on the frontiers of the late 18th Century. From the beginning, we’ve often been called "The People of the Book (Bible)" because of our hard-core commitment to Scripture and it's authority. I'm proud of that heritage, and I wouldn't have our teaching do anything BUT rely on The Book.
But ultimately, history has borne out a problem with our approach: We have a lot of seriously book-smart people with lots of head knowledge, but not a fair amount of heart application. That makes for legalists who don't consider the spirit or the context of God's Word.
Back in the 1980's, Leadership Magazine carried an article that talked of how there are basically three kinds of people who attend church (I'm paraphrasing from memory now): Those who respond to auditory stimulation, those who respond to visual stimulation, and those who respond to content stimulation.
Auditory-focused: Those who respond to auditory stimulation don't place high value on what the building looks like or even so much what is taught. They are focused primarily on the sound value: Is the music good? Is the sound good? Are there distracting noises? Can I clearly hear what is going on or being said? Is it pleasant for my ears?
Visual-focused: Those who respond to visual stimulation don't place high value on what they hear or what is taught. They are focused primarily on the visual value: Is it clean? Is it respectfully maintained? Are the colors right? Can I see things being done well and competently? Is it pleasant for my eyes to observe?
Content-focused: Those who respond to the teaching content don't place high value on anything but the content. They will meet in dirty barns and put up with horrible music and sound just to have what their brain considers solid teaching.
It has to do with individual learning methods. God wired each of us differently from many others, yet we all fall into one or more of these three categories.
The challenge? I’m a content-oriented person, but we need to be more concerned about the whole person. Without compromising the content, the church-at-large still needs to be more intentional, more experiential, more engaging on all levels - not just the one learning style we like. Our priority should always be teaching the Word of God skillfully and accurately, but if we can engage the whole person in a multi-sensory experience where what they learn goes deeper into them, why wouldn't we be eager to do that?
