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Q & A

Q & A Discussion: Randall Neighbour

How do you balance appealing to different learning styles in a group without annoying everyone?

Randall Neighbour responds in our Q & A discussion.

Topics:	Communication, Creativity, Education, Empowering, Learning
Filters:	Facilitator, Group Leader, Member, Train
Purpose:	Discipleship
References:	None
Date Added:	January 11, 2011

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Total Reader Responses: 0 (see below)

As a small-group leader who has led groups consistently for 30 years, I'm puzzled by this question. The more I pray for other small-group members, the more the Holy Spirit shows me how God created them in a unique way—which includes great insights as to how they learn. So my first answer would be a statement: the members of the group have not prayed enough for one another to begin seeing others through God's eyes. When I see how wonderfully God made someone, I have a deep well of patience with their learning style when it is different from mine.

Years ago, I took a personality assessment and, low and behold, I discovered I was a verbal processor. No wonder I can't make plans and think deeply when I'm alone in my office with the door closed! I need another person with whom to dialogue to let my mind churn the milk into butter. I need psychomotor activity (talking and experimenting) to learn something new and adopt it as a lifestyle.

Contrast this with someone who is my polar opposite. They yearn for a quiet place to process their thoughts, set goals, work through issues, and so forth. They learn by reading books, attending lectures, and have no problem with applying what they discovered through cognitive means.

These two learning styles don't seem compatible, but most successful partnerships contain one of each. My wife is a phenomenal accountant and loves peace and quiet when she's doing our household bookkeeping. I'm a creative person who can't do much of anything of significance without some background noise. When I write books, I often crank up the music on my computer speakers or go to a coffee shop to write because it energizes me. But because we pray for one another and know this is how God wired us, we are dangerous as a team. Satan's lost his battle to break us apart because we press into each other's learning styles for what it can do for our family.

View your small group as a family and learn about each other's learning styles! In most every group I lead, we do a personality profile together (there's a bunch of them online you can get for free) and we discuss how God created us. So when Bill needs to talk out why that passage is so important for him, Sarah knows he's processing and that he needs that to discover the power of God's Word. When Sarah says she's not ready to talk about it but may have something to offer next week (after she's had time to read it a couple of times and journal about it), Bill won't think to himself, "She's unwilling to share what she's thinking."

In closing, know that my goal as a small-group leader is not to have two meetings back-to-back that follow the same learning style. One week I will split the group into two groups and give each of them a list of Bible stories. They must act out one of the stories silently while the other group guesses the passage. The next week, we will break up into men and women's groups and share the answer to the question, "What is the state of your soul tonight?" then allow everyone to interpret the question however they like. The next week, I will invite everyone to write out their biggest dream in life on a card. They don't know it when they're writing it out, but we go into the backyard after the meeting and nail the cards to a cross to surrender it to God.

Week after week, I look for ways to mix it up and help different members of my group see the uniqueness in others. This comes through creative and varied agendas, dialog about learning styles, and inviting my members to pray for one another regularly (in and out of the meetings).

—Randall Neighbour is President of TOUCH Outreach Ministries in Houston, TX, and author of The Naked Truth About Small Group Ministry. You can check out his blog, RandallNeighbour.com, for more solid advice about small-group life and leadership.