John’s testimony could be trusted because his experience was multi-sensory. He knew what Jesus looked like and sounded like, and probably even what he smelled like! John will have remembered what Jesus’ arm around his shoulder felt like. He spoke and taught out of this experience.
Although we don’t share John’s physical memories of Jesus, we can learn that our senses are meant to play a role in our faith and worship. The Western Church has traditionally had an awkward relationship with the physical world. Somewhere along the line we picked up some ancient Greek ideas that only lofty thoughts and spiritual experiences are valuable, whilst the physical is at best of low importance or, at worst, sinful. However, we don’t see this in biblical worship. Just think about:
• All the different visual and symbolic worship of the tabernacle and temple (Exodus 35:30-35).
• The wide variety of sounds and instruments used in Israelite praise (Psalm 150).
• That when Jesus started probably the most significant tradition of Christian worship – the Lord’s Supper – he chose to use something that we taste, touch, smell and see.
• The book of Revelation describes heavenly worship using multi-sensory language: prayer as the smell of incense (Revelation 8:1-5); the sound of shouts of praise (Revelation 19:1-3); the sight of the city of God and its beautiful jewelled walls (Revelation 21:2,19-21).
In their book Sacred Space, Dan Kimball and Lilly Lewin quote research which claims that 20 per cent of American 12-year-olds are primarily ‘auditory learners’ (learning best by hearing), 40 per cent are ‘visual learners’ (learning best by seeing) and the remnant 40 per cent learn best by doing and touching (‘tactile/kinaesthetic learners’). Apparently the percentage of kinaesthetic learners increases every year.
And yet in church, what learning style do we use the most? We would guess about 80 per cent of our services are ‘auditory’ – speaking, singing, praying, all with words - probably only connecting effectively with 20 per cent or less of the congregation. In what ways are we intentionally engaging people using their visual senses, or their instinct to touch, act and do?
You know, as a youth worker, that simply telling a young person something is unlikely to have any impact. They want to engage, to experience what you’re talking about. Most of your teaching and learning is multi-sensory. Still, worship has sometimes been left behind. Even in youth groups with amazingly creative Bible teaching, we’ve experienced worship that is reduced to singing a couple of middle-of-the-road, soft-rock songs.
This has the effect of narrowing worship down into something that is only verbal and ‘spiritual’, rather than ‘earthing’ it in physical experience. It excludes those people for whom music or the verbal is not their primary learning style. And it also means that people with other kinds of gifts – painters, poets, those who cook or create spaces or play instrumental music – often do not get the chance to contribute their creativity into worship. Imagine the potential of every person in your youth group being invited to help lead an aspect of worship using their particular gifts and learning styles. The God who created us with five senses can be experienced and worshipped using all of them!
Worship Ideas
We have listed a few multi-sensory ideas below but – as always – the better option is for your group to create their own ideas and experiences which are specific to your context.
One fun idea to get the creative juices flowing is to do some random multi-sensory worship generating:
• Write the five senses (sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch) on slips of coloured paper.
• Write a number of ‘elements of worship’ on differently coloured paper (e.g. adoration, confession, call to worship, sending out, intercessions, praise, lament, the Lord’s Supper, thanksgiving).
• Divide into groups and let each group pick two differently coloured slips of paper. The task is then to create some sort of worship experience, using these two parameters, to lead the rest of the group in. For example, they might get ‘praise’ and ‘touch’, and that might lead them to pass around different objects and encourage the group to praise God for things that the objects remind them of.
• If you want to add an extra parameter, find a third colour of paper and jot down different art forms, such as photography, sculpture, dancing, poetry etc., which they also need to incorporate. A group may then create a worship experience that, for example, uses hearing and photography for a time of confession. This might take a little more time to prepare!
For some quick ideas, why not try one or two of the ideas below the next time you plan some worship? Balance new ideas with some other songs or activities which your group will feel familiar with. (More details on all of these are available on the links section of the Youthwork website.)
• Incorporate smell by handling bath-bombs and reflecting on the worship of the sinful woman anointing Jesus.
• Worship using colour, texture and images by making some celebration bunting.
• Pray the old-school ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Submission) prayer using touch and visual stimulus through coloured beads.
• Watch some open-ended videos to stir the visual imagination, like ones by Igor Martins.
• Engage your hearing when praying for the world with war sound effects.
