DVD and video curriculum are a real help to us today. These resources make it even easier for small group leaders to facilitate discussions since there is even less tendency for us to have to be teachers. We can just let the guy on the screen do the teaching, right?
Here's an article with some thoughts on how to use videos more effectively. This article by Thomas Purifoy Jr. is from
Smallgroups.com.
At least 25 years have passed, and I still remember my introduction to video in church. Since then, I have learned a few key lessons about using video in small groups.
Video is more effective emotively than rationally. By "video," I am referring to anything that can be shown via a light-emitting display such as a TV, monitor, or video projector. Tests have been done since the 1960's on children and adults concerning the effectiveness of learning by watching video, and pretty consistently they reveal that video is an inferior medium for communicating propositional truth. We could talk about how constant video images encourage greater alpha-wave responses in the brains of viewers (alpha waves are what we give off when we are asleep or in a coma). We could talk about how the combination of moving images and sounds results in a medium that communicates more through vicarious experiences than transferred ideas. However, what is obvious to even the most casual observer is that more people have a tendency to get bored by a talking-head speaker than by a dramatic (or narrative) video. (Documentaries fall somewhere in between depending on how they are structured.)
The reasons for this are manifold. For one thing, the spoken word must be processed, decoded, and then intellectually apprehended whether spoken by a real person or an image. This takes time and effort. Video adds additional complication in that its power as a medium encourages the brain to work in a non-rational way, more easily gathering emotional cues from the images and sounds than rational ideas. Hence, a dramatic piece has the immediacy of comprehension due more to its images and sounds than to what is being said. Someone talking on a video is at an immediate disadvantage. The difference between hearing a movie script read and watching the actual movie is the difference between a shadow and the object casting it.
The average person can verify this from experience. People who can watch a 2 to 3 hour movie without moving a muscle will quickly grow fatigued and even bored after 30 minutes of sustained video teaching. As a medium, dramatic video is a master at
manipulating our emotional complex, yet we immensely enjoy these emotional
manipulations: fear, surprise, exhilaration, desire, humor--all are emotions that we expect to experience when we watch videos.
What does this mean for the small group leader? First, use video teaching sparingly since it is not a great medium for sustained intellectual comprehension. Be sensitive to length. Anything longer than 30 minutes of talking-head teaching may cause you
to lose a good part of your group.
Second, make sure that, as a teacher, you spend time teaching and engaging your group in a traditional way. There is no video replacement for old-fashioned, leader-group teaching. Jesus, who could have lived in any age and taught in any way, chose to teach verbally in small groups. This should be a cue to our own methods.
Third, dramatic videos can create an emotional experience with your group, but those emotions need to be supported and informed by solid, Biblical teaching. Left on
their own, they can become a series of experiences that lack the rational footholds required for basic Christian living and spiritual growth. The emotive power of smart dramatic video cannot be overestimated, but it must be tempered with expositional teaching.
Fourth, do not be fooled into thinking that video is a replacement for you. Video is simply one tool among many that you can use in a small group. Every carpenter knows that a hammer is good for nailing a nail and useless for cutting a board. You need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of video, not only from a content-qualitative perspective, but also the peculiar ways it influences and communicates as a medium.
When you find new material, ignore who is behind it and go watch a sample for yourself from beginning to end. Think about your own reactions. Are you engaged? Do you drift at times? Can you really remember what was being communicated, or was it just entertaining? Is there time to engage the group in a leader-group atmosphere?
Finally, there is a growing corpus of solid dramatic video material linked to good expositional teaching. Seek out video materials that are centered on the Bible and drive your group deeper into Scripture. After all, the goal of any group study tool is to make your job a little easier and a little more effective in building disciples for the Kingdom.
Taken from Small Group Dynamics ezine article: "One Filmmaker's Perspective on Using Video in Small Groups," May, 2008, by Thomas Purifoy, Jr.
