It is literally neurobiologically impossible to build memories, engage complex thoughts, or make meaningful decisions without emotion.

–Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

This article continues a series of articles on 8 neuroscience-based principles that Jesus modelled for us that can profoundly improve our preaching and teaching. They are based on my latest book, If Jesus Gave a TED Talk: 8 neuroscience principles the Master Teacher used to persuade His audience. Today’s principle is Principle 6—Engage the Heart (Emotion).

***

The image is forever seared into my memory. 

We lived in California at the time and a phone call startled us awake. My son, Josh, was on the other end, calling from college. He said, “Dad, turn the TV on. I think it’s Armageddon!”

You can image the fear I felt as I heard his words. I quickly grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. Within seconds I saw a video of what I first thought was a movie. The video showed a passenger jet flying into a tall building and exploding. I couldn’t quite make sense of it until I read the scrolling words below. “Jets hit Twin Towers. Pentagon hit. Many dead.”

Over the next few minutes I began to understand what was unfolding. It was September 11, 2001 when terrorists hijacked planes and attacked the United States.

The emotion of the moment seared into my memory the experience, where I was, and what I felt at that moment in history. You can probably recall where you were when you first heard about ‘911.’ Psychologists call these memories flashbulb memories, and although we think we recall such events accurately, research shows that we aren’t as accurate in our recall as we think we are. Nevertheless, these experiences illustrate how emotion impacts memory and learning. Fortunately, all of life’s experiences don’t rise to the emotional level of ‘911,’ but research tells us that emotion impacts these mental processes, perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning, and problem solving. Emotion also impacts our well our sermons stick.

Emotion can powerfully enhance learning. When we feel emotionally aroused, we narrow the spotlight of our attention to what’s most important. We ignore certain things and focus on others. An example of this is what researchers have discovered when someone encounters a person with a gun. They focus their attention on the gun, and not on the person holding it. The emotion made them narrow the focus of their attention. And focused attention enhances learning and memory. But too much emotion can impair learning. So short term emotion or stress can actually enhance learning whereas long-term, chronic stress undermines it.

LEVERAGE EMOTIONAL LEARNING

World renowned neuroscientist Mary Helen Immordino-Yang explains how emotion affects learning and cognition. “The basic premise is that when learning and knowledge are relatively devoid of emotion, when people learn things by ‘rote’ without internally driven motivation and without a sense of interest or real-world relevance, then it is likely that they won’t be able to use what they learn efficiently in the real world.” 

She also notes that, “although its influence during learning may not be openly visible, emotion stabilizes the direction of a learner’s decisions and behaviors over time, helping the learner to steer toward strategies that have worked well in similar situations in the past. In this way, implicit emotional memories are an integral part of learning and thinking.” And when people lose their ability to feel emotion, they don’t make good decisions. So, emotion is critical to durable learning, although scientists have not always believed that. 

Into the 1980’s scientists generally believed that a top-down cognition process imposed itself on our bodies as the primary influencer of our behavior and learning. Many did not accept that emotions had a strong brain basis. Emotions were seen, “like a toddler in a china shop, interfering with the orderly rows of (cognitive) stemware on the shelves.” As a result, educators and communicators (and preachers) failed to see that learning does not function as a disembodied process detached from emotion.

However, during this time when cognition was king, scientists began to notice that when certain parts of the brain were damaged, they could not explain changed behavior simply in terms of cognition. They observed that many brain damaged people could not exercise self-control or make wise decisions. Traditionally scientists had explained these deficits in terms of the loss of their knowledge base. As they tested these patients, however, they discovered that the issue was not a loss of knowledge or logical reasoning, their access to knowledge, or a decrease in IQ. These people could actually explain the social and moral rules that should guide their behavior, yet they made poor choices, contrary to their behavior before their brain damage. They were insensitive to the emotions of others, oblivious to the consequences of their actions, and could not learn from their mistakes, prior rewards or punishments, or the disapproval of others.

Now, research informs us that these emotions are not just toddlers in a china shop, but more like, “shelves underlying the glassware; without them cognition has less support.” Emotions are now seen as a, “basic form of decision making, a repertoire of know-how and actions that allows people to respond appropriately in different situations.”

Real world application of what we learn, called transfer (more on that in a later article) depends on emotion. As Immordino-Yang and Antonio Damasio write, “The neurological systems that support decision making generally are the same systems that support social and moral behavior. Without adequate access to emotional, social, and moral feedback, in effect the important elements of culture, learning cannot inform real-world functioning as effectively.”  

Yang’s research yielded five insights how emotion relates to learning.

1. Emotion guides cognitive learning.

2. Emotional contributions to learning can be conscious or nonconscious.

3. Emotional learning shapes future behavior.

4. Emotion is most effective at facilitating the development of knowledge when it is relevant to the task at hand.

5. Without emotion, learning is impaired.

So emotions clearly play an important role in learning and spiritual formation. Learning through a rational process of analyze-think-change rarely changes us. Rather, a durable learning sequence looks more like this: see-feel-change. When you properly use emotion in a sermon, you can, “harness (y)our [learners] attention, dominate their working memory resources, enhance their long-term memory consolidation, and fuel their motivation.” And two key neurotransmitters, dopamine and norepinephrine, both increase when emotion is involved, which helps cement learning. 

We see emotion prominent in Jesus’ life and experience. He felt a full range of human emotion, but never allowed those emotions to lead Him to sin. He identified with other’s pain seen in the shortest verse in the Bible. When He learned that Lazarus had died, John writes, “Jesus wept (Jn 11.35).” After He rose from the dead he joined two strangers on their way to a village called Emmaus (Lk 24). They didn’t recognize Him until right before He disappeared. After they realized who they had been talking with they said, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us (v 32)?” Jesus often angered the religious elite and hypocrites in His day. He evoked guilt in Peter after he denied Jesus. 

Jesus not only challenged the thought processes of His learners, but their emotions as well. “He nurtured the emotional life as well as the intellectual life of His disciples.” He would rebuke some emotions, like anger when the disciples wanted to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans when they didn’t welcome Jesus (Lk 9.54). He would model emotions like grief (when He wept at Lazarus’ death, Jn 11.35), compassion for others (what He felt for the who were shepherd-less, Mt 9.36), and joy when the disciples returned safe and reported successful from their preaching tour He sent them on (Lk 10.21). 

So, as you craft and deliver your sermons look for ways to increase positive emotions. Next week we’ll unpack Principle 7: Cultivate Confidence (Mindset)

And, if you’d like a free chart that captures all the principles and key components, you can get a free one by clicking here.

This article was adapted by permission and comes from Charles Stone’s 7th book titled If Jesus Gave a TED Talk: Eight NEUROSCIENCE principles the Master Teacher used to persuade His audience (Freiling Publishing, 2021).

For a free chapter, go here.