Adult Audience

My thirtieth birthday was celebrated with baby food eating competitions, lots of black crepe paper and games about how "old" I was.  I told people, "It's wierd.  I feel like a permanent adult.  There is no going back."  Oh, thirty is so young now.

My fourtieth birthday was celebrated with walkers, diapers, Viagra introductory tapes, hearing aids and Metamucil gag gifts.  Young people started calling me "sir" without question and held the doors for me more often.

Somewhere after forty, a new life begins.  Amidst the questions like, "What would it have been like?" and "I wonder if we could have..." adult life stabilizes into welcome routines, the ability to start choosing what you want to do instead of the crowd,  a steady career path and a slower mental pace.  Being an adult is great!  Adults don't have to ask what they are going to be when they are grown up - they are grown up.  Even if they aren't thrilled about everything in their life, the 40's and 50's are at least set, constant and calculable.  Perhaps, the greatest challenge for the adult is wondering if they could have done it better because it really isn't too late to attempt improvement.  Change is not impossible for the adult and is probable if they choose it.  However, unexpected change (the layoff, the forced career change, learning the latest technology) issued forth by circumstances that they do not control does not come easy.  Such change disrupts the enjoyable pace, consistency and constancy of the life that they have built.

As with all our audiences, there is an audience that mimics this stage of life.  The Adult Audience is consistent in thought and purpose.  They have learned to enjoy a more consistent (and often, slower) pace in everything.  Life is understood and beliefs are usually concrete even if wrong.  This audience is close (but not as close as the senior audience) to the adage, "You can't teach old dogs new tricks."  

The wise teacher of this audience will:

• Really exhibit the law of relevancy when choosing topics, word pictures and explanations and be careful to not use examples of new technologies that are not natural to the learner or of new and suspect theories.
• When issuing a challenge to change life, attitude or action, will move calcualably, slowly and with a specific strategy to build the challenge into a "choice" instead of a "must".  This teacher will exploit the law of "buy in", allowing the learner to choose the idea as their own.
  
• Teach tougher or more challenging concepts by asking questions.  This audience has already learned, settled in and is generally pleased but they are not beyond asking, "How could I have or how can I make it better?"
  
• Realize that this audience does not ask, "What am I going to be when I grow up?" as they are already adults.  This audience is adding to and refining and enjoying a life that is already built.

Mature believers who are well rounded in general Biblical study and serving others are an example of this audience.  They are adding to their life.  They are probably willing to change, if they need to and if it is possible.  They have in no way given up but, instead, have settled in on a conquered land full of dreams.

Probably most important, the teacher should accept that sometimes this audience will not see a need to show up to learn truths that have already been mastered.  This audience will never show up out of desperation but only out of desire.  They have time and experience to apply to learning whatever is being offered.  Likewise, they have the greatest opportunity to impact the next generation of learners by becoming teachers, servants and leaders of whatever it is that they have become "adult in."  The wise teacher of this audience will champion them to leave a legacy.  He will also continue to add to their knowledge and life.