PART 1: Conversations Matter!!

Making connections through conversations is something that I’ve been really thinking about. Every meaningful connection that I’ve made in my life started with a conversation. I think in the past I’ve put more emphasis on connecting, and not enough emphasis on how important it is that we have conversations. The connections I’ve made and the conversations I’ve had are the two things that have shaped my life more than anything else. I can remember getting my first job at Burger King and getting connected to my boss who become a mentor in my life. It started with an interview where we conversed for 2hrs. Another important connection made at Burger King was to my wife, and it started with a conversation at the milkshake machine. I can go on and on and I’m sure if you thought about it, you could do the same.

As I think about this topic I think about the amount of time and resources we put into trying to get students connected. We want to put on the right event, get them in the right small group, give them free stuff or say all the right things just to get them connected. We put on huge outreach events that are great and fun, but maybe only a few students sticks around if any.

Every weekend after service I hang out with students. The funny thing is all they want to do is just hangout. They will even purchase their own food #ptl (praise the Lord) and sometimes pay for mine 🙂 . The intentional conversations that I’ve been able to have with them has connected us more and more. It has helped me truly care about them not just as a student under my spiritual care, but as a person. I believe it’s only at that level that are we able to make the biggest impact. This also got me thinking “what if students got to intentionally experience this connection with each other?” It would change our entire ministry.

Students are attracted to fun and that’s a fact! But that fact doesn’t automatically mean connection. I’m convinced that in order to create a culture of connecting students to leaders and other students, we must create a culture where conversations are just as important as the event, which takes intentionality on our part of the ministry.

We need to start thinking about how do we become more intentional about the conversations that are going on. Most students aren’t thinking “I need to seek people out and have meaningful conversations”, even though they truly want to be connected and have those types of conversations. A lot of times our programs and events leave the meaningful connections up to chance.

Now, in spite of our unintentional efforts, the Holy Spirit comes through and students lives are changed and meaningful connections are made. I believe our efforts will always be flawed and never one hundred percent, and we need to lean on the Holy Spirit in whatever we do. Especially, when it comes to ministry, having conversations and making connections. With that being said, my prayer to God is, “help me be more intentional in facilitating possible life changing conversations”!

In order for us move forward, we must first know where we are.  So here are two questions to ask yourself:

1. Are my current programs and/or events fostering conversations?
2. If they are, how intentional are we about the those conversations?

In my next post I will go super practical in terms of what this looks like in my ministry. I truly believe that students and the ministry grows the same way, and that’s through simple God ordained conversations. I’m still thinking this through and processing it all. So if you are reading this, you have just joined me on a journey that the Holy Spirit has been leading me on.

Hope it helps,

ac