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Last Wednesday I blogged about the 30-Second and 3-Minute Conversation Concept and how Celebrate Youth’s adult volunteers use this concept weekly. I shared the initial concept and why it’s a necessary tool for our youth ministry.

This week I want to walk through the next stage of the concept. At first glance the concept appears to be very clear and straight forward: engage students in one 30-Second or one 3-Minute conversation.

But the real strength that lies behind the concept is in learning the art of talking with the students. I would contend that the adult volunteers who struggle with volunteering are the very same volunteers who struggle with how to talk with the students.

The concept is designed not only to value to students, but also to value the adult volunteers. Once our adult volunteers learn to speak the language of our students, that’s when the 30-Second and 3-Minute Conversation Concept really takes hold.

Here’s how our adult volunteers utilize and learn from the concept:

· Listening. In a 30-second conversation, there’s not much time for conversation. The focus is on listening to what the student is sharing and using that as a wedge to build a bridge between the adult volunteers and the students world. If our adult volunteers can craft the initial question effectively, then the student will fill the rest of the time with the conversation. This allows the adult volunteer to listen and find a commonality that can lead to a 3-minute conversation.

· Observing. In the 30-second conversation, observing how the student chooses to interact with the adult volunteer is absolutely vital to the success of the youth ministry. If our adult volunteers are careless in our observation skills, then we will miss the physical cues that the student is sending out.

· Hearing. I realize this seems a little redunent, but listening is far different than hearing. Listening infers that you recognize the audible sounds and interpret them as words. Hearing infers that while you recognize the audible sounds and interpret them as words, you also hear through the words to decipher the intent and mood of the words. When our adult volunteers move from simply listening to our students to actually hearing our students, a bond takes place between the adult volunteer and student that is very difficult to break.

· Reading. Again – this is very similar to observing our students, the difference is that as our adult volunteers become better at observing our students we become better at reading our students. By knowing how to read our students, our adult volunteers can quickly and easily move into a 30-second or 3-minute conversation, depending on each student.

Listening, Observing, Hearing, and Reading all are tools that can be utilized by our adult volunteers to learn the language of our students.

When we can speak the language of our teens, we can speak into their lives and enable them to completely change our youth culture.

Next Wednesday I’ll bring in the final section of the 30-Second and 3-Minute Conversation Concept. Until then – I’d love to hear your thoughts!