Conversation starters to ask a student you just met
Oct 4, 2007 at 09:57AM Tim Schmoyer at Life in Student Ministry wrote a blog entry called 100 blog topics I hope YOU write. It is an interesting list and several people have started taking him up on it. I am procrastinating right now so I thought I would give my take on this one.
The question I always like to ask is "What is your art?"
Yes, I get the same blank stares that you are giving me right now, so I quickly follow it up with "what do you like to do to be creative, do you paint, draw, dance, fix cars, build web sites, scrapbook?" I have never met a student yet who didn't give me an answer after a little prodding. I think this is because we are all made in the image of a creative God and part of being made in his image is this need to create.
The reason I like this question is threefold. 1) It gives me a deeper insight into the student and lets me see something in them I may not have imagined. 2) Normally it gives me a subject that I can pursue in conversation with them. It gives me a chance to ask follow up questions about something that the student actually enjoys. and 3) It gives me an idea of where this student is talented so I can know how to get them involved in ministry.
"What is your art" is a question that you don't hear everyday, but it is a question that has opened the door for me with students more than once.
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Reader Comments (4)
=) i didn't give you a blank stare.
hihi
i understood the question.
my art is writing. There is just something enticing about words
that follow in tandem with me.
Regards,
Jeoffry =D
I like to ask what school they go to? How old are you? so you believe in Jesus? what did you think about the lesson?
On a scale of one to ten, one being terrible ten being great
How's school? relationship with_____? How was your last vacation? ...how would you rate the football game?
Follow up to these: Tell me about it being a 2...4...7. What would it have taken to make it a ten? These types of questions give the youth and us a way to scale without having to access complex and obfuscating (the word itself is obfuscating) emotional language. A number is not nearly as risky as sharing my "feelings".
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