The following is part of the on the go training that I’ve begun to give our adult leaders in our youth ministry. The principles should be transferrable to other youth ministries with small group programs.
Broken Interwebs
“The Internet is not working.” Five words that strike fear into the core of my existence. I heard these words often during my time in college as a systems administrator. Almost invariably, a client would be calling from a remote office where he couldn’t get to the documents that he had saved to our network.
Unfortunately, the initial diagnosis, “the internet is not working,” was usually inaccurate. For such a large, distributed system as the internet, it works rather consistently. Usually, the problem was more localized. And so, I would begin asking questions.
“Is your computer on? Ok. Is the computer plugged into the router? Ok. Is your router on?” And so the interrogation would go, until I found the one or more breaks in the line between the internet and the person’s computer. Usually it was a modem. Sometimes it was a loose plug. But the only way to figure it out was to ask the right questions and listen attentively.
Continue reading “Youth Ministry Leadership Quick Tip: Ask and Listen”