10 Tips to Active Listening

Posted By: Youth Specialties on November 09 2011

1.  Be committed.
Don’t walk away before there’s a natural conclusion to the conversation.

2.  Don’t be a problem solver.
Even if you have the perfect solution that can end the conversation quickly, wait.  And then some more.

3.  Pay attention to your non-verbal language.
How are you standing/sitting?  Do you have a glazed look on your face?

4. Keep listening!
Avoid the temptation to daydream or to prepare a mental “To Do” list while listening.

5.  Listen with love.
Have a positive attitude during the conversation.  This is not an interruption in your day but an opportunity to reflect God’s love during His day.

6.  Clarify what is being said.
Don’t pretend to know what the speaker is talking about if you don’t.  Don’t be afraid to ask speaker to repeat something that you didn’t hear or to clarify when needed.

7.  Repeat what was said.
Show you’re listening by reiterating what you heard the person say and how she feels

8.  Prove you’re listening.
When appropriate, nod, smile, congratulate, comment, etc.

9.  Wait your turn.
Don’t compose what you’re going to say while someone else is speaking.  Stay focused on what is being said – you’ll have time to get your thoughts together.

10. Look at the person!
Nothing is as insulting as having a conversation with someone who looks everywhere and at everyone but at you.

There’s a hot new website — they still make those, you know — called Fitocracy. It’s a site for tracking your day-to-day fitness achievements. How many push-ups did you do? How fast did you run that 5K? How long were you on the elliptical? You log in your workouts, it assigns points based on your exercises’ degree of difficulty, and you watch the points accumulate. Once you reach a certain number of points, you move up a level. You unlock achievement badges. And because it’s as much a social media site as anything else, your friends and followers get to see how well (or poorly) you’re doing.

The guys who started it, Brian Wang and Richard Talens, grew up playing video games. They knew how addictive gaming could be. What if the pleasures of gaming — new levels, new achievements, a flurry of points — could be applied to exercise? After all, exercise isn’t always fun. You don’t always see immediate changes in your body. There are no power-up noises that ding when you meet a goal. In an activity where “real” results are hard to see, Fitocracy creates them and gives them to you as soon as you log a workout. It’s pretty brilliant.

So brilliant, in fact, that I keep trying to think of other hard-to-quantify activities that could benefit from the same approach. Sure, we need to be healthier. But what else could we improve? I write a blog about fatherhood. What if we could inject the immediate returns of gaming into the long-haul experience of being a good dad?

Log your activities, dads:
+100 points for jumping on the trampoline with your kids
+200 points for playing Barbies with your daughter, even if you have no idea what you’re supposed to do or say
+175 points for participating in a living-room dance party (50 bonus points if the music is by The Wiggles)
+150 points for each story you tell at night before bed (add 50 if you made up the story yourself)
+75 points for each game of H-O-R-S-E you play in the driveway (add 50 if you purposefully lose)
+25 points per diaper changed, bottle given, and post-feeding burp achieved
+10 per high five or fist bump given
+500 points for talking to your kid about sex before he figures it out from his friends
+500 points for coaching your kid’s sports team
+500 points every time one of your kids is kind to someone else because he’s seen you treat people that way

Those points could add up. You’d see average fathers unlocking achievements — Super Dad, Not-Entirely-Lame Dad, Sporty Dad – on a weekly basis. We’ll call it “Parentocracy” and get moms involved, too. (They would earn points so fast they’d need special secret levels.)

Could Parentocracy be a way to get dads home from work faster, or off their recliners, or away from their smartphones? Could it be a way to make them more active and present in their kids’ lives?

The sad thing is: probably so. Sometimes you have to dangle a few carrots in front of us to get us to do the right thing. (As if our kids’ futures aren’t enough carrot already.)

So there’s the idea, Internet geniuses and coding nerds. Get to work.

This post is from Jason Boyett who is the author of O Me of Little Faith and the Pocket Guide series of books. Find him at Dadequate,Twitter, Facebook, and at jasonboyett.com. This was originally posted on Donald Miller’s blog. 

 Posted By Kurt Johnston

What is Youth Ministry?

by Paul Martin

Andy Disher through out this question last night on Facebook and it has produced quite a response. My friend and fellow Birminghamer Andy Blanks of YM360 fame also commented and suggested several of us blog about it. I though that was a great idea.

Initially, I said youth ministry was someone being Jesus to a teen. It’s comprehensive and short, which I like, but it doesn’t inspire. Others went the direction of saying what it is not. According to them, it isn’t: babysitting, a holding tank with pizza, or a replacement for parents. I agree with all of those, but they only negate a few paradigms. Instead of going for the vague route, I am going to provide several situations that I think describe it better.

The Peer

Youth ministry a lot of the times looks like one teen encouraging another. I love this kind of youth ministry and see it often enough that I know God uses everyone to minister to others. For some reason, most people think of youth ministry as adults serving youth. A better view sees teens as ministers and encourages them in their specific gifting.

The Artist

Another youth ministry I see revolves around affinity. I often ask students what they think they will be doing in heaven. It seems clear that God made us all unique and that we are driven by something deep within us. Whatever medium we use, following a personal desire into mastery is art. In youth ministry, this happens when a young adult finds out specifically how they are God’s masterpiece. The beauty of this ministry reveals itself not in what youth make, but in them being personal works of art themselves.

The Life-Investor

The life-investor youth ministry imagines the long road. It doesn’t stop the relationships built in adolescence at any point such as graduation. Instead it continues to pour into believers well into adulthood and beyond. What I love about this model is when a former student becomes a peer with a leader. I don’t see this one often enough (maybe because it takes so long), but its worth surpasses its rarity. There is nothing like seeing a former follower become a fellow worker.