Hey everybody! Chad is back! And Easter is almost here! Prepare yourself for the season and the rest will follow! Celebrate in your heart the resurrection of our Lord and allow the hope of the season to restore you from exhaustion, frustration, and despair.
HE IS RISEN!
HE IS RISEN INDEED!
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Show Moments & Notes:
"make the most of the mundane"
"the hard work happens in bridging the gap"
"Find space beyond the morning to connect with your students"
"Automate your processes towards a personal and meaningful connection"
ConnectX: A Flow for No-Fail Followup
Care: The first words should always be, "hi how are you, not "hi, please fill out this card."
Lead with care. Ask questions about their life, interests, and passions.
Collect: However, you are going to need some relevant details in order to contact them, but don't collect contact data that you aren't going to use right away. If you aren't going to mail them something, then don't get bogged down in mailing addresses, and do you really need Dad's work fax number in your database?
Learn their name and one super specific unique factoid that is true to them. Everyone hates math class, but do you know this middle school student's record score on their favorite app? (187K on temple run)
Their favorite pokemon? (VenusSaur)
Do you know this high school student's system for naming their spotify playlists (by mood associated with color words: Blue Study)
This specific fact will tell you way more than their feelings about Social studies, and it will help you remember their name and when you make contact to connect it feel extremely personal.
Contact: Within 5 days after meeting, connecting, or reconnecting with a student make contact via the info you collected. This is a great chance to write an old school handwritten note, make an old fashioned phone call, or an appropriate social media message.
Connect: Help the student know in a personal and specific way how you would like them to connect.
Don't just ask to see them around more, work on what you want from them. "Hey come join a home group! They meet on Wednesdays and I know some other Anime lovers that will be there."
Commit: In your daily prayers to care for this student. The transformative work that motivates a student to deeply root to a faith community is above your pay grade. It's God's work. The Holy Spirit moving in their life is the real agent of waking them on Sunday mornings and making a biblical community a priority.
Compassion: In the meantime, always regard the situations of your students with kindness beyond logic. They don't always get a say in their schedule, and those that do, don't always use time management well. Just because a couple of teams, church activities, and a job were no problem for you to juggle, doesn't mean that your student isn't super overwhelmed.
Whatever a student is feeling, they are feeling. They should not be judged for how they are feeling about their situation. This is your chance to encourage with wise words.