How to Navigate Online Conversations With Ease and Keep Your Peace
If you ever find yourself chatting with people online, we’d love to share some of the training tips for our Response Team straight from our Training Manual. Many of these apply when speaking with people face to face also. Let us know if any of these are helpful for you in your everyday interactions with the people around you.
Surprise Explorers with kindness - Explorers do not expect a kind response to an angry comment. The Holy Spirit is working in your life and has placed you in this conversation – we just need to be aware of what He is doing and listen to the words He wants us to say. Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin? (Romans 2:4)
The Holy Spirit is already working in the Explorer’s life - the simple fact that they have commented and responded, shows that God loves this person and wants to be in relationship with them.
Keep responses short - try to mirror the size of the Explorers messages with your reply.
Pick out a key point - if an Explorer writes a novel with loads of questions, start with one key point first. and then go step by step to open up the opportunity to discuss their questions. Eg. “I’m very happy to answer your questions, I’ll start with….. first, and then we can discuss from there”.
Let Explorers ‘vent’ - if an Explorer is just going for it spamming us with loads of questions, just let them ‘vent’ for a bit rather than trying to keep up with them. Ask God to highlight the heart issues to you as you sit and watch for a while.
Be human - remember when Explorers ask questions they are expecting a personal response rather than being sent to a link/video. Take time to build rapport, start the conversation and provide answers, when appropriate you could ask them if you could send a link, and wait until they say yes. You can say things like; “Could I send you a link to a video that helps to explain that?”, or “That’s a great question, I’ve seen this video that explains that way better than I can, it’s only 3 mins long, can I send a link for you to watch?”
