As a student pastor, the most important thing I want to arm my students with going into the new school year is the ability to have a Gospel conversation from the get-go with their lost friends, no matter what those friends believe. One of the best tools I put in my students’ minds is the AAA method of sharing the Gospel.
What is triple-A, you ask? It stands for ASK – ADMIRE – ADMIT, and it’s a simple, doable strategy that empowers any teenager—shy kids, new Christians, anyone!—to engage in Gospel conversations with people from any worldview.
Tip: Click here (or below) to watch a video explaining the Ask – Admire – Admit method.
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Training Made Easy
In our youth group, we do regular AAA training. Our main goal is to teach students how to bring the Gospel up without throwing up.
We break the teaching up into three Wednesday nights. On the first night, we teach students the Ask method, which equips them to engage in casual questions that lead up to spiritual questions, ultimately asking the other person what they think is in store for them after this life. We coach the students in how to ask powerful questions and then to listen well.
On night two, we teach students how to Admire, with the goal of breaking down barriers and meeting people where they are. Whether the person they’re talking to has a different religion or no religion, we seek to build bridges not barriers. We also have the students go to the Dare 2 Share website, where they can find a ton of information about how to engage with people from other religions and worldviews.
Practice Made Fun
For the final night, we focus on Admit, but we put a fun twist on it by making it a theme night that we call AAA Chick-fil-A.
We set up the youth room to look like a school cafeteria. Students stand in a meal line to get their food, just as they would at school. We serve them Chick-fil-A, because, well, it is the Lord’s chicken.
Tip: If you don’t have a Chick-fil-A in your area—or if you sacrilegiously don’t like Chick-fil-A—you can call it AAA Café and serve whatever food you’d like.
We then encourage them to pair up with another student—preferably one they don’t know well, to ensure a little extra awkwardness—and take turns role-playing how they might share the Gospel with someone in their school cafeteria (or at a coffee shop or restaurant, for the homeschoolers among you).
Tip: If you’d like, you can give each student a card with information about a specific religion or worldview (atheist, Mormon, Muslim, hurt by an experience at church, Wiccan, etc.), and they can pretend to be from that background during the role-play.
During this training, we ask students to use the Life in 6 Words app to engage their lost friends. It helps them give the Gospel clearly, using a tool teens are familiar with: a cellphone.
Tip: Click here (or below) for a training video on how to use the Life in 6 Words app.
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Why Train?
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that you will play how you train. If we don’t train our students, how can we expect them to reach every teen, everywhere, for the Gospel? Take the time to capitalize on these “federally funded missionaries,” as my friend and fellow youth leader Chris Selby calls them. Train them up now, and let’s spark a movement!
