Creating "God Space"

Last night (Thursday night)I met some students at 8:00 on campus.
All day and even on the way I was debating what that time would look like. We had talked about releasing them to do some "God space" (the title of a book about initiating spiritual conversations) but I was skeptical that there would be enough students around for them to approach and engage. Even as we sat talking about their breaks and their hopes for the semester I was uncertain about how much I would immediately challenge them to.
After talking about their hopes for the semester, I asked them what their fears were for the semester, or what they hoped would not happen. All three of them said they hoped they would not let fear stand in the way of what God had for them to accomplish that semester. I had silently asked God to confirm through what they shared whether or not we would venture out to engage students that night.
I asked them to start putting their fears away immediately by approaching students with God space questions for the next half hour. We did a brief role-playing training emphasizing four things:
1. Introduction, identification as a Jesus-follower, and permission to ask a question.
2. Active listening.
3. Summation with a statement like, "So what I hear you saying is..."
4. Ending by saying "Thanks for your time" or sticking around for more listening and some dialogue if invited to it by the student.
They went out having each picked a question they liked from page 63 in "God space". I told them I would stay in the student lounge and pray for them, which I did.
Jess was back in fifteen minutes, beaming. She had approached a girl, identified herself as a Christ follower, asked the question, listened intently, and summed up. The girl thanked her profusely, repeatedly, and wanted to know when and where the group was meeting. The agreed to connect on FB.
Maddy was back in 20 minutes with a new friend. The same thing had happened with her except this girl was a believer who thought she was alone at college and wanted to meet other believers immediately so she came with Maddy to our debrief. She visited for a while, asked us to pray for some things, and then left to play bingo, which I guess everyone loves.
Todd came back after an hour and a half. He had met some old high school friends and had a hard time transitioning to the question. He sat with them and caught up for a long time, sat through a minor drug deal, and a visit from a friar, and then finally worked up the courage to go to the question at the very end. They weren't as interested. He came back a little discouraged I think.
When they came back we went briefly through the Listening Test on page 57.
We spent the rest of our time together connecting relationally and talking small group shop, specifically about the idea of everyone committing to meditate on the agreed upon Scripture passage for the week so everyone could encourage the group with songs, hymns and spiritual songs and so the group didn't get too top-heavy.
The next training challenge I see is helping our students know when and how to walk through the spiritual and emotional doors that open for them. We talked about our 3-minute stories and having a brief Gospel presentation at the ready.