As I saw the man come to the door I wondered what the reception would be like. He was burly, clearly tattooed all over and few clothes on.
His welcome was far from welcoming and the tone said, “Get out of here”.
I introduced myself, “I am Doug Hammett from Lehigh Valley Baptist Church and am just out visiting folks in this neighborhood. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes about the Bible?”
“I am NOT interested,” was his reply.
But I refused to stop. You see, I was here to test out a theory and this was the ‘perfect’ person to try it on. 🙂
“No problem,” I replied. “Hey, have you seen this?”
I did not wait for a response, I opened up a small notebook I had ready for this occasion and started to draw a line, then a circle, then another line, then a few dots. All the while I was quoting Hebrews 9:27.
As I drew, he started to lean out the door. Before I finished the drawing and the teaching of the passage, he said, “Come in here. I just got out of prison and this looks like something I need.”
When you are dealing with folks and wanting to give them the gospel, you often need to find a way to get past what I call the “zombie stare.” Most folks are going through life as a zombie, not paying much attention at all to the situations around them.
But when you can interrupt their zombie stare with something out of the ordinary, they are jarred awake. They then will listen for a short while to see if what you have is worthwhile to them.
Most of the time when we are ‘rejected’ while witnessing I believe it is NOT because people do not want the gospel. It is because they are in a rut and YOU have the responsibility to help them out of that rut.
That night I found that my ‘test’ worked. I have since used it in so many different situations and with people of all levels of society that I am convinced that there really is a way to break people out of theirzombie stare and communicate the gospel to many.
Be sure to watch for my post tomorrow to tell you more about this ‘test’ and ‘discovery’.
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