Fishing at the Dicks Sporting Goods

Well I got my new digital audio recorder yesterday, confirmed South Carolina is a 1 party consent State and decided to go fishing. There are two reasons why I want to record my witnessing encounters. First it will be easier for me to remember the conversation and critique it. The second reason is to help others be bold for Christ giving them some real life witnessing situations. If you have any suggestions please comment and let me know.

I decided to stop at Dicks Sporting Goods early this morning on the way home from work. Shorts were one thing I was looking for but the main thing was someone to witness to. I tried on cloths for about 20 minutes (wow I cannot stand shopping for cloths) and found nothing I liked. I then turned my attention to striking up a conversation with someone. Who to talk to? I needed to find someone to talk to about anything in the store and once we got talking turn it to the things God. This technique is called talking about the natural and then turning it to the spiritual. Jesus used this with the woman at the well asking her first for a drink of water (natural) then quickly turning it to the spiritual (living water) John 4:4-32.

I met Charles over in the Fitness Department. He was looking for something to build his lats and chest muscles. Charles was a young man around his mid 20’s and was shopping alone. Would he be willing to talk to me? The only way to find out was give it a try. When Charles jumped up and did a pull up on one of the workout machines, I knew starting a conversation was going to be easy. I just bought a pull up bar and installed it in my home (the kind you install in door frames). Here is how the conversation started.

“Hey are you looking for something to do pull ups with.”

“Yeah I’m trying to build my lats”

“No kidding, I just bought this bar for $20.00 and installed it in my home. You can do overhand and underhand pull ups for cheap”

“Really – thanks.”

“No problem. My name is Brian. You from South Carolina”

The conversation just built from that point on. Fitness and lifting weights dominated the first 10 minutes of the conversation. I recommend trying to turn the conversation spiritual quicker than I did but sometimes you have to just go with the flow. You can pick up our discussion here. Please note the first few minutes we are talking fitness before I turned it to the things of God.

After our discussion in the Dicks fitness area Charles had to take off. We walked out side together and I was able to tell him my story. I made one huge mistake on this witnessing encounter, I did not get his phone number or email address for follow up. I recommend doing this when you have someone that seems remorseful. You can hear from the audio clip that Charles was seriously thinking about God.

Please pray for Charles. Ask God to stir in his heart so heavy that he cannot sleep until he comes to true confession and repentance. Pray that God would grow the seed planted. May God get the glory, honor and praise forever.