00:03
I’ve been sharing my faith for, let’s see, of 50 years, almost 50 years. Okay, so I learned some things through the years. And you know, it’s like anything else. You shoot baskets so you’re not very good, but you shoot like my grandkids. You shoot baskets as often as they do. You start putting it through the hoop, pretty good. And I learned all kinds of wrong ways to do it. I got to tell you, I offended people. I was pushy. Wore my Christianity, my arms, so to speak, all those kind of things. I was guilty of that at times, and I could see them. Expression of people’s faces. They were bothered by what I was saying. They wanted to kind of get away from me. And I knew that just didn’t work this. Loving people into heaven is the best solution. You just love people, you know, and if you love people, you’ll develop a relationship, and then things happen, and then the conversation, they start asking you questions. And it works. I do have a little program that I use, that I I coined as my QC program about 30 years ago, and it’s worked really well when somebody comes into my life that I know I’m going to be with on an ongoing basis. I want to sum up real quick whether or not they’re a Christian. It’s funny. I ask Christian friends I have people, are they a Christian? And they say, I am not sure. I think they are. I’m not sure. How can you know somebody for a long period of time and not know if they’re a Christian or not? I mean, that’s just you never talk about Christian things in scripture or whatever. I don’t know. But anyway, here’s a simple way to do it. When somebody comes to my life for the first time, and
01:31
certainly one of the first times, and I know I’m going to be with them ongoing basis, but almost always it’s the first time I purposely say something about my church or my pastor. I’ll say, I’ll talk about a joke that my pastor said on Sunday morning. Or I’ll talk about how much fun I have with my friends at church. I just say something just casually. If they are a Christian, they will always, always, always say, Hey, you’re a Christian. Where do you go to church? That’ll always happen, without fail. It just always happens. There’s so few of us anymore. Hey, you go to church. Cool, man. Where do you go to church? That’s natural. If they say nothing, you know, then they’re at least not a regular church attender, and they’re uncomfortable with that subject. And so without them having any idea, I just figured out on my own whether or not they’re going to church or not, whether or not they are honor the Lord or not. So that being the case, let’s pursue and the fact of the matter is, most of the time they’re not okay, let’s face it, that’s the way the world is today. They go on my list. And so the Q is qualifying. I just qualify with that question. Next thing is chumming. Let me tell you about chumming. Those you don’t live near the coast. When you go deep sea fishing, you drive your boat really slowly. It’s called trolling. You have a live bait tank in the back of your boat, and inside, of course, you have the live bait. And what you do, you reach in and pick up one of the live bait. And you, I hate to say it, but you flip out an eye and throw it in the water. Okay, then you pick up another one, you flip out the eye and throw it in the water. Now, when you flip out an eye, that little anchovy, whatever it is, he can’t swim straight any longer, and so he starts swimming in a circle. So you fill out the next one, and he starts swimming in a circle, and then you throw out another one. So you end up they’re called chum. And now you have a chum line behind your boat. So here I am, and I’m looking for Marlin. I’m at the back of the boat. I’ve been throwing chum out, and my chum line is from you to me. All right, got the picture. Now, Marlon comes along. He’s not hungry. He just swims right on by. Remember, we are fishers of men, and you can’t force feed Christianity. You have to wait until they’re hungry. You just have to do that. So you just throw out your chum. You know, I throw out your chum. So here’s how I do that. I don’t wear my Christianity on my sleeve. I’m not overbearing. I don’t make people uncomfortable. But whenever I’m with those people, I throw out a chum. And this is the way I would do it. I’ll talk about some of us say, what a beautiful day. I say, Boy, thank God he gave us a good day today. Man, we really needed it. And then, without a nanosecond passing, I always go right into Hey, did you see that shot? That Kobe shot the other game last night? That won the game. I moved to that next subject so fast that they don’t have time to say, Oh, there he goes, to that Jesus thing. And I hate it when he does that. And I did that to people early on, but I don’t do it anymore, and I haven’t done it for 30 years. And you can just throw out a little chum, little quick thinking about God. Move on to the next subject. You’re on down. If they’re not hungry, they’re the Marlin. They go right through the chum line. To keep on going, I got to tell you, for a fisherman, there’s nothing more beautiful than watching a Marlin that is hungry, okay? And they come across that chum line and they say, oh, there’s a tidy, tidy little morsel that tastes good, you know? And like a little hors d’oeuvre. Well, there’s another one. And they turn and they start coming up your chum line, if you will. Okay, picture the Marlin coming up the chum line. You put out your hook, they bite one time too many, and you got your Marlin. There’s only one thing more beautiful than watching a Marlin coming up your chum line, and that’s watching somebody who’s not a believer come up your chum line and ask one extra question, just the right question, and you can lead them to the Lord.
05:00
I mean, that is fantastic. It works every time. It’s just amazing. Now, somebody, some people that I chum with have I’ve been chumming with a long time. I have several friends. I’m thinking of one right now. I’ve been chumming with him for 30 years. Okay, 30 years I’ve been chumming he keeps coming closer. I have a lot of people in my life right now that I’ve been chumming with, and all of them are getting closer and closer, and if they’re not getting closer, then I make some arrangements, and I get there, but I can’t push them. You know, it’s God’s timing. You can’t force them. It’s you just have to let it, let it flow. And it’s not my responsibility to save them. It’s just my responsibility to love them. So I love them first, and I throw out little pieces of chum, and they start coming up the chum line. And it’s just a beautiful thing to watch all that take place, and know that just to watch that you have a variety of people around you that are all coming close to you all the time. And that is exciting. It’s just absolutely exciting. We can’t control it. It’s not our timing. It’s God’s timing. It’s God’s sovereignty. Moving each one of these people, they’re on a journey. We just want to help their journey to go in the right direction.
