If you are a business owner and especially if retail stores are in your bundle of challenges you have to wrestle with everyday, evangelism can be as easy as having one or two nice evangelistic pamphlets for your potential customers. Don’t litter your counter with cheap witnessing tracks that focus more on Hell than Heaven, leaving the reader beaten up instead of lifted up. If you do, they will surely remember your business—but for the wrong reason!
Evangelism doesn’t have to be shoving a Bible down someone’s throat or putting yet another fake million dollar bill as a tip on a table. As a matter of fact, if you love handing out tracks and leaving them on tables after you’re served, I pray that you at least leave a gracious tip (20% or more) along with that track. If your livelihood depended on customer tips, would you appreciate getting a fake bill with no tip? I seriously doubt it!
But everyone usually appreciates quality materials. Whether you operate a welding shop or finer fashions, small evangelistic pamphlets allow customers to quickly “browse” while they’re in the checkout line. They can pick them up for free (yes they must be free), or they can be sold at cost if you feel the cost is more than you can manage. I say this more for business owners in the retail book business because their sheer volume of traffic could put them under if every customer took a nice evangelistic pamphlet like, “Imagine Your Life Without Fear” by Max Lucado or “Your Faith Path” by Mark Mittelberg, just to name a couple.
The object is to pick out something that rings true with you and make sure you have read whatever you put out! Nice pamphlets like the ones mentioned above can easily be a part of businesses like dentists’ and doctors’ offices (if it is your own private practice), on checkout counters of regular retail businesses (again if it is your own business), or any number of other places. You could even have a special kiosk of sorts for your front door or some other strategic location within your store if so desired.
All the while, you have not confronted one single person about Christianity, Hell or Heaven, the crucifixion, or even how you got radically “saved” (a church word that most non-church people don’t understand). You are just going about your business and “minding the store.” You have provided safe (no one’s looking) opportunities for other non-churched, or even previously-churched individuals to explore the Christian faith and what it might look like in their lives. They have been given the opportunity to pick up a copy of evangelistic material at the front counter or a strategic location in your place of business—even by the door so they can get one on their way out! Congratulations! You are now doing evangelism and you didn’t have to say a word!
For Him,
Marshall M. Windsor, D.Min.
