Mall Talk

A few days ago, Sheryl and I were at the mall doing a little Christmas shopping. The mall was naturally decked out in all its Christmas glory with garland, lights, and trees. At this time of year, there is also an overwhelming amount of temporary kiosks selling all kinds of specialty items. These kiosks have one thing in common; almost all of them are manned with high-pressure salespeople. As we walked through the mall, Sheryl reminded me how to walk past these people without getting sucked in to their sales pitch, do not make eye contact.

Now my first mistake was splitting up with Sheryl in the mall and going in separate directions. The mall is not my natural element, nothing looks the same, and I get lost so what happened next is my fault. I was having difficulty finding a particular store and as I scanned the stores on one side of the hallway I did it, I made eye contact. Oh no! This young lady immediately went into her sales pitch, "Can I ask you a question?" I was hooked! Like a fish on the end of the angler's line, she had me and was reeling me in.

This particular kiosk was promoting "Dead Sea Salts and Lotion" so her next question was, "Have you ever heard about the Dead Sea?" Being a preacher, I replied, "Of course." Before I knew it, she had my hands covered with Dead Sea salt and she was working hard to make the sale.

Little did she know but she was about to get a "sales pitch" of her own. The next question she asked was, "Do you know where the Dead Sea is?" "Israel," I replied. Seeming a little excited she said, "You are the first person today that knew that. What do you do for a living?" "I'm a minister." This threw her off her game a little and she responded, "Oh, well I'm Jewish. So we don't believe in the same thing." "Why would you say that," I said, "We believe in the same God." Immediately she shot back, "No we don't" This gave me a great opportunity to give this lady a short synopsis of Christianity, explaining that we both believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I tell this whole story to make this point: Opportunities abound to tell someone about Jesus Christ.

How are you taking advantage your opportunities to tell someone about Jesus?



Mitchell