Michael Tolosa

Last Saturday, I had the good pleasure of meeting my friend Megan in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland on a beautiful summer day for lunch at Red Rock Canyon Grill. After a very long conversation about life, family, and God, we hit the streets of downtown Silver Spring, handing out a large stack of fliers promoting The After Party.

I don’t know if it was the weather, the time of day, or the Silver Spring location, but everyone we came across was very friendly and receptive of the fliers we were handing out. …Well, very receptive of the fliers Megan was handing out. I was having about the same amount of success as my two previous attempts. Where I stumbled on my words, Megan seemed to flourish in her fearlessness at approaching every person she came across. After a while, I simply relied on her to do the approaching, while I assisted her with following up with further questions.

We eventually got into a rhythm… She would approach, hand them the flier with vague description. Then I would follow up with specifics, like how the event was at the Round House Theater just around the corner next to the AFI Silver Theater. We used this system over and over and over again, until it became second nature.

Next to Megan, I became less confident in my ability to approach the strangers that we passed. Whereas, Megan’s confidence issue involved answering the questions these strangers had about The After Party. When people had questions, Megan looked to me to answer them. I was very confident in that role, so we ended up making the perfect team — each with a part to play.

We had a few notable encounters…

Megan was so bold in her approaches, that she often went up to cars stopped at stop lights to hand out fliers. She often went to typical “cool” guys in their “cool” cars, who would feel proud of the fact that an attractive girl took interest in them. When these guys reciprocated interest and looked to extend the encounter or invite Megan to stay with them, I would always step in and give them a wave and a smile and make it clear that the two of us were together.

That was also the case when she approached groups of guys on the street. One group wanted her to join them for lunch, so I had to turn around and make my presence known.

As we cruised up and down the streets of downtown Silver Spring, we also ran into a Christian woman, who was looking for a local church. We told her about the Frontline campus in Silver Spring, and she said she looked forward to checking it out.

One of the worst/best interactions came near one of the parking garages. We handed a flier to an older guy (in his 40s), who asked us if he should bring his wife. We said yes, slightly puzzled why he would think otherwise. He then inquired more, finally admitting he thought this was some sort of “swingers” event. I don’t think Megan understood what he meant, until we talked about it much later.

Finally, my favorite moment of the day came when Megan approached an older woman (seriously, Megan was approaching people way outside the typical Frontline audience). The older woman asked us specifically what the event was about. We told her it was a church event, discussing what happens after you die. She pressed us further, asking us what we thought happened when we die. Megan looked to me to give an answer, so I went straight into the 1-minute gospel message. This wasn’t hard, because I had just produced a video, which explained the Gospel in a nutshell.

I told the woman that I believe there is a God and a place called Heaven. But this Heaven requires absolute perfection to enter. Since we — the three of us — aren’t perfect, there’s no way we could get into Heaven, unless something outside of us interceded. Thankfully, God loved us so much that He sent his Son, Jesus, to come to Earth, live a perfect life, then die on a cross to pay for all of our mistakes (since the penalty for sin/mistakes is death). Once Jesus did that — died, paid for our sins, then rose again — anyone who has faith in that sacrifice for salvation will be seen as perfect in the eyes of God. And thus, will be admitted into Heaven.

I didn’t say all of that, but rather boiled it down to… I believe there’s a Heaven, but you have to be perfect to get in. Since none of us are perfect, we wouldn’t be able to get in. But thankfully, God sent his son Jesus to die and pay for our sins, so that we can get into Heaven. (You see, the woman never stopped walking, so I had to tell her this in the span of one block.)

When I was through summarizing the Gospel, the woman stopped, turned to us, and said, “That is the best summary of the Gospel I’ve ever heard. Short and to the point.” I thanked her, and she was on her way.

Megan thought that it was a wonderful compliment, and I was certainly glad to have received it.

After handing out fliers for about 3 hours, we finally gave out the very last flier in my stack. It was 6:30 PM, and we were beat. We sat on a sidewalk bench for a while, reflecting on the successes of the day. We then talked about other ways we could work together on other ministry projects. I was very happy to have finally found someone who I could partner with in ministry.

On Friday, I spent the late afternoon (from 5-7 PM) handing out fliers to The After Party all around the Ballston area in Arlington, Virginia. When I arrived at the Ballston metro stop, I quickly found three other Frontliners with stacks of cards to hand out. After some swift instructions from the location leader and a quick prayer, we all split up and handed out the cards however we saw fit.

A fourth guy showed up, so I gave him half of my card stack. I didn’t really see any of the guys after that. Since they seemed to be staying close to the Metro, I decided to hit the streets.

I found that walking down the streets and handing cards to the individuals I passed had a better reception rate than handing cards out to the clusters gathered at the Metro. I believe this is because when people think you’re genuinely interested in them as individuals, they are much more likely to be open with you. (This actually helps prove a hypothesis I have about the drawbacks of “mass” communication, but I’ll save that for another blog post.)

I wasn’t familiar with walking the Ballston streets, but I just kept going — and when I felt lost, I just asked people how to get to the Metro.

Because I had plenty of time between “sets,” I was able to completely reset after each attempted interaction. I had time to analyze the successful attempts and overcome the unsuccessful ones.

Other than people taking the cards and thanking me, I had several notable interactions. I talked with one girl, who inquired about the organization behind The After Party. I used my typical opener, “I’d like to invite you to an event my church is having this weekend.” Her response was, “That depends on what kind of church it is.” I told her it was a nondenominational Protestant church in McLean. She was unfamiliar with McLean Bible Church, but did say she was skeptical of nondenominational churches in general. “Some of them can be pretty crazy,” she said, then admitted that she had recently moved to the area and was looking for a Baptist church in Arlington. I assured her MBC taught sound doctrine and invited her to check out Frontline Arlington. In retrospect, I probably should have suggested she check out Cherrydale Baptist as well.

I found one young Asian man sitting on a bench under a tree and handed him a card. He took it, even though he said he already received one at the West Falls Church metro (yep, we had a team over there, too).

Another Asian student I came across was very friendly and receptive of the card. Not to be stereotypical, but I don’t recall any Asians refusing the card.

After a while, I started focusing on people who looked unfriendly. I never approached anyone who was talking on their phone or had earphones in. But there were some very serious-looking, no-nonsense people who I made an effort to approach. Unfortunately, true to their appearance, they almost always refused the card.

Eventually, I only approached young women — using some of the old pickup skills within my social arsenal.

One particular situation involved me standing back, waiting at an intersection. I waited for an attractive girl to pass by and make solid eye contact. When one finally did, I gave her a smile. She smiled shyly, dropped eye contact, then reestablished eye contact before passing by completely. I waited. After about a minute, I hurried to catch up with her. She was two blocks down the street before I finally caught up with her. I ran the last few steps toward her — to feign being out of breath. I called to her, then said I really wanted to invite her to this event my church was having. She was visibly pleased that I had stopped her, but then quite confused that all I wanted was to hand her a flier. I back-stepped away with a smile, said I hoped to see her there, and left her with an experience to ponder for the rest of the day.

That was probably my favorite experience of the day. In a past life, I probably would have asked the girl out right then and there. But these days, I’m more interested in introducing women to Christ. I guess you could say I’m Jesus’ wingman.

On Wednesday night, members of my small group and I went to Reston Town Center to hand out fliers to The After Party. When we arrived, a security officer told us we couldn’t solicit on the premises. Since we didn’t feel right about disobeying the officer (we easily could have walked to another street beyond his view), we decided to head across the street to the Best Buy/Barnes & Noble shopping center.

I wasn’t sure who of the four of us had prior experience doing cold approaches to people on the street, so I figured I should make the first approach. A tip I learned from my pickup days is to purposefully get some “rejections” under your belt as soon as possible. So, expecting to be rejected, I stopped two young girls walking past us, handed them a couple of fliers, and simply said, “We’re having a party this weekend. You’re invited.” And that was it. They very willingly accepted the fliers, said “cool,” and continued walking.

One of the members of my small group flat-out said he didn’t feel good about walking up to some hot chicks and inviting them to a party — without explaining what it was all about. I disagree. Not only did I consider the approach “practice,” but even such vague invitation attempts can be a valid way of witnessing, should the girls go home, check out the website, and consider what The After Party is all about.

Our group of four split into two groups. Two guys went over to Barnes & Noble, where they had several interesting encounters (including one Hindu yelling at them and accusing them of “false advertising”). My small group leader and myself walked in the opposite direction towards La Madeline. I had seen two girls sitting outside there during our walk over from RTC, so I wanted to go speak with them.

On the way over, my partner approached some folks standing outside of a hair salon (who accepted the cards graciously and thanked us), as well as an older gentleman standing outside La Madeline (who accepted out of politeness only). We bought a couple of drinks inside, then sat at a table outside, near the two girls. We weren’t close enough to talk with the girls from our table, so we chatted a bit ourselves, then got up, and on the way out, did a double-take (another pickup trick) to say, “Oh, you girls might be interested in this…”

I pulled out two cards and told them they were invited to an event our church was putting on. The first girl surprisingly admitted that she already had two of those fliers. Apparently, she had been invited to the event by her small group leader (she was in a non-Frontline small group). The other girl said she didn’t have a flier, so I handed her one. We made some additional small talk, then departed.

We handed cards out to more folks on the way back to Barnes & Noble… A surfer-type dude, a punk rock girl sitting at an outdoor table, and possibly another. I can’t remember.

After reuniting with the others, we headed back to RTC. On the way, we handed out more fliers. I started to understand that it’s much easier to hand these things out while on the move, rather than standing in one place, targeting passersby.

We spent some time at one of our small group member’s condo (he lives in RTC), then on the way back to our cars a few hours later, I ran into an improv buddy of mine, Matt, and his gal pal. He was actually the one who spotted, then called out to me. I have a feeling he totally knew what I was doing there (thanks to my Facebook status), so after making small talk, he specifically asked what it was we were handing out (what a kind fellow!). We told him about The After Party, and handed him and his friend a card. Matt exclaimed that he would be there, but he’s always generous with his words. His friend, on the other hand, seemed very reluctant about the whole thing.

Leaving Reston Town Center, I felt like the whole task of handing out fliers was a piece of cake. Once you get over the fear of rejection and become immune to actual rejection, it’s a walk in the park.

Last time, we touched briefly on the importance of going out in pairs (because you can always bring up the topic of how the two of you know each other to the people you meet). However, going out to evangelize in pairs is also a biblical concept. Jesus sent His apostles out in pairs (Mark 6:7-13), and after His death, the apostles continued to go out in pairs (e.g., Peter & John, Paul & Barnabas, Paul & Silas).

The obvious reason for going out with a partner is for the physical and moral support. It’s tough to go out into a hostile world with the Gospel message. Undoubtedly, you will be rejected by a large percentage of the people you approach. And having someone else with you for support is paramount to keeping you motivated to press on.

So, it’s simply practical to go out in pairs.

But in my experience with approaching strangers — especially in bars — it’s even more helpful to be paired up with someone from the opposite sex. If a man and woman are together, most people will assume you are a couple. So, when you approach a group or individual, you will seem less threatening, in that they will not assume you are “hitting on them.”

If, for example, two guys initiate a conversation with a girl, the girl is already intimidated by the thought of being hit on by two guys — and her defenses go way up.

But if that same girl was approached by a woman accompanied by a man, she will be much less guarded.

The last thing we want is for people to assume we’re hitting on them. Instead, we want them to rightly assume we simply want to talk and engage in an entertaining — yet meaningful — conversation.

Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.
Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.

- Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

One of the main reasons you should go on evangelism outings in pairs or in small groups is because, inevitably, everyone you meet will ask you this question… “How do you know each other?”

It’s the easiest opener in the world. And it is always asked.

Example…

You walk into a bar with your partner/group. You enjoy each others’ company, then open an adjacent set, talking about anything. Build rapport through a totally normal, friendly conversation. And wait.

The group or individual you’re talking to will eventually ask you the question. How do you know each other? And that’s your perfect opportunity to say, “Oh, we know each other through church. We go to _______. Ever heard of it?”

Depending on their reaction to what you just said, you can tailor your follow-up questions and comments. And practice your listening skills. But more on that in another post.

The important thing here is that, by going out in pairs or groups, you provide yourselves with a very easy opportunity to bring up church, religion, Christ, and the Gospel.

Later, I’ll explain why it’s best to go out in coed pairs.