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The Survey Approach
 Sunday, September 13th 2009, 2:43 PM  174  1
The Survey Approach is one of my favorite ways to get a witnessing conversation started. For those of you who don't know what this is let me briefly explain. What you do is carry with you a small notebook. Then you go up to people and say, "Hey I'm working on a project would you mind answering a few questions for me?" Most of the time people will say sure what have you got. Then you just simply ask them questions and write down there responses. This is a great way to share the gospel with people because you can continue to asking questions and steer the conversation wherever you want to go. I learned this from Mark Cahill's book titled, "One thing you can't do in Heaven". This book is a very practical how to book on evangelism. I would highly recommend everyone get a copy and read it.
There are three primary questions I use to get the conversation started:
1) What is the most important thing in your life right now?
2) Have you ever known a friend or relative who has passed away?
3) What do you think will be the most important thing on the day that you die?
These are just the questions I use frequently and there are a number of other similar questions that one can use to start conversations. Once I walk up to a group of two middle aged ladies with a teenager and asked the first question, "What is the most important thing in your life right now?" One of the ladies responded my daughter, who was standing next to her. Then the other lady answered and said, "Jehovah - We are Jehovah witnessing." I said REALLY! "I've got some questions?" So I just started to ask them questions about their beliefs. All it took was one question and we were into a spiritual conversation.
Another time I was in the Union Station mall at St. Louis during the MLB All-Star game week. I found an older man who was sitting by himself and went up and asked him the first question. He replied that his health was the most important thing in his life right now. He told me that he had a knee problem and could not walk around with all of his friends who were with him. This is why he was sitting by himself. I then asked him the second questions and he told me that his mother had just recently passed away. When I asked him the third question he told me that how he would die would be the most important because he did not want to suffer. I asked him if he believed in a heaven or hell. His reply was that he did not know but he did believe that there would be a judgment. I then told him that we were also asking the question, "How many of the Ten Commandments can you name?" He could not name any of them so I took him through a few. Then I told him that he was right that there would be a judgment and that God's moral law the Ten Commandments would be the standard. He seemed to be getting convicted so I asked him if he knew what the good news was. His reply was no so I explained Jesus, the Cross, Repentance, and Faith. When I finished I asked him if he had ever heard that message before and his reply was no. I thanked him for his time and gave him a tract to follow up our conversation. After I walked away, I looked back and his face was buried into the back of the tract reading it. You just never know how God can use a conversation like that for eternity.
The reason I like to use the survey approach is because you can get conversations started without using tracts. This can be very helpful when you are at places like a mall where tracts are not allowed. Another reason I like this approach is because by asking questions you develop more of a conversation and find out what the other person believes. This way you are listening to them and can respond with the truth that they need to hear. Below is one video example of me doing the survey approach.
Sharing the Gospel one-to-one using "The Survey Approach"
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