Most times I talk, I think before I speak. Especially when it comes to either strangers or potentially controversial or important topics, I use as much tact as I can. I know that tone and attitude can mean a world of difference. I think that encouragement and discouraging words can be switched with word order or tone.
I normally won’t bring up spiritual conversations with people, but I try to always stay open to the possibility. You know what I mean? Like, at McDonald’s, when the person taking my order asks me if I’d like to try a frappaccino, I don’t answer back with, “No thanks, but would you like to try asking Jesus into your life?”
When I do have the opportunity to engage someone in a spiritual conversation, I usually measure my words carefully. I don’t want to give them too much at once or not address their concerns or topic or question head on. For example, sometimes when a young child asks, “Daddy, where do babies come from?” That is not the time to spell out the biological descriptions of sexual intercourse. A simple answer like, “They come from Mommy’s tummy,” is sufficient. If they want to know more, they’ll ask for more. That’s a strange example, because most conversations we have are not between adult and infant, but if someone opens a door, responding back with a full-blown frontal attack of facts and arguments for the reliability of the Scriptures and the authenticity of the resurrection of Jesus accounts followed by an invitation to accept His gift of sin forgiveness is not the most tactful or appropriate approach. Knowing this, however, can sometimes lean towards swinging like a pendulum to another extreme – the silent one.
I crossed the line a couple times recently of “normal” conversation and shared some deep and personal things, but did it with a matter-of-fact-ness and a touch of naive innocence that I think it was appropriate. It was bold, I think, but also without pretense and without the weight of arrogance or any “us vs. them” mentality that put me at odds with the person I was talking to.
The first such conversation happened during SXSW. I was at the Dirty Dog Bar to see a band called I Am Empire. After their set I had a good hour to kill before Lovedrug went on over at Emo’s. It was bitterly cold with a nasty wind outside, so I chose to settle in a chair at a table at this club rather than stand in a sure-to-be-crowded Emo’s. An older gentleman from South Austin engaged me in conversation for a few minutes and then as he began to leave he said out loud, “I’ll let you get back to your friends, motioning towards the three people sitting around the table next to me. We all replied back, “We don’t really know each other,” and so he introduced me like we were good friends. “This is Doug Van Pelt.” There were two guys and a girl at the small table. One guy was from Finland and they all three worked for Nokia in Dallas.
Anyway, sometime during the hour I was there the girl and guy left and the remaining guy and I started talking. At one point I asked him if he knew how to play the harmonica. I mentioned that I’d just bought one that day and was looking for tips. He had played some guitar, but not harmonica, he informed me. Without thinking, I shared how a guy I knew once picked up the harmonica after a suicide attempt. He wanted to be with Jesus and the only way he knew how to be with Jesus was to die, so he went into a church and stood up at the altar at night with a big knife. He sliced one wrist so bad that he had to hold the knife between his knees to slice the other wrist. He laid down to die, but a janitor or someone at the church found him and called an ambulance. Some nurse showed him a way to be with Jesus without dying. He had previously been a guitar player, but he sliced into his wrists so deep that he lost the dexterity he once had with his hands. So, he approached the harmonica with the same mentality he used to play lead guitar. Now he’s an in-demand harmonica player.
I paused at the end of my story (which is the story Darrell Mansfield told me about his conversion experience) and realized that I probably blew this guy away with a story that didn’t apologize or qualify any of my statements with “this is what I believe” or any such preface. I just jumped right in and told a fairly dramatic testimony.
What’s bizarre about this encounter was he later asked me about the magazine I worked for. He hadn’t heard of it, but when I mentioned that it used to be called “Heaven’s Metal,” he knew what I was talking about. “I used to subscribe to Heaven’s Metal!” and he described what it looked like and named some of the bands he used to listen to.
What are the odds of sitting down with someone in a large city like Austin in the middle of a large event like South By Southwest and bumping into someone that used to subscribe to this magazine? Wow.
Another random conversation happened last week when I took my car in to get serviced by the local VW dealership. On the way back to the dealership in the afternoon, as the driver from Scotland picked me up at our house in their courtesy van and drove me to the dealer to pick up my car, he asked me about the magazine and/or something to do with musical experience. I can’t quite remember the context that led me to talk about this, but I brought up how sometimes reaching one person can be all-important.
I shared how the band I was in played a giant festival in Casper, Wyoming (called Metal Quest), where a young man spent the insurance settlement portion he received from his father’s death on a 3-day Christian rock festival at the Casper Events Center, which was a large basketball arena that could probably seat 17,000. “Only about 150 people showed up for the shows,” I detailed, “but after our set I was walking from the merchandise tables across the arena to the backstage where they had a steak dinner waiting.” I asked him, “You know those promise rings that some people wear?” and he affirmed that he knew, “Well, we had these certificates that said, ‘It’s cool to be a virgin,’ based upon one of our songs called ‘Virginity Disease,’ where people could fill out this pledge to remain pure … and if they failed in that area they could stand on the promise God made about making us a new creation in Christ, and anyway,” I went on, “I passed this young couple and the guy and a girl were filling out this certificate and I saw a big teardrop fall from his face onto the certificate and that was like a small glimpse of how we reached someone, which made it all worth it.” The guy I was talking to got my point about how the value of one person is immeasurable and how that sort of thing (reaching one person in a profound way) was worth all the hard work, etc.
I expected him to get the point, because that’s why I told the story, but I later thought about the details I used to get to that point and it surprised me that I’d so easily and openly share deep, personal things like that and not shy away or be afraid to do so. Out of a naivety and sort of innocence, I just told a story that had happened to me. It happened to involve details based around a personal relationship with God and using principles found in His Word to guide and counsel my life, which is normally something I’d “set the stage for” before presenting.
I just wanted to share these, because I thought it was interesting (and kind of funny). That’s all.
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