An idea (I think a good one) from a Christian ‘Net-friend:

At many workplaces, there’s the opportunity to have a few personal books on a shelf where others can see them. In my office or workstation when I worked as a computer programmer or as an EDP auditor, I’d have a Bible like many other Christians.

But there were two extra things I did that transformed this from silent witness to active evangelism.

The first was what was next to it. In one office, the organisation had just made a commitment to using the Macquarie Dictionary as its standard reference. There weren’t enough of them to go around. So, I bought one of my own, put my name on it prominently and taped the cash-register docket to the inside cover to enhance its chance of returning (and it always did), and kept it on the shelf next to the Bible. I had several visitors use it per day at one stage, which was not a problem in the chaotic environment of that particular office. Later, in another organisation, there was no shortage of dictionaries or pressure to use them, but a chronic lack of city maps. So I put a little map of the CBD, free from a tourist brochure, up on the wall, right next to the shelf that contained my street directory and my Bible. No week went by that didn’t see that street directory borrowed and returned. A computer manual of some sort is another candidate, the main problem being that these are expensive and go out of date quickly, but if your budget allows they can be very effective at generating “passing trade”.

But I think it’s very important that the book you use to generate this passing trade should be your own personal property, and something that you are going the second mile in making available to others. The map, the street directory and the dictionary were all things it was appropriate and natural for me to have there for my own personal use. It would have been quite rude and counterproductive for me to have put my Bible in the bookcase which contained the IBM Program Logic Manuals which it was my job to maintain for the whole team to use, for example.

The second was that the Bible was a paperback edition of a modern translation that I was happy to give away and that people were likely to accept. I left the price tag on it to make sure they knew that it wasn’t expensive, I remember the first one I gave away said $2.95, which was perfect for the time, enough not to look like junk but not enough to be embarrassing. I think about $4.95 would be a good price tag for 2003 if you can find anything that cheap.

I gave away a steady stream of bibles, each to someone who had asked to borrow it. All but one were to people who wanted to know more about Jesus, and I’m sure they were all read. Some led on to deeper discussions, others did not, but I was comfortable that those that didn’t were people I would not have been effective at “leading to Christ” anyway. I had done my bit.

The one exception was to a fellow Christian who wanted it for an evangelism situation (ill-advised in my opinion, but it’s his ministry). I offered it to him to give away, of course. Later, when he returned it, I explained my methodology to him, and he decided to give it a go too and accepted one of my paperback bibles to start (I had another two copies hidden away ready at that stage, but I never showed multiple copies to a requestor, that is a real turnoff). His results were similarly encouraging.

I can’t promise you will give away a case of bibles, or even one, so just buy one to start. I can promise you that when someone says “thank you, I’ve been meaning to get one for ages and I didn’t know where to start or what to buy” and you know that they mean it, it’s a very special moment.

Rowland Croucher