Instructions for
3X5 Conversations
Written by: Stan Granberg | Last Revised: April 9, 2009
Perhaps the most difficult part of evangelizing is initiating the first conversation with someone whom you are meeting for the first time. It’s scary. It’s intimidating. What if they get mad, or reject you, or think you’re weird? Yet here are the facts: if you don’t somehow bring up your faith in a confessional way the first time you meet someone, the next time you talk with them it will be twice as hard. After your third conversation, it will take an act of God for you to bring up a conversation of faith. So what’s the solution? Make your confession of faith the first conversation!
Whoa, wait a minute. How do you even know you’ll meet that person again? You may not. But there are two things you are trying to accomplish. One, you’re helping someone meet God that day. What a tremendous privilege that is, to think that God will meet a person through your presence. Two, you’re developing a database of contacts. You’re getting to know people who may, someday, become part of God’s kingdom in your church.
Here’s a simple but effective way to accomplish these two tasks of meeting people for God and developing a contact database.
1. Buy a pack of 3X5 cards and number fifty of them 1-50 for fifty weeks in the year. You’re going to make this an ongoing practice.
2. Side 1: list the numbers 1 through 5. Each week your goal is to meet five new people, people whom you have not met before, and get their first and last names. Write those names on your 3X5 card as you go through the week. You could fill all the names in one day, but it’s probably best to spread them out over the week. Remember their first and last names and write them on your note card at the first convenient opportunity. This activity helps you get over the fear of meeting people, teaches you to remember names and can provide you prayer opportunities for the week, i.e., pray for these people!
3. Side 2: list the numbers 1 through 3. This is for three questions you ask one person on side one. It does not matter much what these questions are. Make them relevant to the situation and focused on the person. Here’s why you will ask three questions:
· The first question is the polite question, such as, “How are you” or “Have you lived around here long?”
· The second question is the question is the interest question, such as, “Do you have children? Where do they go to school?” OK, that’s two questions in one, but this second question shows you are really interested in them. That’s unusual these days. It is also the second question that helps move the conversation from the public sphere to the private sphere. It’s in the private sphere that relationships develop.
· The third question is the one that shows you really care about them, such as, “How do your children find their school, are they doing well?” Be ready, though. By the time you ask the third question often people will talk and talk. They’ll tell you some of the most private things in their lives. Why? Because you’re interested, you care and they’re looking for someone to listen to them! It’s amazing how rare it is to have someone really listen to you these days.
4. Finally, you need to make you confession of faith during the conversation. This is really important. This is where a typical conversation becomes a transformational conversation. Once you’ve done this you have crossed over that scary line. Now there’s now “off limits” and the other person knows you’re up front with them about your faith. It does not take much to make this confession. One of my favorite ways is to ask “Are you a believer?” Most people don’t find that too intrusive, they get to define their own belief. This question also let’s you share that you are a Jesus follower and there go, you’ve just made a confession of your faith. As the TV painter Bob Ross used to say, “It’s just that easy.” Church planters have a ready made confession, “We’re helping start a new church for people who aren’t sure about their faith or Christianity.”
5. Finally, ask for the person’s contact information, their phone number, email, address, etc. Share your information with them, that’s easy with a business card and ask for theirs. Here’s the catch, you can’t complete this second side of your 3X5 card until you have someone’s first and last name and some contact information.
Now let’s look at the results of this simple process:
· Over fifty weeks you have met 250 new people. Wow, you’re a networking pro!
· Over that same fifty weeks you have added fifty people to your contact list. These are people you can invite to parties, information meetings about the church, worship services, Alpha courses, etc.
· When you invite these people to an event, if you go with them or pick them up over 60% of them will attend that event. I know it sounds unbelievable, but Dr. Thom Rainer (Surprising Insights from the Unchurched) and Dr. Ed Stetzer (Lost and Found) have both found it to be true in their research.
That’s it, the 3X5 cards are a simple, effective way to meet people for God and develop a database of contacts. Have fun with this. Remember to be consistently curious about God’s lost people.
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