Barry's QC Program

00:00 - Speaker 1When somebody comes into my life that I know I'm going to be with on an ongoing basis. I want to sum up real quick whether or not they're a Christian. It's funny. I ask Christian friends I have people in my life are they a Christian? And they say I'm not sure. I think they are, I'm not sure. How can you know somebody for a long period of time and not know if they're a Christian or not? I mean, that's just, you never talk about Christian things in Scripture or whatever. 00:26 - Speaker 2I don't know. Welcome to the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast, where Barry's book and passion for spreading God's love are guaranteed to ignite your life. Now listen in and prepare to have your life ignited. 00:43 - Speaker 1I've been sharing my faith for, let's see, 50 years, almost 50 years, okay. So I've learned some things through the years. You know it's like anything else you shoot baskets and you're not very good, but you shoot like my grandkids. You shoot baskets as often as they do. You start putting it through the hoop pretty good, and I learned all kinds of wrong ways to do it. I've got to tell you, I offended people. I was pushy, wore my Christianity in my arms, so to speak, all those kind of things. I was guilty of that at times and I could see it in the expression of people's faces. They were bothered by what I was saying. They wanted to kind of get away from me and I knew that just didn't work. Just loving people into heaven is the best solution. You just love people, you know, and if you love people you'll develop a relationship and then things happen. And then the conversation they start asking you questions and it works. I do have a little program that I use that I I coined as my QC program about 30 years ago and it's worked really well. 01:37When somebody comes into my life that I know I'm going to be with on an ongoing basis. I want to sum up real quick whether or not they're a Christian. It's funny. I ask Christian friends I have people in their lives, are they a Christian? And they say I am not sure. I think they are. I'm not sure. How can you know somebody for a long period of time and not know if they're a Christian or not? I mean that's just do you never talk about Christian things in Scripture or whatever? I don't know? But anyway, here's a simple way to do it. 02:07When somebody comes into my life for the first time and certainly one of the first times and I know I'm going to be with them on an ongoing basis, but almost always it's the first time I purposely say something about my church or my pastor. I'll talk about a joke that my pastor said on Sunday morning, or I'll talk about how much fun I had with my friend at church. I'll just say something just casually. If they are a Christian, they will always, always, always say hey, you're a Christian, where do you go to church? That'll always happen without fail. It just always happens. There's so few of us anymore. Hey, you go to church. Cool man, where do you go to church? That's natural. If they say nothing, you know, then they're at least not a regular church attender and they're uncomfortable with that subject. And so, without them having any idea, I just figured out on my own whether or not they're going to church or not, whether or not they are honor the Lord or not. So, that being the case and the fact of the matter is, most of the time they're not Okay, no-transcript in a circle. 03:42So you flip the next one and he starts swimming in a circle, and then you throw out another one. So you end up they're called chum and now you have a chum line behind your boat. So here I am and I'm looking for Marlon. I'm at the back of the boat. I've been throwing chum out and my chum line is from you to me. All right, got the picture. Now Marlon comes along. He's not hungry, he just swims right on by. 04:05Remember, we are fishers of men and you can't force-feed Christianity. You have to wait until they're hungry. You just have to do that. You just throw out your chum. I throw out my chum. Here's how I do that. I don't wear my Christianity on my sleeve, I'm not overbearing, I don't make people uncomfortable, but whenever I'm with those people, I throw out a chum. This is the way I would do it. 04:27I'll talk about something else. What a beautiful a day. I say, boy, thank God, he was a good day today, man, we really needed it. And then, without a nanosecond passing, I always go right into hey, did you see that shot that Kobe shot at the end of the game last night, the one of the game. I move to that next subject so fast that they don't have time to say oh there, he goes with that Jesus thing again. I hate it when he does that and I did that to people early on, but I don't do it anymore. I haven't done it for 30 years. And you can just throw out a little chum, a little quick thinking about God. Move on to the next subject. You're on down. 04:57If they're not hungry, they're the marlin. They go right through the chum line to keep on going. I got to tell you, for a fisherman, there's nothing more beautiful than watching a marlin that is hungry, okay. And they come across that chum line and they say, oh, there's a tiny, tiny little morsel that tastes good, you know, and like a little hors d'oeuvre. Well, there's another one. And they turn and they start coming up your chum line, if you will. Okay, picture the marlin coming up the chum line. You put out your hook. They bite one time too many and you got your marlin. There's only one thing more beautiful than watching a marlin coming up your chum line, and that's watching somebody who's not a believer come up your chum line and ask one extra question, just the right question, and you can lead them to the lord. I mean that is fantastic. It works every time. It's just amazing. 05:43Now somebody, some people that I chum with, have I've been chubby with a long time. I have several friends. I'm thinking one right now. I've been chumming with him for 30 years Okay, 30 years I've been chumming. He keeps coming closer. I have a lot of people in my life right now that I've been chumming with and all of them are getting closer and closer. 06:02And if they're not getting closer, then I make some arrangements and I get there, but I can't push them. You know it's God's timing. You can't force them, you just have to let it flow and it's not my responsibility to save them, it's just my responsibility to love them. So I love them first and I throw out little pieces of chum and they start coming up the chum line and it's just a beautiful thing to watch all that take place and just to watch that. You have a variety of people around you that are all coming close to you all the time and that get that. It's exciting, it's just absolutely exciting. We can't control it. It's not our timing, it's God's timing. It's God's sovereign moving each one of these people. They're on a journey. We just wanna help their journey go in the right direction. 06:42 - Speaker 2If you enjoyed today's episode, let us know, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review to help us reach more listeners. Remember sharing your faith ignites your faith. See you next time on the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast.