Another Telemarketing Success

I subscribe to a magazine which often costs $17 a year. However, I received a telemarketing call from an organization that is able to sell the subscription for $13 a year. I decided to go ahead and renew my subscription (I’ve ordered through this telemarketing company in the past).

I’ve been a little discouraged in my recent phone conversations because so many have been “busy” that they haven’t wanted to take time for the test.

This time it was nice to receive the telemarketing call after work hours when I had plenty of time to share! After we talked through the magazine options and I was all squared away with my subscription, she asked if there was anything else she could help me with – a perfect question!

I said I had two questions, but they were not related to the magazine and were only if she had time. She was curious, and said to go ahead. The first question was whether her accent was from Texas or the south – and she said it was from Tennessee. We talked about accents for a minute, and then I moved on to the good person test.

I again said it was only if she had a minute (which she did), so we started into the test. I asked if she felt she was a good person, and she said yes. I asked if she was familiar with the ten commandments, and she said yes. I asked if she felt she had kept the commandments, all, or some, or none – and she said most of them.

As we started into the commandments, she was hesitant to admit ever lying (perhaps because the call was being recorded?) – but she did come up with the word “liar.” She was also hesitant to admit stealing (she couldn’t recall a specific time but “must have at some point”). She never has taken God’s name in vain (“well, probably accidentally sometime”). When we discussed murder – I started by asking if she had ever killed someone – she said no. She’s the first one that then turned around and asked me if I had ever killed someone (I had admitted to the previous violation’s of God’s commandments so perhaps she thought I had also committed murder?!?). The conversation was still light-hearted at this point, and when I mentioned that God knows our hearts and thoughts, and that Jesus said that if we are angry with someone we commit murder in our heart, she said she had never been “that” angry with someone. I said that Jesus didn’t say “how” angry we had to be, just: angry.

I summarized her condition by saying that others would look at her as a nice person that is friendly, a good magazine salesperson, but when God looks at her, He would see someone that is a lying, thieving, blaspheming, murderer at heart. I said this was the moral to the story (I had mentioned at the beginning that the test had a “moral” at the end – although I need to come up with a better term than “moral” because I don’t like to in any way equate the gospel to a “moral”), if she were to die tonight, and God judged her based on the ten commandments, would she be innocent or guilty? She said she’d like to be innocent, but based on the ones we just talked about, she’d be guilty. I reminded her that we only looked at four out of the ten – and then asked where God sends guilty people – to heaven or hell. She said she knew the answer but couldn’t say it because it would be against their language rules – but that it was OK for me to say.

I then shared some of the ways people try to deal with their guilt before God (confessing their sin, trying to be good, and doing “good works” for God) and how ineffective each of those would be in a regular court of law. I then shared the story of my grandfather paying the fine for a person that caused an accident and was guilty before the court. The telemarketer was touched by the story, and agreed that an innocent person can pay the fine for a guilty person.

I then summarized the gospel, and shared how Jesus had given His life for her, and that He wanted her life in exchange. He didn’t want another hypocrite, but someone that will truly give their life to Him.

I was very encouraged because, despite her not sharing a tremendous amount with me, I truly feel it was because she felt constrained by the rules at her work, and yet she was open to me sharing. At times she reminded me it was OK for me to keep sharing, but that she couldn’t say too much. I encouraged her to read her Bible in the book of John, and to visit www.NeedGod.com for more information.

At the end, she thanked me for sharing with her, and I thanked her for helping me with my magazine subscription.

I was very encouraged to be able to share with someone that was open, and considered this a tremendous success – not because the person immediately repented and gave their life to Christ – but because I was able to share the Gospel with someone that appeared to have a soft heart of “good soil” – the result is up to her.