Former Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs speaks to a crowd at the AOL campus in Dulles, Virginia about his life, testimony, and new book Game Plan for Life
On Friday, I spent the late afternoon (from 5-7 PM) handing out fliers to The After Party all around the Ballston area in Arlington, Virginia. When I arrived at the Ballston metro stop, I quickly found three other Frontliners with stacks of cards to hand out. After some swift instructions from the location leader and a quick prayer, we all split up and handed out the cards however we saw fit.
A fourth guy showed up, so I gave him half of my card stack. I didn’t really see any of the guys after that. Since they seemed to be staying close to the Metro, I decided to hit the streets.
I found that walking down the streets and handing cards to the individuals I passed had a better reception rate than handing cards out to the clusters gathered at the Metro. I believe this is because when people think you’re genuinely interested in them as individuals, they are much more likely to be open with you. (This actually helps prove a hypothesis I have about the drawbacks of “mass” communication, but I’ll save that for another blog post.)
I wasn’t familiar with walking the Ballston streets, but I just kept going — and when I felt lost, I just asked people how to get to the Metro.
Because I had plenty of time between “sets,” I was able to completely reset after each attempted interaction. I had time to analyze the successful attempts and overcome the unsuccessful ones.
Other than people taking the cards and thanking me, I had several notable interactions. I talked with one girl, who inquired about the organization behind The After Party. I used my typical opener, “I’d like to invite you to an event my church is having this weekend.” Her response was, “That depends on what kind of church it is.” I told her it was a nondenominational Protestant church in McLean. She was unfamiliar with McLean Bible Church, but did say she was skeptical of nondenominational churches in general. “Some of them can be pretty crazy,” she said, then admitted that she had recently moved to the area and was looking for a Baptist church in Arlington. I assured her MBC taught sound doctrine and invited her to check out Frontline Arlington. In retrospect, I probably should have suggested she check out Cherrydale Baptist as well.
I found one young Asian man sitting on a bench under a tree and handed him a card. He took it, even though he said he already received one at the West Falls Church metro (yep, we had a team over there, too).
Another Asian student I came across was very friendly and receptive of the card. Not to be stereotypical, but I don’t recall any Asians refusing the card.
After a while, I started focusing on people who looked unfriendly. I never approached anyone who was talking on their phone or had earphones in. But there were some very serious-looking, no-nonsense people who I made an effort to approach. Unfortunately, true to their appearance, they almost always refused the card.
Eventually, I only approached young women — using some of the old pickup skills within my social arsenal.
One particular situation involved me standing back, waiting at an intersection. I waited for an attractive girl to pass by and make solid eye contact. When one finally did, I gave her a smile. She smiled shyly, dropped eye contact, then reestablished eye contact before passing by completely. I waited. After about a minute, I hurried to catch up with her. She was two blocks down the street before I finally caught up with her. I ran the last few steps toward her — to feign being out of breath. I called to her, then said I really wanted to invite her to this event my church was having. She was visibly pleased that I had stopped her, but then quite confused that all I wanted was to hand her a flier. I back-stepped away with a smile, said I hoped to see her there, and left her with an experience to ponder for the rest of the day.
That was probably my favorite experience of the day. In a past life, I probably would have asked the girl out right then and there. But these days, I’m more interested in introducing women to Christ. I guess you could say I’m Jesus’ wingman.
On Wednesday night, members of my small group and I went to Reston Town Center to hand out fliers to The After Party. When we arrived, a security officer told us we couldn’t solicit on the premises. Since we didn’t feel right about disobeying the officer (we easily could have walked to another street beyond his view), we decided to head across the street to the Best Buy/Barnes & Noble shopping center.
I wasn’t sure who of the four of us had prior experience doing cold approaches to people on the street, so I figured I should make the first approach. A tip I learned from my pickup days is to purposefully get some “rejections” under your belt as soon as possible. So, expecting to be rejected, I stopped two young girls walking past us, handed them a couple of fliers, and simply said, “We’re having a party this weekend. You’re invited.” And that was it. They very willingly accepted the fliers, said “cool,” and continued walking.
One of the members of my small group flat-out said he didn’t feel good about walking up to some hot chicks and inviting them to a party — without explaining what it was all about. I disagree. Not only did I consider the approach “practice,” but even such vague invitation attempts can be a valid way of witnessing, should the girls go home, check out the website, and consider what The After Party is all about.
Our group of four split into two groups. Two guys went over to Barnes & Noble, where they had several interesting encounters (including one Hindu yelling at them and accusing them of “false advertising”). My small group leader and myself walked in the opposite direction towards La Madeline. I had seen two girls sitting outside there during our walk over from RTC, so I wanted to go speak with them.
On the way over, my partner approached some folks standing outside of a hair salon (who accepted the cards graciously and thanked us), as well as an older gentleman standing outside La Madeline (who accepted out of politeness only). We bought a couple of drinks inside, then sat at a table outside, near the two girls. We weren’t close enough to talk with the girls from our table, so we chatted a bit ourselves, then got up, and on the way out, did a double-take (another pickup trick) to say, “Oh, you girls might be interested in this…”
I pulled out two cards and told them they were invited to an event our church was putting on. The first girl surprisingly admitted that she already had two of those fliers. Apparently, she had been invited to the event by her small group leader (she was in a non-Frontline small group). The other girl said she didn’t have a flier, so I handed her one. We made some additional small talk, then departed.
We handed cards out to more folks on the way back to Barnes & Noble… A surfer-type dude, a punk rock girl sitting at an outdoor table, and possibly another. I can’t remember.
After reuniting with the others, we headed back to RTC. On the way, we handed out more fliers. I started to understand that it’s much easier to hand these things out while on the move, rather than standing in one place, targeting passersby.
We spent some time at one of our small group member’s condo (he lives in RTC), then on the way back to our cars a few hours later, I ran into an improv buddy of mine, Matt, and his gal pal. He was actually the one who spotted, then called out to me. I have a feeling he totally knew what I was doing there (thanks to my Facebook status), so after making small talk, he specifically asked what it was we were handing out (what a kind fellow!). We told him about The After Party, and handed him and his friend a card. Matt exclaimed that he would be there, but he’s always generous with his words. His friend, on the other hand, seemed very reluctant about the whole thing.
Leaving Reston Town Center, I felt like the whole task of handing out fliers was a piece of cake. Once you get over the fear of rejection and become immune to actual rejection, it’s a walk in the park.
