Lessons on Building Relationships From Directv.

About a month ago I started working for Directv here in Missoula, MT. 2 days after I arrived in Montana I was offered a job as a technical support agent at Directv. I've been so grateful for God's provision for my family through this job. Well, although I was hired on day 2, I didn't start for about another 30 days.

Anyway, for the last 4 weeks I've been going through Directv's vigorous technical support training and it has been intense. One thing I like about Directv is their commitment to provide the best possible customer service possible. One of the ways that they seeks to accomplish that is by "building a relationships" with every customer that calls in. As a technical support agent, I need to get the customer in a place where they are willing to work with me in troubleshooting their technical issues. If they are not willing to partner with me in taking steps to troubleshoot, their issue doesn't get resolved and I'm not successful in my position. "The way that we get the customer willing to work with us", says my trainer, "is that we build a relationship with them." "A relationship" he says, "can be built within the first 30 seconds of the call." The way Directv sees it, a friendly tone and an interest in how the customer is doing is enough to build a relationship with the customer. I find this interesting.

One of the reasons this stands out to me is because of what I often hear from Christians about preaching the gospel. "I can't preach the gospel unless I have first built a relationship with someone" is the understanding of many Christians. The problem is that we don't think like Directv; we think a relationship is built over a period of weeks or even months. The problem with that is that neither we, nor the person we are sharing the gospel with is promised tomorrow. Back in Santa Fe, as I was street witnessing, I had the opportunity to share the gospel with a teenager who told me that he was "only 18 and why should he care about what happens when he dies". About two years later this same kid started working at the same place that I was working. I reminded him that I had talked to him about Jesus a couple years ago and he claimed that he didn't remember. Two days later he didn't show up for work because he had commit suicide the night before. I was grieved to see that 2 days before he died he still hadn't believed the gospel, but I was glad that I shared the good news of Jesus Christ with him while he was living. You see, I wouldn't have shared the gospel with that guy if I was waiting to "build a relationship" with him over a period of months. When I approached him in the Plaza of Santa Fe I built a relationship with him within the first 30 seconds of our conversation. I greeted him with a smile and I joked with him a bit, but I wanted him to know that I had some good news to share with him. He listened. He wasn't offended that he barely knew me. He actually thanked me for talking to him and said he would consider what I said.

I think that we, as Christians, can learn something from Directv. At Directv, I need to build a relationship with the customer so that they will be willing to work with me. They don't have to be my best friend, they just have to be willing to work with me to get their dish working. And as Christians, we don't have to make people our closest friends before we can share the gospel with them; we just need to get them to a point where they will hear what we have to say. It doesn't take long. A guy in a grocery store line, that doesn't know me from Adam, can tell me all about the idols that he worships and how I should worship those idols too (not in those terms)without taking 5 minutes to build a relationship with me. Why can't I tell Him about the true and living God that I worship and how that God loves Him and died so that He could be saved? Look, Jesus didn't say to go into all the world and build relationships so that maybe one day we can tell them about Jesus. He said to go into all the world and PREACH THE GOSPEL (Mark 16:15). Romans 1:16 says that the gospel is the POWER OF GOD unto salvation to everyone who believes. Why would we keep that power to ourselves?

Stop believing the lie that you have to earn the right to be heard; that you earn that right over weeks and months of "building relationship". Take it from Directv; "you can build a relationship with a person within the first 30 seconds of the conversation." Don't let unbiblical misconceptions prevent you from sharing the gospel because you think you haven't "earned the right" yet. Share it! Don't keep it quiet! How beautiful are the feet of those who PREACH THE GOOD NEWS! (Romans10:15) Now get out there and tell the people in your life that Jesus loves them and died so that they can be saved!