I'm probably not ever going to find this easy, but at least I was able to participate. It was great that Mike had everything arranged. The organization made me much more comfortable with everything.
I started with the parking meter outreach. That one made the most sense to me, because I know that people hate those machines that they have to key their spot numbers into. My partner was really terrific . I learned a lot from watching how she initiated contact with people. She was very unthreatening.
"We'd like to pay for your parking today".
It's almost automatic that the person says 'OK' -- since it doesn't put them into the position of a supplicant. And usually they follow it up with "Why?", which leads to our next line "to show God's love in a practical way". Later on I had a chance to see what other teams were doing, and found some of their approaches intimidating.
"Did you already pay for your parking?" sounds almost threatening to me. Some people got a little defensive, saying "I'm just about to".
It's kind of funny. I'm not bringing any natural talent to know how to do this, or what to say, but my ability to analyze and observe might be a good compensation after all. I'll work on copying the approaches that seem to work better.
Of course, the whole thing is complicated by the fact that I don't recognize people's faces. When the outreach teams moved back and forth between the various stations, I didn't even realize that they were 'us' -- I thought they were strangers, and was about to offer them meter money. It's hard for people to understand that I'm not kidding when I don't recognize them. Luckily, I noticed one woman's distinctive shirt, and figured out who she was, just in time.
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