The Everyday Club

3/14/10 Steve, about 30
After church I stopped to get gas and used a MDB tract as a conversation starter with Steve, a gas truck driver who was filling up the gas station's underground tanks. I quickly got to the question "Will you go to heaven?" and Steve assured me that he would and is a member at a large, well known Baptist church in the area. I said "Well I really want to see you in heaven one day so I need to ask - how can you be sure?" Steve answered, "Well I think we're going through hell right here on earth." He told me he doesn't believe that there is an actual hell, but God will take all the good people away while He destroys the earth and all the bad people with it, and then He'll restore the earth and return the good people to it. "Do you read the Bible?" I asked "because that's really not what the Bible says". Steve replied "I've read parts of it, but I'm a little rusty on the details." Steve seemed pretty opinionated though and I didn't want to get in an argument about it so I decided to ask him the "good person" questions to try to help him see his need for forgiveness. I began by asking how many lies he has told, and he admitted to lying that he was busy when the church people on his block come by to talk to him and convince him to come to their church. He said they talk too much. I have to admit this really threw me off. I don't think he intentionally said this to get rid of me, but just the same I didn't want to be put in the same category as these "church people" so I summed up what I had to say rather quickly, left him with some additional info and went on my way. Looking back, I wish I hadn't so worried about his opinion of me and that I had been more concerned with his relationship with God.