Conversation starters

(posted by Paul Zilmer)

We don't sell much merchandise in our BEC. This is a change from the BEC Jane and I worked at in Durban, South Africa, where we sold quite a few Bibles, as well as some Bible oriented books.

But one thing is the same: the displays of materials attract people to come in and look. Even in Durban, the three book cases of Christian books and gift items didn't sell a lot — but a lot of people came in to browse, and some of them signed up for a course. Here in Urbana we see a similar thing. People will come in to look at our display of Bibles for sale, and at the rack that contains our lending library. We haven't sold a lot of Bibles, and we haven't had very many books borrowed. But people do come in to look, and to talk.

We've recently added a couple more conversation starters, which are also helpful study aids. Several years ago in Israel Jane and I bought a poster that shows the "family tree" of people mentioned in the Bible, all the way from Adam and Eve to people of Jesus' time. It's been hanging in my office for 8 years, seldom looked at. It's now on the wall in the BEC, and people are looking at it! The second item is a 10 foot long Bible timeline chart. It is colorful and has attractive illustrations, but the big value is that it shows how the people and events of the Bible line up over time. Most people have no idea that the first book of the Bible covers almost half of the Old Testament time period, and a almost a third of human history. The timeline has been up less than a week, and it has already prompted multiple conversations about how important Genesis is as the foundation of God's work with mankind.