How do you start a spiritual conversation?

We get a lot of questions regarding how to start a conversation with a stranger about the gospel.  Though I’m not big on scripting things out before speaking with people, it is helpful to have an idea as to how to spark a conversation.  Before thinking about how to answer this question, I don’t remember a time where I sat down and wrote out how to start gospel conversations.  After thinking about the question, however, I came up with the below diagram showing a common flow of how a conversation can go when you lead out with:

“do you go to a church in the area?”

This question, however, may not work in all types of street witnessing, but it is a great question to get on the topic of eternity.   I have found that this question comes very natural at: bus stops, church outreaches, and mercy service outreaches.  When I go to hand out tracts, however, I usually cut straight to the chase and say something like:

“This is for you…” (handing them the tract) “…I know this might sound weird, but I came out here specifically to talk to people about God.  Do you believe in God?”