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Do you know you are surrounded by dirt?
To be more exact, you’re surrounded by all kinds of soil. In your community, you have people ready to respond to the Gospel and those who are not. Your job is to identify the good soil and plant your seed there. At least begin there first.
Jesus clearly taught this notion of spiritual receptivity in the Parable of the Sower and the Soils (Matthew 13:3-23). As different kinds of soil respond differently to planted seeds, people respond differently to the Good News. Everyone is not equally ready to receive Christ. Some people are very open to hearing the Gospel, while others are closed. In the Parable of the Sower and the Soils, Jesus explained that hard, shallow, distracted, and receptive hearts exist.
If you want your ministry to maximize its evangelism effectiveness, you need to focus your energy on the right soil. That’s the soil that will produce a hundredfold harvest.
Take a hint from those who work with actual dirt. No farmer in his right mind would waste seed—a precious commodity—on the ground that is not fertile and won’t produce a crop. It’s the same with the thoughtless, indiscriminate spreading of the Gospel, which is an unfortunate use of resources. The message of the Gospel is too valuable to waste time, energy, and money on methods and soil that are not productive. We need to be strategic in reaching the world. We should focus our efforts where they will make the most significant difference.
If you look closely, you’ll see that even within your church’s target group, there are various pockets of receptivity. People’s receptivity to spiritual matters comes and goes in their lives, like night and day. That means they are more open to spiritual truth at certain times than other times.
Many factors determine spiritual receptivity. God uses a variety of tools to soften hearts and prepare people to place their faith in Christ alone for eternal life.
So, who are the most receptive people? I agree with one pastor of a very healthy church when he wrote, “There are two broad categories: people in transition and people under tension.” That’s because God uses both change and pain to get people’s attention and make them receptive to the Gospel.
People in transition: Any time people experience significant change, whether positive or negative, they develop a hunger for spiritual stability. It has mainly occurred in America during the last decade. The massive changes in our world have left us frightened and unsettled, producing an enormous interest in spiritual matters. Writer Alvin Toffler said people look for “islands of stability” when change becomes overwhelming. This is a wave the church needs to ride.
People are also more receptive to the Gospel when they face changes like a new marriage, a new baby, a new home, a new job, or a new school. That’s why churches can grow faster in newer communities where new residents continually move in than in stable, older communities where the same people have lived for decades.
People under tension: God uses all kinds of emotional pain to get people’s attention—like the pain of divorce, the death of a loved one, unemployment, financial problems, relocating, marriage and family difficulties, loneliness, resentment, guilt, and other stresses. When fearful or anxious, people often seek something greater than themselves to ease the pain and fill their void.
Based on my many years of pastoring, I offer the following list of what I believe were the 10 most receptive groups of people that we reached out to over the years in churches I pastored:
- Second-time visitors to your church (unbelievers who come, regardless of the reason)
- Close friends and relatives of new believers
- People going through a separation or divorce
- Those who feel their need for a recovery program (any type: alcohol, drugs, sexual addiction, etc.)
- First-time parents
- Terminal illness of self, family member, or close friend
- Couples with significant marriage problems
- Parents having difficulty with their children
- Recently unemployed/major financial problem
- New residents in the community (usually the easiest to reach)
One of the most significant benefits of aiming to reach receptive people is that you don’t have to pressure them to receive Christ. I used to tell my staff: “Fruit that is ripe doesn’t have to be yanked!”
Your church might aim to develop a specific program or outreach to each of your community’s most receptive people groups. Of course, if you begin to do this, someone will likely say, “Pastor, I think that before we try to reach all these new people, we should try to reactivate all the old members who have stopped coming. And there have been a lot of them since the pandemic!” This is a guaranteed strategy for church decline! It doesn’t work.
It usually takes about five times more energy to reactivate a disgruntled or carnal member than to win a receptive unbeliever. I believe God has called pastors to catch fish and feed sheep—not to corral goats! The truth is that some of your inactive members probably need to join somewhere else for several reasons.
Growing churches focus on reaching receptive people. Non-growing churches focus on re-enlisting inactive people.
Once you know your target, who you are most likely to reach, and who the most receptive people in your target group are, you’re ready to establish an evangelism strategy for your church. Remember, we are not to build a crowd but to evangelize the lost and disciple the saved. So, my suggestion to you is this: Start checking the soil.
Yet, to keep things in balance, there are times we do not know who is in transition or tension, change or pain, so we must remember to be ready to give the Gospel to everyone (Col. 1:28).
So, let’s get busy with every-person evangelism, focusing on those most receptive to the Good News!
