Pastor, you’re surrounded by dirt.
To be more precise, you’re surrounded by soil—all kinds of soil. In your community, you have people who are ready to respond to the Gospel and people who aren’t. Your job is to isolate the good soil and plant your seed there.
Jesus clearly taught this notion of spiritual receptivity in the Parable of the Sower and the Soils (Matt. 13:3-23). Like different kinds of soil, people respond differently to the Good News. Everyone is not equally ready to receive Christ. Some people are very open to hearing the Gospel and others are very closed. In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus explained that there are hard hearts, shallow hearts, distracted hearts and receptive hearts.
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 hundred-fold harvest. Take a cue from those who work with actual dirt. No farmer in his right mind would waste seed, a precious commodity, on infertile ground that won’t produce a crop. In the same way, I believe careless, unplanned broadcasting of the Gospel is poor stewardship. The message of Christ is too important to waste time, money and energy on nonproductive methods and soil. We need to be strategic in reaching the world. We should focus our efforts where they will make the greatest difference.
Spiritual receptivity comes and goes in people’s lives like an ocean tide. People are more open to spiritual truth at certain times than at others. Many factors determine spiritual receptivity. God uses a variety of tools to soften hearts and prepare people to be saved.
So who are the most receptive people? I believe 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 major change, whether positive or negative, they develop a hunger for spiritual stability. This has occurred in America during the last several years. The massive changes in our world have left us frightened and unsettled and have produced an enormous interest in spiritual matters. Alvin Toffler says that 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 generally grow faster in newer communities where new residents are continually moving in than in stable, older communities where people have lived for 40 years.
