Evangelism No Matter Where We Are - How to Live Jesus Out Loud

“He told many stories in the form of parables, such as this one: ‘Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds. As he scattered them across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate them. Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they didn’t have deep roots, they died. Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted!’” (Matthew 13:3-8, NLT)

Modern farming is not haphazard. It’s methodical. Rows are tilled into fertilized soil. Seed is meticulously planted in each row. Crop yields are calculated, planned, arranged. But not in Jesus’ parable. Instead, he paints a picture of a farmer who seems almost careless with his seed. He walks through his fields, casting it every which way, letting it land wherever it will—and some of it takes root.

The lesson often taught from this parable is that the gospel will reach people differently, and people will respond to it differently. For some it will grow into something; for others it won’t. But a secondary lesson we can learn from this parable is the method by which the gospel goes out—abundantly, overwhelmingly, almost flippantly, reaching all kinds of people in all different stages of receptivity.

Maybe you struggle to believe that the harvest is plentiful, because your personal track record indicates the opposite. Maybe you’ve looked and looked for opportunities to engage people spiritually but to no avail. You can’t seem to find the people who are supposedly ripe for the harvest. From where you stand, things seem a whole lot more like a wasteland than a flourishing field.

If this describes how you feel, you may be approaching spiritual engagement like a sonar operator. Perhaps you’ve come to believe (even if subconsciously) that you need to develop some sort of special ability that will allow you to detect the people who are spiritually receptive. Maybe you think of engaging people as a two-step process:

Step 1: Develop a special “sonar” that can detect spiritually receptive people.

Step 2: Engage those people with spiritual things.

This approach has some problems. First, we really can’t trust our ability to gauge spiritual receptivity, because we tend to look at the wrong things. Second, it really isn’t our job to walk around determining who will and won’t be receptive. Spiritual receptivity is something we discover as we engage with people, not before we engage with them. The better way to interact with others is like this:

Step 1: Engage people with spiritual things.

Step 2: Through engaging, find those who are spiritually receptive.

When we make spiritual receptivity a prerequisite for our willingness to engage someone, we will never engage with anyone.

We will be stingy farmers—hoarding our seed as we try to determine what type of soil is underneath the surface of someone’s demeanor. As cross-cultural church planter Elliot Clark writes, “If we continue the pattern of waiting for perfect opportunities, they may never come. And our fate will be that of the wary farmer who observes the wind and doesn’t sow, who considers the clouds and never reaps (Ecclesiastes 11:4). Such farmers have empty barns in winter.”

We are a new creation whose very essence has been transformed into a potent, influential substance; we find ourselves in a world packed with people whom God is drawing to himself.

Reflect:

Our workplaces and our gyms, our neighborhoods, and even our own yards are brimming with opportunities. We might as well walk around striking up conversations and casting seed every which way, because when we speak as spiritual people, we will start to find people who are receptive to spiritual things. No sonar needed. Who might God be asking you to engage in a spiritual conversation with?