This Week is Probably the Most Spiritual Receptive Week in Your Lifetime—Will You Share?

We are in a season to share Christ like few we will ever experience.

In the early days of the crisis of the Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine wrote a series of pamphlets entitled The American Crisis. He opened the series with these now-famous words: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

War has a way of doing that.

And, so do pandemics.

The global crisis we currently face has disrupted lives in dramatic and often horrific ways. Over ten million Americans applied for unemployment in March. We see the strain on healthcare workers. Every cough makes us worry about the virus; many of us now know someone who has been touched by it. Wealthy and poor, politician and shift worker, famous actor and homeless person, the virus is relentless in its spread.

Disasters do something more than disrupt the normal flow of life, however. They actually have a way of making people more receptive to change or innovation. Pastors are suddenly far more receptive to online streaming of their services. Small groups are receptive to video chat meetings. Parents are more receptive to some version of home schooling.

An Urgency to Gospel Sharing This Week

Times like these do try our souls. They also call believers to share Christ with urgency. One of the effects of this moment is that unchurched people are more receptive to the gospel. Let me give you some research on this and then offer some practical helps for this critical time for our witness. (I shared these on a Facebook live yesterday as well.)

A LifeWay Research study discovered that the top four circumstances (drawn from a larger list) when people are more open to spiritual conversations.