Church Family,
It seems like we just started 2022 and spring is just around the corner! Can you believe that Easter is next month?! In addition to the warmer weather that comes with spring, we also have the encouraging signs of COVID numbers dropping over 90% what they were in our area in January. Let’s definitely pray that those numbers keep dropping, especially with Easter right around the corner!
Speaking of Easter, I recently read an interesting study from Lifeway Research and Evangelism Explosion about how widely receptive Americans are to spiritual conversations. The research found that 51% of Americans say they’re curious as to why some people are devoted to their faith. Of that 51%, 60% of them were people who considered themselves “religiously unaffiliated.” Basically, over half of our country are curious and want to know more about why we are devoted to Christ. Think of the evangelistic implications of that! Half of our country want to know why we love Jesus!
And, while the pandemic has had some devastating effects on our country, there is a bit of a silver lining to the COVID cloud. According to the study, 32% of Americans say that COVID-19 has made them more interested in spiritual matters. Think about that, 1/3 of our fellow Americans are now more interested in spiritual things now than they were two years ago. What an incredible opportunity we have to engage with the lost!
So, the good news is that people are ready to hear about the Gospel. As Jesus says in Matthew 9, the harvest is plentiful! However, the research conducted by Lifeway also shared a troubling statistic. When responders were asked if their Christian friends talk about faith, 60% said that their Christian friends “rarely talk about faith.”
Do you see the issue at hand? People are ready to hear about our faith. The pandemic has made people think about spiritual issues to a greater extent than they did pre-COVID. However, 60% of the individuals surveyed said their Christian friends rarely talked about faith. Scott McConnel, the Executive Director of Lifeway Research said, “There is a quiet chasm between the religiously devoted and those who have no religion in the U.S. The irony is that religious devotion intrigues many people, yet many avid Christians fail to share why faith is so important in their lives.”
Let’s not keep the gospel a secret! Let’s look for opportunities to share about who Jesus is and what he has done in our lives. Easter is a natural time to share your faith and invite people to an Easter service with you. Or, invite them to our Pursue Sunday on March 20 so they can hear how Christians are making an impact in our community.
Let’s pray that we won’t keep the good news to ourselves. Let’s share the hope of Jesus with a world that desperately needs it!
In Him,
Pastor Zach Crook
1https://research.lifeway.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Evangelism-Explosion-Survey-of-Americans-Report.pdf