Time to move on?

Sometimes your very best evangelistic move is to move on. That may sound counter-intuitive or perhaps defeatist. But before I clarify what I do and don’t mean, think about the Biblical warrant for ‘moving on’.

‘Do not cast your pearls before swine’ (Matt. 7:6).

‘If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet’ (Matt. 10:14).

‘Some of [the Athenians] sneered, but others said: “We want to hear you again on this subject.” At that, Paul left.’ (Acts 17:33-34).

Sometimes the right move is to move on. I don’t mean that you move on from your friends and family if they fail to convert. I don’t mean that you move house if your street resists the gospel. We never move on from loving our friends, family and neighbours – that is a constant. But in evangelistic terms, there are times when you move on from that conversation… for a season.

We pin our colours to the mast, unashamed of our Christian identity, we speak of the difference Christ makes in our lives, looking to see if it sparks any interest. We invite our friends to the Christmas carols, and to the cinema trip with our church friends. We ask them if they’ve read a Gospel since becoming an adult, yes, all of this. But, in the words of Rico Tice: ‘If they go quiet, you go quiet.’ You don’t batter down the locked door. You move on… from that line of enquiry… for now.

In Matthew 13, Jesus tells the parable of the four soils. ‘The farmer sows the word’, the people are like soil types, receiving the word in different ways (Matt. 13:18-23). Some hearers will be hardened (v.19), but don’t be fazed, keep sowing. Some will be shallow (vv.20–21), never mind, move on. Some will be choked by worries and consumerism (v.22), that’s alright, there are still other hearers. Finally, some will welcome the word enduringly and fruitfully (v.23). If this soil won’t hear, we sow on another. And another. And another. If this hearer is hard, we don’t get out the crowbar. We don’t beat them into submission. We sow into the next heart, and the next, and the next.

Scatter, don’t batter

What does this mean for us practically? Well perhaps we need to shift from battering to scattering. Most of us have that one non-Christian friend/family member/spouse who we love to bits. We will never stop praying for them, but at times we can and should move on from that topic, for a bit. Amazingly, 1 Peter 3 – the chapter containing the greatest encouragement to personal evangelism in the whole Bible (v.15) – also contains verse 7 where Peter declares that Christian wives can win their husbands ‘without a word’. We should be unflagging in our love and prayers, but there’s a time to trust in the words already sown, and in the God who brings growth in His own time.

And as we shift from ‘battering’, let’s also embrace ‘scattering.’ Let’s be more liberal with our invitations – to church and to deeper conversations. We put out feelers more broadly: ‘That’s what I love about my church…’ we enthuse. ‘You ever been? You’d be so welcome.’ If they’re not ready for that conversation, never mind. We move on for now. This is a call to lift our eyes to a much broader harvest field. As we sow more broadly, we’ll encounter much more mixed reactions. But that’s alright. We move on.

There is good soil. We have good seed. So we don’t batter the few. We scatter to the many.