Good Soil Evangelism training has enlarged my vision and helped me have a more effective understanding about winning souls for God. I am now focused on understanding where people are on the spiritual scale and what I have to do so that they will move up the scale of understanding—of course with the Holy Spirit’s leading. This strategy always creates an interest in the hearer, drawing them; creating a desire to know more. It does not offend and pressure them at all. I experienced how this works with my friend Linh.

Linh was raised in a Buddhist home. His grandparents and his mother follow Buddhism, and they have influenced Linh’s thinking about religion. Because of the Good Soil training, I have learned how to listen to people and not dump all the truth I know on them at one time. During the time that I was witnessing to Linh, I patiently listened to him. He had never met anyone who really listened to the things he had hidden in his heart. His grandparents and mother warned him to be careful, telling him that surely I was up to no good. These words of warning planted a seed of doubt in Linh’s mind, and he began to worry that I was sharing with him about some strange religious cult or a new subversive political party that would try to overthrow the government. (There had been a news report on the television about such a group in the past that had tried to exert political pressure against the government.) Linh was really worried about this, and he sent me a text message to say that he didn’t want to meet me the following week.

But, after about a month, Linh could not stop thinking about the question I had asked him: “What do you think the purpose of life is?” He asked his grandparents, and he even went to the Pagoda and asked some of the priests if they could answer this question. He talked to a lot of people he considered to be wise and knowledgeable, but no one could answer his questions or tell him the purpose of life. His grandparents then told him he should contact me again to see what my answers were to this question, since I was the one who asked him!

Through this whole process, I was constantly thinking about where Linh was on the Good Soil E&D scale and what that meant in terms of where I should begin sharing truth with him. In the beginning, he was very much opposed to considering the Bible as the Word of God, and in fact, he tried to convert me to Buddhism! But he kept coming to my room every day to discuss Biblical concepts and argue about what is really true. After three days, he asked me for a Bible, and we started to study from Genesis 1—3 about God, man, sin, death, etc. We continued to study through The Story of Hope until Linh understood who Jesus really is, why He had to die on the cross, how we can have faith in what Jesus did, and how we can obtain eternal life. After thoroughly studying all the issues, Linh placed his faith in Jesus Christ. The most exciting thing for me is to know for sure he really understood everything, because Good Soil prepared me well to be sure that his heart really was “good soil.”

Learn more about The Story of Hope evangelistic Bible study book and other related ministry resources. Available in many languages.