Persons of Peace: How Do I Find Them?

This entry is part 15 of 15 in the series "Church planting".

I understand that I need to look for “POPs” or Persons of Peace / Prepared Open People, but how do I find them? How would I recognize them?

In our previous blog post, “Persons of Peace: 1. What are they?“, we discovered what Persons of Peace are. We learned why they were part of Jesus’ strategy for spreading the good news of the kingdom. We saw from biblical examples and modern stories that they can be unbelievers, pre-believers, new believers or established believers. They are local, well-networked people. God has prepared people of peace in very different ways – through sickness and a sense of need, through a sense of inadequacy or maybe through the change in their own lives. They reduce exponentially the amount of time it takes to penetrate a new area. This is because they already know the people and the culture we are trying to reach. The people we are targeting will listen to them, either because they see the radical change, or because they are respected and “worthy” people.

But how do we find them? When we go into a new place, we usually don’t know who the connected people are. We don’t know who will open doors for us. Often the ones we think will be our POP’s nd up being unhelpful and closed to our message.

Changing their strategy

In my blog post on “The process of journeying toward Christ“, I was talking with a worker in Southeast Asia who was trying to reach into a Muslim community. He and his team had been in their location for 7 years with very little fruit. They had tried to become part of the community life and to build relationships for a number of years with the kinds of people they thought would be Persons of Peace, receptive to the message and connected in the community. They discovered that, very often, the people that they had invested so much time in relationally were closed and uninterested once they began to share the gospel. In all that time, they had bypassed many people. They had spent all their time on their narrower focus of people whom they assumed or hoped would come through in the long run as their persons of peace.

As we move into a new area, we don’t know up front who those people will be. We have to use multiple approaches to find them. This team in SE Asia made the decision that, while they still built relationships with some, they would start sharing the gospel up front with the many in order to find the few who were already prepared by God. Then they would focus their relational time on those who were already prepared by God and open to their message. Then they would use those relationships as bridges into the community. They determined to start sharing the gospel earlier, and that would help them filter out who might and might not be receptive and supportive. Instead of starting with relationships and moving to the gospel, they decided to start with the gospel and move with the responsive into relationships.

Paul’s strategy

This seems to be a method often used by the apostle Paul in his ministry. He would go and preach the gospel to a group or to a synagogue. Out of that group, people would often be divided into the “opposers” and the “adopters.” He would then take those aside who were open and eager to learn more. Paul would then focus his time on these responsive few, the adopters. Then as he worked with these, going deeper in relationship and in teaching, we read that the gospel spread in those areas from that base of Prepared, Open People. They became his POPs.

2 ways to look for Persons of Peace

Through friendships in the community while living as a witness
Through broad spreading of the gospel

Let’s look more deeply at these two approaches.

Love them and tell them

The first approach is through building friendships in the community while living as a witness. The key here to finding the ‘Persons of Peace’ is in relationships in which we demonstrate Christlike character and love and speak openly and naturally of our faith and trust in God. If we fail to make it known that we are followers of Christ, then we might make good friendships, but we’re unlikely to find persons of peace. They need to know it is Christ who makes the difference.

When Jesus told his disciples what to do during their short-term missionary training trips (Matthew 10; Luke 9 and 10), he told them to heal the sick and preach the gospel. In other words, love them and tell them! In two of these passages, preaching the gospel comes first, and in one of these passages healing the sick comes first, but it is clear that the demonstration of God’s love and power through healing was to be accompanied by making it known that it was done in the name of Christ and for his kingdom. The credit for the healing was to be given to God, not to the disciples.

Who gets the credit?

It’s easy to go and live among them and love them without actually speaking the gospel of Christ. In that case the messenger gets the credit for the friendliness and kindness. This is why Jesus immediately told his disciples not to rejoice in the miracles they had done while on mission. Instead they should rejoice that they themselves were saved (Luke 10:20). Our Christlike character and kindness need to be accredited to the gospel of Christ.

As we continue to openly declare that we are Christ followers as we live in loving relationships, God will reveal to us the people who he is preparing. They will be drawn to us and to our message.

We don’t know who they will be, but loving acts done in Christ’s name will begin to show us who God’s POPs are. They will not be turned off by our message.

The disciples went to all the lost towns around Galilee with the gospel. They covered a lot of territory looking for responsive people. They went into towns and villages and shared the gospel with a wide range of people. The disciples did so, not knowing who would reject it and who would respond to it.

I mentioned in my first blog post on Persons of Peace that, in one city, we spent 3 months going house-to-house sharing the Word before we came to a family who were ready to hear and receive Christ. They immediately started helping us spread the Word. That taught me what I passed on to our new believers as we trained them in spreading God’s Word. As the church began to be established, I trained them in house-to-house witnessing in subdivisions. We took teams to parks and malls. We trained them to share at their schools and with their families and friends.

Be ready for rejection

I told them that we were likely to meet many people who weren’t interested in, or who rejected our witness. They might even be hostile. But I told them not to worry about that.¹ Those weren’t the people we were looking for. We were out looking for the people God had already been preparing who are out there somewhere.² The ones we were looking for might be in the next house or the next street or the next subdivision. And sure enough, we met a lot of disinterest and a little hostility. But eventually we found people who were waiting to hear who became part of God’s people and shared in our witness. We can’t find our Persons of Peace unless we are willing to risk rejection and hostility by sharing the gospel widely.

This is why in Matthew 10, Jesus spent most of his witness-training time telling the disciples to expect that many would “not receive” them (Matt 10:14). They were going out “among wolves” (Matt 10:16). The disciples would suffer real “persecution” (Matt 10:17ff), “hatred” (Matt 10:22), and violence (Matt 10:28). But he ends the chapter reminding them that some will “receive” them along the way and will find eternal life.

Of course, we have to be wise as serpents (Matt 10:16) so we are not foolishly endangering ourselves or others around us. But at the same time, unless we are willing to speak up for Christ, we will never find our persons of peace who will help us bring the gospel into new communities.

Prominent people

So, as we go into new areas, we are looking for those who will bridge the gaps into their networks of relationships. But we don’t know who they are in advance. We have to share our faith through love and through gospel witness in order to discover them. But we have to be careful not to assume that a certain type of person will be our bridge into the community. We tend to think they need to be highly influential. Maybe we think of government officials, prominent businesspeople, well known athletes or musicians. It is true that such people, like Cornelius, can open wide doors to many people. But it’s also true that they can often be the least responsive. Unless God has specially prepared them, they can also be the most self-reliant and self-focused people.

The least responsive

In our last city, we befriended someone who was probably the best-known radio and TV announcer in the city. His wife who was a prominent doctor there. We spent a lot of time with them and built a great relationship with them. But in the end, they had no interest in the gospel we shared with them. They weren’t willing to step out of their traditional religion.

Hoping that they would open doors to their networks, we tried to connect with and reach these kinds of people. We joined some of their clubs and attended their parties if invited. We took up the sports and hobbies in which they were participating. All the while, we were unashamed of our walk with the Lord as followers of Christ.

A few had a big impact

A few came to Christ along the way and helped us reach their connections. Those who did were able to open up their workplace to us for Bible studies. One military captain, a believer, invited me to come and speak to his whole group of about 100 soldiers. One Christian lady was the regional director of the department of education and opened the door for us to do weekly Bible studies in public schools with all the teachers from 5 different schools. Another businesswoman asked us to lead devotional times with her entire warehouse staff of about 30-40 people. So just a few such people can have a big impact.

But we often found this group to be the least responsive, maybe because they had the most to lose socially if they became Christians. So, while we built bridges with some socially influential people, most of our time was with ordinary people. This is where we found the most Persons of Peace, people who were ready to accept Christ and willing to be equipped to reach others.

Unexpected Persons of Peace

Often, we will be surprised who God will send to connect us with the lost community. We are surprised and maybe shocked at some of the people Jesus chose to be His door openers. It is poor shepherds on the low end of social acceptability who are the ones to announce the birth of the King of Kings to Israel. God used the woman at the well, a marital and moral failure, to lead a whole town in Samaria to faith. The Gadarene demoniac’s testimony prepared the entire region of the Decapolis for Christ.

These biblical examples show us several things. Socio-economic standards are not always the standards God uses in getting the gospel out. It really is the work of the sovereign God to lead us to such people. And so, we really should pray that God will lead us to find those we can’t find on our own. Often the best witnesses and gospel promoters are the ones who were the most broken without Christ.

The key we found to discovering God’s Persons of Peace was to bring the gospel to as many as possible. Then we focused on those who seemed responsive to the message of Christ. Then, we observed how they responded to Christ and to our encouragement to spread the Word to others. The ones who were quick to spread the Word to others and to gather others were the ones we wanted to focus on discipling in the long term. Some of these will be what we called “super spreaders.”

Super spreaders

A troubled teenager came to Christ. Within 3 months he told us that 15 of his classmates wanted to study the Bible with him. Could we help him?

A 15-year-old girl from a very broken family came to Christ and immediately started witnessing for Christ at her school. Before long she was bringing friends and family to Christ.

An outgoing businessman, who had recently lost his handicapped son, accepted Christ. He gathered his friends and asked if I would come and teach them.

We met a young lady, already a believer, in a new city we entered. She began connecting us with other Chinese young adults from her community. She had a quiet witness and the ability to connect us to others who she knew would be open.

Clearly these were prepared by God to bring Christ into their networks. Sometimes their networks were family, sometimes friends, sometimes work environments, sometimes schools. At times these people were existing believers with a heart for the lost. Sometimes they were newly changed by Christ. As we go out in Christ’s name, we share with many. We disciple the responders and start training as many as we can in passing the gospel on. But then we will find those who are especially gifted or who have that special passion for reaching others. It is important to take the time to disciple, equip and train them and to demonstrate to them how to share the gospel and disciple others.

Questions for reflection

Do you have any people in your context who are willing to pass on to others the things you share with them?
Are you looking and praying for POPs as you go about your life and witness for Christ?
Do you have ways of witnessing and discipling that would be easy to pass on to the “super spreaders” that God might bring your way?
Do you pray that God will raise up more laborers from within your harvest field? Remember; Persons of Peace are prepared by God. Ask him for them and ask him to connect you with them.

This blog post was originally posted to the TEAM church planting blog at Persons of Peace: How Do I Find One?. It is republished with permission by the author

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