Dr. Nigel Barber, writing in Psychology Today, notes of people in secular countries:
Although residents typically express a casual and condescending attitude towards organized religion, their interest in spiritual questions persists.
Approaches to Reach Secular People
There are some secular people who are community and spiritually focused, which opens the door for the gospel.
However, if you are going to reach out to secular people, there’s more you need to know. It is good that they might be spiritual, but how we connect with them is also key.
We must also find out if the spiritually inclined secular person is open and interested in conversations in a closely connected community or in large group settings. This is an important consideration for evangelism and church planting and affects the strategies we adopt to reach secular people.
Some will be reached in large group contexts. Others will be reached in small group settings.
Large Group Models
There are some secular people who are community focused.
Historically speaking, the models we’ve inherited and have propagated in evangelism and church planting for more than 20 years typically utilize the large group approach.
From my observation, large settings are where most people become new followers of Jesus, particularly in the North America.
Versions of this are true across the Western world, and in many places in the global South where Christianity is thriving.
For example, more people are probably coming to Christ in Holy Trinity Brompton’s ministries (and similar ministries) in the U.K. than in alternative missional communities or organic movements.