Warren names two categories of unusually high spiritual receptivity: people in transition and people under tension.
Transition: new job, new city, new school, new relationship, recent marriage, recent divorce, new baby, recent retirement. The old routines are disrupted, old social networks are strained or dissolved, identity is in flux. At this moment, people are genuinely open to new communities and new frameworks for meaning.
Tension: crisis, grief, loss, serious illness, failure, addiction, family breakdown. God, as Warren puts it, uses both change and pain to get people’s attention. The person who had no reason to question their assumptions suddenly has every reason.
This is not manipulation — it’s recognizing when a person is actually available. Receptivity is temporary. The soil that is open today may harden again. The Spirit prepares specific people at specific moments; ignoring those windows in favor of trying to force open hard-closed doors is poor stewardship.
Practically: new residents are one of the highest-value evangelistic populations in most American communities. A personal letter and a phone call from a church that noticed them arrived six months before any other community engaged them. Warren’s Saddleback grew significantly on new arrivals to the Saddleback Valley. MNFC should ask: who in our local networks is currently in transition or crisis? Those relationships deserve attention now, not later.
The principle isn’t cold targeting. It’s pastoral attentiveness — meeting people when they are actually ready to be met.