By and large, the church has continued to faithfully obey its commandment to "spread the word", but unfortunately, to use another biblical analogy, the ground is no longer as fertile. Agriculture is an involved process of which harvesting the crop is only the last if most visible step. Because of various biblical statements, and because its the most personally rewarding step, we tend to concentrate on it. Certainly evangelists are generally highly honored in the Church, whereas the hard grunt work of preparation tends to be overlooked. However, although seeding and harvesting are very important, neither is possible if the ground is hard. Lets be more specific about this. Fifty years ago a preacher could say "you need to wash away your sins in the blood of the lamb" and people would know what he meant. Now most people would react with revulsion, or shock, or mirth. And its not just the imagery they dont connect to. An increasing number of people dont accept that they sin, or if they do, they say "I'm nowhere as bad as that person over there".
In short, I've come to the opinion over the past few years that important though it is, we dont need more evangelists, more spreaders of seeds. What we need are more apologists, people turning the soil over, and watering it. Certainly in the western world anyway.