THE GOSPEL AND SOCIAL MEDIA

"The Gospel and Social Media"

"It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it." - Isaiah 55:11, New Living Translation

I can remember back in the 1980's when personal computers began to be a tool embraced by local pastors engaged in the practice of ministry. Up until then, I tended to focus on communicating from a traditional pulpit or some formal teaching venue. I had already begun writing, being published in our denominational magazines, with my IBM Selectric as my tool of choice. The former required people to be sufficiently attracted to me or to the topic to make the effort to come into my sanctuary or classroom to hear what I had to share. The latter depended on a magazine and the aggressiveness of the circulation department to get my message out to those who needed to hear it. (Given the editing and publication process, this was rarely current or timely.)

A revolution has occurred in the world of communication and "publication." It has been generated by the Internet. Now blogs, web sites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts facilitate the spread of your message in ways unimaginable.

I have 545 friends on my Facebook account, each of which has an average of at least 200 friends. I publish eight blogs that are syndicated by a Facebook tool called Networked Blogs. Each time I publish, those posts appear on my profile page and arrive via news feed to my "friends." If you do the math of the numbers earlier in this paragraph, you will know that there is a potential of 109,000 readers for any of those things that I publish. That does not count those who subscribe to those blogs via Blogger or Wordpress, or who capture an RSS feed. A number of those blogs have links on my church web site and my local conference's web site and that gives access to other people who might be visiting those sites. Several of my blogs receive between 50-100 visits per day.

Then there are the search engines for Word Press and Google, who send people to my blogs - particularly my general blog published on both Word Press and Blogger called Life Matters.

I am now being encouraged to add a Twitter link to several of these blogs.
On any given Sunday I preach to between 175-225 people. In the classes I lead, there are maybe another 15-20 (not all weekly). The potential for the Gospel remains somewhat static in these traditional contexts, but with the advent of these internet and social media tools--the potential multiplies and multiplies and multiplies.

Why wouldn't we embrace the technology? It's a no-brainer.

I originally posted this February 10, 2011 on DEEPER EVANGELISM, the blog for the School of Evangelism for the Eastern Region Conference of the Churches of God.

WHY DOES THE CHURCH EXIST?

Why does the church Exist?

The Church is God’s great idea. It is a place where people can discover a new life living a new way. The people of the early church were “the called out ones”, “disciples”, and followers of the “Way”. In the early church there was an atmosphere which included a sense of awe, togetherness, unselfishness, unity, power, community, and a strong sense of mission. The resulting fruit?… The Lord added to the church day by day those being saved…and the church found favor with all the people.

Our mission and focus is all important. It defines why we exist and why we are here. Emil Bruner in his book God’s Forgetful Pilgrims, Recalling the Church To Its Reason For Being states,’The Church exists by mission as fire exists by burning. Terry Virgo, leader of New Frontiers Ministry in the U.K. once said, ‘When we lose sight of the great commission we lose sight of our great prophetic purpose in life.’ Both statements are extremely important. When any church focuses upon any thing less than the Great Commission as it’s primary purpose for existence it will eventually loose it’s purposeful mission. That church will quickly forget why it is blessed in the first place. 

Many people need to recover their sense of mission. Disillusioned Charismatics in particular, who were seeking the great dream of a painless, prosperous Christianity have realized the dream was merely a vapor without substance. In their pursuit to find fulfillment through the accumulation of things, and seeking to become successful they have become inward and blessing focused.
God wants to get the attention of the church. His purpose… that the church might seek Him and discover His passion for our dismembered world. 

It is interesting to view church movements from a distance. While some seek Him for personal blessing, others seek Him for the lost. They are mission/value-driven. Some of the fastest-growing churches in the USA are in this category. They are doing all they can to reach everyone they can. They are focused upon the main thing. Everything else follows. 

For example Pastor Rick Warren… with the 15,000 member Saddleback Church… author of the 1,000,000 best seller The Purpose Driven Church… He encourages leaders to recapture their purpose, by defining their mission…A church committed to the great commandment and to the great commission will grow a great church. 

80% of his church growth is by first-time believers. As one man stated, “We cannot continue to be a traditional church and expect non-believers to want to be a part of it. They won’t. They don’t want our religion. They want to experience the reality of life-changing answers for life’s problems and the God of that reality.”

The questions Warren asks in his book provoke thought…What drives your church? What is it’s purpose in life? What is it’s mission? Does your church have a sense of mission? Or is it a church adrift?

Sometimes getting back to our foundations defines our business. As Christians and church leaders we need to continually ask ourselves, what business are we in? and how is business? Sometimes it is facing the hard questions. We need to discover our present reality in order to move forward.
One year during a losing season Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi gathered the team together and said, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” This is getting back to basics. I think our great Coach would like to gather His team together, point to our world and say, ‘Church this is your mission.’ It really does matter where you focus your aim. It will set the course of your life.
Where are you aiming? Inward or outward? What is your purpose? Why do you exist?

From the archives of Steve Bowen's blog NEXT WAVE.  Click to read entire article.

CHURCH REDEFINED

From Granger Community Church in Indiana


Church Redefined from Granger Community on Vimeo.

AN OUTWARD-FOCUSED THOUGHT

From Dave Workman, the new senior pastor at the Vineyard Community Church, Cincinnati OH:

If the critical job of the "Big C Church" is to make disciples, we decided we better define (or redefine) what a disciple is. At Vineyard Community Church, we boiled it down to: a surrendered and transformed person who loves God and others. The "surrender" part is what we do, the "transform" piece is what God does, and the "love God and others"…well, that�s the fruit of an outward-focused life. And as you might guess, having an outward-focus is a key ingredient of our DNA.

BECKY PIPPERT - 5 REASONS CHRISTIANS HESITATE TO SHARE THEIR FAITH

IT'S FRIDAY, BUT SUNDAY'S COMING

An outward-focused church is a church living in expectation that God's resurrection power will be demonstrated as they live on mission for Jesus out in the community. An outward-focused church never dwells on the bad news that pervades the present, but on the good news of the Kingdom.  An outward-focused church is an Easter people and "Hallelujah!" is their song.

Many years ago I heard Tony Campolo share a message that he has often repeated in many settings.  It's a message that should remind us of the tremendous power of the Spirit that is at work in and through us.  Every once in a while, we just need to be reminded.

STEVE SJOGREN ON GETTING STARTED