Think about these stats for evangelizing the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ…
If Christians had their own country, they would be the third largest.
Someone becomes a Christian every second.
There are more Bible preachers than the entire population of Sweden, Israel, Greece, Chile, North Korea, and Australia.
167 million people regularly watch Bible teaching or preaching online.
A recent revival saw 20 million people saved in 24 days.
As you might have guessed, the above stats are not true. Below are the actual stats.
If Facebook were their own country, they would be the third largest.
Someone joins LinkedIn, every second.
There are more people following Justin Bieber on Twitter than than the entire population of Sweden and Israel. If you added Lady Gaga and Brittany Spears’ twitter followers there would be more people than in Greece, Chile, North Korea, and Australia.
Over 167 million people watched the infamous “Rebecca Black Friday” video on Youtube.com. 2 billion videos are viewed on Youtube every day!
20 million people joined the new social network, Google +, in just 24 days.
These stats were convicting and challenging to me as I read them. Social Media is changing the way we interact with others and communicate. It’s removing geographic barriers. Social media had a key role in seeing dictators overthrown in countries like Egypt. So, why can’t we use social media to help reach this world for Christ? The tools to evangelize the world are at our disposal more than ever. We can literally reach this world for Christ…from our computer. I’m not downplaying the role of people physically going out and reaching others. I am, however, challenged to pray for wisdom and ideas on how to use technology to reach this world with the life-changing message of the Gospel.
Consider this, 25 billion tweets were sent in 2010…I wonder how many prayers were prayed in 2010 for world evangelism? Would you pray for wisdom and power to reach this world? I would love to hear your thoughts below. Do you have an idea on how we can use social media and technology to reach the lost? Leave a comment below.
*Social media stats are from Socialnomics
10 Comments
Great thought provoking article, Bro. Moyer! Appreciate your blog and reference it often.
We are planning on making a gospel presentation (along with info about our church) and put on a DVD for door hangers. Post that same video to YouTube or vimeo and challenge our congregation to post and share the link with friends through fb and twitter. Something new we are planning.
David, Thanks for the comment. I’m glad to hear the blog is a help. These stats were challenging to me.
Matt,
Thanks for taking the time to read the post and to share some ideas. That’s a great idea to go door to door, use media (DVD), and include an online social aspect. It gets people fulfilling the Great Commission, “Go”, and it uses what people are comfortable with today — Media and online sharing. Thanks again for the ideas, I’m going to try to implement some of these ideas at NVBC.
I’ve heard that people have been using Google+ “hangouts” to have Bible studies and devotions with others across world.
Kayla,
Great idea! Thanks for sharing. I hope you and Andrew are doing well.
That really is a convicting thought. I have considered trying to make an app (Andriod! and maybe Apple) that goes through the Gospel presentation for soul winners.
One thing that I would have liked to see on FB is the ability to have html. Well, it’s come…in the form of fan pages. I have also considered using fan pages to get the Gospel out. If they go viral because of believers, then their lost friends would be have an opportunity to click and hear the Gospel.
Estevan,
That is a great idea about the mobile apps! Also, I think the html on Facebook is a very powerful feature. You have some great ideas here. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
There is so much truth to this article as I have seen our youth group (STRiV @ Bible Baptist – Brookings, SD) expand largely due to ‘social media’ outreach. One of our greatest ‘social media’ programs our teen group runs is it’s text messaging updates (via TextMarks) I used to send text messages using Groups on the iPhone but due to the demand for signing up for text messages we had to go to a short code service. We have seen over 300 teens come to our events (keeping in mind our 50 mi radius has 3500 teens total (13-19)) and over 100 salvations – WE NEED TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR HIS GLORY!
Andrew,
Wow, that is great! Thanks for sharing how you are using social media. What an encouragement; keep up the great work!!