During my presentations on digital evangelism across various forums, a recurrent question arises: "How can we begin digital evangelism in our church or organization?" In this chapter, we delve into methods to start and prepare for this process, drawing on the experience of the Central California Conference.
Step 1. Sharing Vision with Leadership
You must share your vision for digital evangelism with your organization's leadership team. If you're part of a conference, present your ideas to the conference president, officers and executive committee. Ministerial retreats provide an excellent opportunity to introduce and advocate for your digital evangelism strategies among church leaders and pastors.
If you serve as a digital evangelism coordinator, your pivotal role is to inspire and motivate others with your vision. When you propose a new approach to evangelism that differs from traditional methods, expect to face initial resistance or hesitation. Emphasize the practicality and effectiveness of your vision. Stress that digital evangelism is not exclusive to the young or technologically savvy. As a leader, you have the responsibility to show how this method can be adopted and integrated by everyone into their lives and ministries, demonstrating its universal applicability and benefits.
Step 2. Recruiting and Training Digital Missionaries
Present your digital evangelism vision to church leadership and gain their approval. Once this crucial step is achieved, the focus shifts to recruiting and training digital missionaries from your local church.
After running a digital prayer campaign for two months in Phase 1, we encountered a challenge. We were engaging with nearly 1,400 contacts, but with a limited online pastoral care team. Despite this, over 30 churches expressed interest in joining Phase 2. Faced with the need to expand our ministry but limited in resources, we turned to God for guidance. We shifted our focus to training our lay members as digital missionaries, equipping them with skills for online pastoral care. In Phase 2, these trained lay members took the lead for online pastoral care.
I had the opportunity to present on digital evangelism at a small, rural church. Following my presentation, an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair, his face beaming with a smile and clutching a cellphone, approached me. He shared his deep-seated desire to spread the Gospel, which was limited by his physical health. He exclaimed:
" You are the answer to my prayer. Though confined to a wheelchair, I am still able to pray and I have a phone ... Thus, I'll join the digital evangelism movement."
He saw our project as a divine intervention, a way for him to engage in prayer and digital missionary work using his phone. This new outreach approach introduces us to people whom God has already prepared, eagerly awaiting to embrace this new mission.
This aligns with Ellen G. White's wisdom in Gospel Workers:
"The work of God in this earth can never be finished until the men and women comprising our church membership rally to the work, and unite their efforts with those of ministers and church officers."Indeed, lay members are pivotal in completing the Gospel work. The strength of digital evangelism lies in these initiatives. Lay members serve as a frontline in soul-saving through digital means.
To engage your church members in digital evangelism, share your vision and the significance of recruiting digital missionaries. Highlight the impact of digital outreach, using successful examples from other churches to make the concept tangible. Stress that this ministry is accessible to all, not just the young or tech-savvy. Encourage practice through simple actions, like sending prayerful messages to friends, preparing them for effective digital mission work. Emphasize that even small efforts have a big impact. This approach lets each member contribute uniquely to the Gospel, reflecting our faith's inclusive spirit. By showcasing its broad appeal and effectiveness, you inspire wider participation in digital evangelism.
Step 3: Developing Prayer Advertisements
The next step involves preparing and developing localized prayer advertisements. It's essential to use imagery that resonates with your community. Incorporate local landmarks or well-known streets into your prayer images and videos. These visuals should feature pastors and church members, accompanied by messages of prayer and community support. By using familiar and relatable imagery, these advertisements will create a stronger connection with the community, fostering a sense of unity and shared purpose.
For a more in-depth understanding of this process, refer to Chapter 9, "Developing Impactful Prayer Campaign Advertisements." This chapter offers detailed guidance and best practices as well as sample video scripts. Utilize and modify these scripts to suit your church's context, making your prayer campaigns more relevant and impactful.
Step 4: Setting Up Media Platforms
This step involves appointing a media specialist responsible for managing the church's Facebook page and providing technical support to other members. Not every digital missionary needs to be technologically proficient, but having at least one dedicated tech person is crucial. This step is vital in optimizing the church's Facebook page and setting up an advertising account specifically for the digital evangelism campaign.
Recognize that individuals seeking prayer requests through digital evangelism will often visit your church's Facebook and website. Therefore, transforming your media platforms to focus more on evangelism is essential. This involves not just technical optimization, but also tailoring the content and presentation to be more inviting and relevant to those seeking spiritual guidance and prayer.
For detailed guidance on this process, refer to the following chapters in our resources. Chapter 7, "Elevating Church Social Media: Beyond the Bulletin Board to a Captivating Billboard," provides strategies to enhance your church's social media presence for effective digital outreach. This chapter will guide you in making your Facebook page more evangelistically focused, ensuring it becomes a welcoming and informative platform for those seeking prayer and spiritual support. Chapter 8, "Enhancing Your Church Website for Effective Digital Evangelism," addresses this crucial role. It offers strategies to make your website an accessible and engaging portal for spiritual exploration and connection, ensuring it effectively reaches and engages a diverse audience in the digital evangelism journey. In today's digital age, a church's website is often the first point of contact for those seeking prayer or exploring faith.
Chapter 10, "Comprehensive Guide: How to Set Up a Facebook Page to Prepare for a Digital Evangelism Campaign," offers a step-by-step approach to creating and optimizing a Facebook page tailored for evangelism purposes. These chapters are designed to equip you with the necessary knowledge and tools to effectively manage and utilize online platforms for digital evangelism.
Step 5: Running the Prayer Campaign
Effective marketing is crucial in expanding your church's digital prayer campaign. This step involves creating and maintaining Facebook advertisements. These advertisements should be crafted to resonate with your local community, conveying the message of love and an invitation to prayer, thus encouraging them to connect with your church and participate in prayer campaigns. The primary aim is to garner a variety of prayer requests from the community.
For detailed instructions on this process, refer to Chapter 11, "Step by Step Guide to Launching a Facebook Prayer Advertisement Campaign." This chapter offers guidance on crafting and managing effective prayer advertisements on Facebook. The focus is to ensure that these advertisements not only capture the attention of your local community but also inspire their engagement in your church's spiritual initiatives.
Step 6: Engaging in Online Pastoral Care
Online pastoral care is a pivotal aspect of digital evangelism, serving as the transformative stage where lives are impacted and souls are saved. It is here that church members invest their time and efforts significantly, ensuring each engagement is deeply human and resonant. Central to online pastoral care is the demonstration of God's love and the conveyance of the message "I care about you." This embodies the essence of effective pastoral interactions online.
To streamline this process, it is essential to appoint an online pastoral care coordinator. Ideally, this role should be filled by a pastor or a committed church member. The coordinator's role is pivotal in guiding individual contacts to the right church members for more tailored and personal interactions.
For a more in-depth understanding of this crucial step, consult "Part 2: Online Pastoral Care." This section provides comprehensive insights into managing online pastoral conversations effectively, ensuring each interaction is meaningful and supportive.
Step 7: Transitioning Toward In-person Engagement
The final step in our digital evangelism strategy is pivotal for smoothly transitioning individuals from online interactions to active involvement in the in-person church community. This engagement by the local church is essential in guiding people from their digital experiences to becoming part of the physical church setting.
Through online pastoral care, we encounter a variety of prayer requests and urgent needs. Our response extends beyond prayer. We aim to be a tangible answer to these prayers through acts of service and love, emulating Jesus' approach of listening to people's needs and addressing them. An active community service team is crucial, meeting the physical needs of the community, thereby connecting with in-person ministry and increasing the likelihood of integrating people into the local church.
After building relationships through prayer engagement, we invite individuals to join in-person prayer meetings, to meet their prayer warriors and to participate in church worship services. Personal invitations, for example "Come to my home church; I want to meet you and introduce you to my church family," are particularly meaningful.
In this final step, establishing a welcoming team to greet and pray with new church attendees is vital. Their role in creating a warm, inviting atmosphere is important for those initially connected online.
Offering Bible study is essential because of the diverse backgrounds of participants in our digital prayer campaign. These studies, aligned with our digital evangelism campaign and available both online and in-person, cater to those transitioning from general Christian backgrounds to the distinctive teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. We recommend concluding the digital evangelism program with a prophecy seminar to educate new believers about Adventist beliefs and the urgent end-time message.
Additionally, we conduct baptisms during this step, followed by a tailored discipleship program for new members. Our aim is the transformation of each individual's life into disciples who actively participate in God's mission. These initiatives are designed to support their spiritual journey within the Adventist community, fostering a deeper connection and commitment to the faith.
