It’s time to awaken your digital evangelist
By Ben Elliott
Running in the last of the evening light, with worship music playing loudly through my headphones, the 90s classic song ‘History Makers’ by the band Delirious? pounds with a deeper sense of revelation than ever before: “I’m gonna be a history maker in this land, I’m gonna be a speaker of truth to all mankind”.
Now with a smart phone in my pocket, I have the technical ability to broadcast live – from any location – a message about Jesus which all mankind could hear… Church: times have changed.
I don’t believe there is a one-size-fits-all approach to how we should evangelise: we represent different parts of the body of Christ – and have different communication preferences. However, what I really want to highlight is the massive potential for what we can achieve in Sheffield through digital evangelism.
Digital evangelism is the greatest evangelism opportunity that we have had in our lifetime. We’re in the midst of the biggest communication shift since the invention of the printing press. People are creating and sharing content with the world faster than ever before.
If we harness the power of these new networks, they can be a catalyst for discipleship and a great way to keep people connected. Digital connectivity – and society’s reliance upon it – is here to stay, and so the question is: “How can I imitate Jesus in my digital interactions?”
Did you know that if just 1,000 of the people who took part in the Arise prayer-walking this Easter shared a piece of digital evangelism on their social networks, at least 18,000 people would hear about what God was doing.
Just take a moment to imagine…
If each update contained an invitation – to receive prayer, to try an Alpha course, or to visit a small group or church…
How many people might encounter Jesus?
So why are our communities not already bursting with people coming to faith through digital evangelism? I think it’s partly because we’re not aware of the power we possess as digital creators. Take a moment to think about the posts you have created – or interacted with – recently. What do those interactions convey about you as a follower of Jesus?
We can start our journey into digital evangelism in small ways, by inviting Jesus to influence these everyday digital interactions (how we sign off in an email, how we interact on social media, etc).
Sometimes we may not need to specifically preach or share scripture, instead it might simply be demonstrating kindness, mercy and love in our digital interactions.
We’re often presented with opportunities to show patience and grace – let’s seize them and as followers of Jesus reflect Him in our interactions.
Then, we can take it up a notch by intentionally creating or sharing content about our faith. At this time in history, telling our own faith story is the most powerful way of introducing people to Jesus. If you feel called to share your faith more on social media, there are a few suggestions below, of ways to make your posts as impactful as possible.
In some cases our online activity could be the spark to ignite powerful conversations about faith with people in our community. We can then use these to start in-person conversations over coffee or a BBQ with neighbours. Is there a better way right now to invite anyone into dialogue in this digital age? Is there a better way for us to become history makers? If so please let me know as I’d love to learn from you.
Use the social networks that you are confident with, and if you’re unsure how platforms work then search YouTube for videos about how to use platforms well. Take the time to understand the culture of your preferred social networks (each is different) as this will help you to be more authentic.
So how do you tell your story? For a short-form video (1 minute in length) consider the story in three parts – the past, the resolution and the present.
Write down in a sentence your answers to these questions to form the dialogue to your short video:
The past – what was life like before you knew Jesus?
The resolution – what was the turning point/how did you discover God?
The present (and hope) – what does it mean now and for the future?
These questions should help tell your story. You can repeat this model in most contexts to create new media.
You can increase your reach on most social platforms by applying hashtags (#) which help increase the chances of people discovering your content.
Choose hashtags that make sense in the context of your content, tagging the location #Sheffield and things that connect with the locality such as #iLoveSheffield #SheffieldIsSuper and #iBelieveInSheffield. Tag your church, tag people that you think will positively engage with the content and you can also geotag your content if you think that’s appropriate.
Then what? Well, if people comment, reply. If they disagree, be sure to respond with kindness. If people ‘like’ the content but don’t comment you can leverage that moment to message them directly (not publicly) to thank them for doing so and inviting them into further dialogue.
Ben Elliott
Ben Elliott is Head of Communications at The Well Sheffield, founder of the Church Comms Collective online community, and Managing Director of Social We Talk.
