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Evangelism Ministries Conquer Social Media Frontiers

CBN

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A growing number of ministries are using social media to reach people who might not ever attend a church. 

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has more than two million friends on Facebook and nearly eighty-thousand followers on Twitter.  

Tim Kenny, Vice President of Media Services and Internet Evangelism for BGEA said, "the notion of being able to connect with thousands, even millions, of people using just a computer or mobile phone should be irresistible to anyone with a story to tell."

The Christian Broadcasting Network's presence on Facebook, Twitter and other leading social media destinations is also reaching audiences with the message of hope.  

"We happen to think we're called to tell the greatest story in human history -- so it's a no-brainer that we need to be active in social media," Kenny told CBN News.

Around the world, CBN TV programs combined with the power of mobile and social media create virtual communities of support, discipleship, prayer and evangelism.

"As a Christian we now have unprecedented opportunity to reach people we could never reach before," said Richard Helsby of CBN's Digital Media department.

He explained, "I have an opportunity to have a dialog with someone.  To introduce them to information, to share the most important message there is. To tell someone about God's love for them and what Jesus has done for them."

CBN and BGEA report that countless lives being saved via social media evangelism. 
 
"Over the past month there's been over 7,000 salvation responses online," said CBN Social Media manager Juana Lopez.

Kenny said "a cross section of society, not unlike we might have seen at a Billy Graham crusade 20 years ago or we might at a Franklin or Will Graham event today."

"We're meeting the people where they're at and like broadcast or radio it's another means for us to get the gospel of the Lord out there," said Lopez.

"We have over 20 people currently responding but at any one time it's usually about 10 across all platforms."

She added, "We're not preaching at them, we're acting as a friend to them on the other side of the computer."

Andrea Stewart is a member of the Internet Correspondence team at CBN which responds to about two thousand online prayer requests a day.

She said it's exciting to see people coming to Christ online.

"We get a lot people who respond to the page on our CBN website -- it's called the salvation response where people are led to receive Jesus and I get that response and people wanting to know how they can continue on in that journey and what the next steps are after they actually receive Christ as their Savior," said Stewart.

CBN, BGEA and other ministries also have follow-up practices in place to further connect with those who make decisions for Christ online.

"BGEA has a very active online ministry, "Search for Jesus," said Kenny.

"We have trained volunteer chat coaches ready to answer questions online in real-time, email coaches who do follow-up through email, and discipleship coaches who will lead responders through online discipleship courses," he explained.

"So the barrier to entry for doing ministry digitally wasn't a high one for us as we became more active in social media. We already had a good digital ministry infrastructure."

Lopez said, "what we do is try to get their email and so we're able to send them other ministry items, bible verses and now they're a friend on Facebook so we're able to follow each day with more inspirational graphics, inspirational messages directly to them."

And while social media has changed the way people are reached with the gospel, the message has not changed.

And many agree that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Pinterest are just new ways to help answer the hunger in the hearts of people looking for life and meaning.

"They kind of feel relieved as though they've been searching and searching for something for so long and they finally found what they've been searching for and it's Jesus," said Stewart.


 

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