GYCSE 2015: Here We Stand

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GYC Southeast

Missions in America

Ken Norton

Missions in America- Internet

God, thank you so much that we can be here today.

Lord, I know you designed the Sabbath for us to be able to stop what we're doing and to focus on you and to focus on each other and to be able to, Lord, find ways to reach out to other people that they might know you and love you.

And I just ask for your presence here today as we're together and that you will be uplifted and that this tool will be something that will be used by many to bring people into a knowledge of you.

So I want to start with kind of laying the foundation for Internet Evangelism.

And I mentioned this morning in my little one-minute announcement about the seminar this afternoon is that I have finished my doctorate last week and it was focused on internet evangelism.

And I'm excited because I'm feeling that this is especially the overarching idea of this session is missions in America.

But I'm going to take it a little bit in a direction that I've been sensing as I've been going through my studies that in this country so many people are very gospel hardened.

I know it seems strange that people say yeah, but I know a lot of people that don't even know anything about Jesus and so forth.

But I'm finding people have heard about Christianity so much, they're just kind of, they're not wanting to step foot into a church, they're very uncomfortable in being in a churchy situation.

So what can we do to be able to reach out to people in a convenient, powerful, relevant way?

And I find that the internet is, and using technology is a big way to do that.

But there's 2 quotes that I wanted to look at here first.

And this is from Ellen White, Acts of the Apostles, page 109.

And it's talking about the Ethiopian eunuch and it says, this Ethiopian represented a large class who need to be taught by such missionaries as Philip, men who will hear the voice of God and go where He sends them.

And these next 2 sentences, there are many who are reading the scriptures who cannot understand their true import.

All over the world, men and women are looking wistfully to heaven.

That sentence always kills me because after doing spending 10 years in my life overseas 5 as a kid as a missionary kid and then 5 with my wife and working in both Thailand and Palau I cannot tell you how many villages in going through Thailand where there are people who literally are, maybe they've grown up their whole life Buddhist, they don't know anything and as soon as you start talking about this creator God, their eyes light up and they, it's like you're telling them something they've wanted to know forever and they knew there was something more.

And it just struck me that so many people in the world, especially in far off places that don't have Christian TV or any radio or any of these things, people are there looking wistfully to heaven.

People want to know who this Creator God is.

Prayers and tears, she continues, and inquiries go up from souls longing for light, for grace, for the Holy Spirit.

Many are on the verge of the kingdom, waiting only to be gathered in.

An angel guided Philip to the 1 who was seeking for light and who was ready to receive the gospel.

And today, angels will guide the footsteps of those workers who will allow the Holy Spirit to sanctify their tongues and refine and ennoble their hearts.

The angel, I like this, the angel sent to Philip could himself have done the work for the Ethiopian, but this is not God's way of working.

It is his plan that men are to work for their fellow men.

In the trust given to the first disciples, believers in every age have shared.

Everyone who has received the gospel has been given sacred truth to impart to the world.

God's faithful people have always been aggressive missionaries, consecrating their resources to the honor of his name and wisely using their talents in his service." So part of the passion that has driven this entire project and has driven me to the internet to figure out ways that lay people, church members, everybody, we can all be involved.

And I find that the internet is 1 that we've got it in our pockets.

This is a way for everybody to be able to connect with anybody who is looking for light.

This totally spreads the playing field out from, oh, just pastors, just evangelists, and so forth.

We have a work to do, which I'm going to talk about in just a second.

But that work is that we are all working together to do this.

And I think the internet provides a great medium and a great tool to be able to do that.

So Ellen White sees in this vision of the last days in 9 Testimonies, 126, she sees, in visions of the night, representations passed before me of a great reformatory movement among God's people.

A spirit of intercession was seen, even as was manifested before the great day of Pentecost.

Hundreds and thousands were seen visiting families and opening before them the Word of God.

Hearts were convicted by the power of the Holy Spirit, and a spirit of genuine conversion was manifest.

On every side, doors were thrown open to the proclamation of the truth.

The world seemed to be lightened with the heavenly influence, and great blessings were received by the true and humble people of God." So I know it's a stretch, but here's a stretch for you.

So it says, hundreds and thousands were seen visiting families and opening before them the Word of God.

So what if she saw people doing that by video chat?

But she leaves it very open for interpretation.

I know she probably saw people going and knocking on people's doors and whatever.

But I like the breadth that it opens up here to say, you know what, there is a way to visit people today that is through video chat and through face-to-face on the Internet that is truly, even today, throwing doors open for the proclamation everywhere.

I plan to follow in the tailwind of Google and Facebook.

And I want to tell you how you can fall in the tailwind of them as well.

Facebook is, they are on a rampage to be the first.

They want to be the first to have every single person, as Facebook says it, they want to have a single message to be able to be clicked upon and read by every human being within the next 5 years.

They are using drones, which is very interesting.

If you haven't seen what they're doing, it's a fun, just research after sundown tonight, go and look up 2 things.

You can look up Facebook, internet.org, look at or type in Facebook drone project.

And then also Google the Loon project by Google.

They have already deployed, they had what, 56 balloons over New Zealand a year ago, and they are setting up balloons that have broadband broadcasters on them that from 12 miles into the stratosphere, they are able to beam down a circle that is, I can't remember how wide it is now, but they have 1 balloon coming right past the other and they are beaming broadband down and then as soon as that circle is leaving over top of the landscape, the other circle is right behind it as those balloons are following each other.

They're putting them to where they are planning to have them circle the Earth.

And they are on a path to have it done in 5 years.

So I wrote an article recently called Google's Balloons and the 3 Angels Messages.

And I know, please don't, if you're listening to this on AudioVerse, and don't write me an email and say, you know, that's not the way you interpret Revelation 14.

Because I understand it's not talking about balloons.

But when it says he saw 3 angels flying in the midst of heaven with the everlasting gospel, I wrote the article and said, wouldn't it be funny if those balloons were actually shaped by angels, because what riding in the tailwind of Google and Facebook.

I believe that we are going to, as they go forward with a monetary purpose of capitalism and of making millions and millions and billions of dollars.

We can follow behind them with the gospel in connecting with people in a very real and relevant way.

So that's part of the plan for what I'm going to share with you today that's part of this project.

I'm going to skip down to the last 1, Daniel 12.3, which I really like at the bottom there, where it says, and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.

And Daniel sees, I believe, the same type of vision that Ellen White saw, which there is going to be a movement in the last days where people are studying the Bible with other people.

And the project I'm going to share with you today is a way to do that through the internet.

But before we get there to talk about the website, this is a very, we flip the page over, there's a very important quote here in Gospel Workers 351, the role of clergy in church leadership.

And it says, the leaders in God's cause as wise generals are to lay plans for advanced moves all along the line.

In their planning, this is interesting, in their planning they are to give special study to the work that can be done by the laity for their friends and neighbors.

The work of God on 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.

How can our church members find a way to relevant, conveniently study the Bible with people who may be their friends and relatives that they don't even live in the area with.

In the last 4 or 5 years, with the rise of video chat, it just became very clear that there is a very significant way to do that.

And that is through face to face, if you want to say, through the Internet, through video chat.

And so that's what we want to talk about today.

There's a website that's been built called flocktalk.com, www.flocktalk.com.

This has been my doctoral project for the past 5 years through Andrews University.

And it is a website that has been most recently rebuilt around Google Hangouts.

And it was launched out of beta at General Conference in July of 2015, this summer.

And it is exciting to see what's already happening in the past 2 and a half months since that launch of what people are doing with it and the object of sharing, just sharing with church members now that this is a tool that anybody can use.

And so I want us today to, we're just going to take some time to actually walk through the website.

I know if you're listening through AudioVerse, if you want to go to the website, I will try to make sure I talk about the menu tabs so that you can follow along of where we're going with this.

The website, again, is flocktalk, F-L-O-C-K-T-O-C dot com, and I would like for us to just go through page by page to give a general idea of what it is.

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Missions in America

Missions in America- Internet

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Missions in America- Internet

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