ASI 2019: Business Unusual

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Digital Evangelism

Felecia Lee

Digital Evangelism Part 1

Father in heaven, what an amazing opportunity it is to be able to come before your throne room this morning and to sit as your students and to let you teach us.

Our minds, Lord, are open and we're just asking that you would send your Holy Spirit right now to open our understanding, to bless us with a spirit of wisdom, to change our hearts and our lives so that as we go out into the world, that our lives would be an aroma of life leading unto life.

We pray that you would be with all of the technical stuff that's taking place, that the presentation would continue, and that you would bless our ministries, our churches, and prepare our hearts to meet you at your second coming.

In your precious name we pray and ask all these favors.

So by the end of the presentation, you should be able to explain the link between storytelling and digital evangelism.

You're going to name the important pillars and then also be able to list at least 2 practical ways that you can apply these pillars in your life or in digital evangelism.

So these 3 important things are storytelling, building community, and sharing the gospel.

The last part may seem as if it's an obvious thing, you know, we're Christians, but I'm going to give you a different twist on it, but storytelling is what I'm going to spend a majority of the presentation on.

I want us to be able to lay a foundation, a groundwork for digital evangelism, and that will make the other parts easier.

We're going to veer off a little bit and talk about texting and driving.

And you may wonder what it has to do with digital evangelism, but stick with me.

The National, I'm not going to read all of them, just a few.

The National Safety Council reports that cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes every year.

390, 000 injuries occur every year because people are texting and driving.

I'm not going to ask for a show of hands of those of you who do it.

Texting while driving is 6 times more likely to cause an accident than drunk driving.

Texting while driving causes a 400% increase in time spent with eyes off the road.

So and if I were to ask you now what was the most important part of that video, what would you tell me?

Somebody pray that Dustin gets back soon with the charger.

What was the difference between when I showed you the first slide with all of the statistics and numbers and some of you couldn't remember, even Alex just now who was writing down still knew the most important part of that video coming to you.

But then when I showed you the story, the young people suddenly went to being all juvial.

They knew the statistics, but then when they met someone who had a story to share, everything changed.

Why did the video have a greater impact on you?

Why did the story, meeting someone, have a greater impact on those young people than the facts?

What emotions came out when you were watching the video compared to the facts?

And why is this, why were those feelings evoked through watching the video compared to the facts?

It has to do with the power of storytelling.

Now for those of you who were here last night when I gave the presentation, I told you that 20 years ago a story began to air on televisions across the nation that would single-handedly be responsible for changing the perceptions of millions of Americans on a very touchy subject.

A study was done, and it's something that they call the Will and Grace Effect.

And what they found was that before this TV show began to air, American society generally was very uncomfortable toward the idea of homosexuality, LGBTQ, all this stuff.

20 years later, the society is much more open, much more accepting.

And here's what some of the researchers said.

Art in its best form allows you to experience life and ultimately changes the way you view the world.

And I'm going to relate all of this to digital evangelism.

Will and Grace was 1 of the rare television shows to do just that.

It was entertaining, but it did more than just amuse its viewers.

The show undoubtedly opened doors and desensitized America to homosexuality.

So whatever kind of stories you consume on a daily basis, whether it's through TV shows, movies, books, magazines, whether you watch 3ABN all day or whether you watch some other channel and so forth, thank you.

Those stories that you are consuming are changing you.

Joe Biden, former vice president of the United States said, Will and Grace did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody has ever done so far.

For years, LGBTQ activists were, you know, working on making it more acceptable and so forth, and then a television show airs, and 20 years later, it's something that's generally okay.

Jonathan Gottschild wrote a book called The Storytelling Human, The Storytelling Animal, and he listed 9 stories that changed the world.

Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Clansman, Reinsy, the last of the Roman Tribunes, and then number 8, The Holy Bible, and of course we're not going to classify The Holy Bible as a regular story but we'll just go with it, and number 9, Will and Grace.

These stories changed the world and we're gonna find out how.

For example, let's look at number 1, Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century and the second best-selling book of that century following the Holy Bible.

It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s.

In 1855, 3 years after it was published, it was called the most popular novel of our day, and a famous story that goes around is that at the start of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln met the author of this novel, a fictional tale, and said to her, so this is the little lady who started this great war.

The novel basically showcased slavery in such a way that it propels people to work towards abolishing slavery.

Stories, Jonathan Goschall again says, stories we consume shape us profoundly.

They change beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes because whatever is happening to the character is also happening to us.

So a lot of American society, we think, well you think, I'm not American, But we think that a lot of these ideas we have it's because we independently thought about these things And this is what I truly believe when in fact We're being changed by the stories we consume each of you sitting here by God's grace You are here your beliefs have changed your attitudes your actions have changed because you heard the gospel and that's why you're here.

Why do we feel afraid even when you're watching a movie that you know is fake?

If it's a horror movie you're still scared, if you're watching I don't know Mission Impossible or something you know that it's fake but your hands are still sweaty.

It's because researchers have found that your brain actually cannot tell the difference between a story and real life.

So whatever is happening to the character is also also happening to you.

Another thing why another research that showed the power of storytelling.

Persons who smoke, they have on the box that it causes cancer, but they still smoke.

But they have a greater chance of wanting to stop if they meet someone who's either survived lung cancer or had mouth surgery or something if they come face to face with the story.

When we hear or read a story, the same part of the brain that would physically do something is activated.

So if I start telling a story of a boy who there are 3 bullies who are behind him and they are on their bikes and they're running after him and he's a cripple, this is the story that Jonathan Rothschild told, and he's trying to run but he's falling over.

While you're hearing the story, and I talk about the wind that's blowing in his face and the gravel that's under his feet, the part of your brain that would actually run is activated when you hear the story.

The other part of storytelling that's powerful is that people remember information embedded in the story rather than cold facts.

How many of you can tell me, again, some of the facts from the previous slide when I just stated the statistics?

But I'm sure that you can tell me about the story of JC.

Now, what does this have to do with digital evangelism?

We're going to come back to that, But we're going to look at a few statistics.

Every month in the United States, 422 people Google the question, why did God make me ugly?

103 people ask, Why did God make me black?

Digital Evangelism basically is the methodical use of using online platforms to help individuals who are online learn more about Jesus Christ.

Because today, anytime we hear something new, anytime we want to do something, we go on Google, always say, hey Siri, you want to find a restaurant?

Like last night after we finished our booth and I was hungry, I went on Google, I'm like restaurants near me.

We Google everything And people are searching for the gospel and searching for Jesus Christ, but what are they finding?

Websites, blogs, social media sites, podcasts, chat rooms, discussion boards, all of these and other platforms are used to share the gospel.

Digital evangelism is also important for the Seventh-day Adventist Church because it helps boost our presence online.

I don't know how many of you have ever googled Seventh-day Adventist before?

How many of you are proud of what you see online about 7-day Adventists?

Folks, so if you weren't proud about what you see about 7-day Adventists, Now imagine your friend Johnny finds out you're a 7-Day Adventist and Johnny wants to find out more.

You'll be like, wait, don't Google us just yet.

Do you know why we have that reaction and we don't want people to Google 7-Day Adventists?

Or if you're a canvasser and you hand a book, the great controversy, and that person's like, hey Siri, who's Ellen G.

Digital Evangelism Part 2

We thank you for the gift of light, of life.

Thank you for helping everything to run smoothly for all the persons who are here at the seminars.

And we pray that as we begin this afternoon session, that your Holy Spirit would move on our hearts in a very special way.

We know that we are at risk for information overload and we just pray that when we get back to our homes, into our ministries, and our churches, you will help us to put into practice what we learned today so that others would learn about you and we can all go home in your precious and most wonderful name we pray and ask these favors Amen So we're going to look at and talk about I'm inviting you to be a part of the conversation We're going to talk about some common digital evangelism mistakes and a few solutions to these mistakes.

Now, some persons – so there are 3 main ministries that focus on digital evangelism.

It's the SDA Big Data Department at the NAD and also Digital Discipleship Ministry in Australia as well as the Center for Online Evangelism.

And 1 thing that we hear in common are that persons say, once you have the Holy Spirit, everything will fall into place.

We don't need to get into the technical aspects.

Well, Jesus promised that he would send his Holy Spirit and the Spirit would guide us, he would teach us, but we have to make ourselves available to learning.

And so if anything sounds technical, that's all a part of digital evangelism.

Because if you are a cook or if you have a restaurant, you can pray as hard as you want, but if you never learn how to cook, then your restaurant probably will not survive.

You can pray about your ministry, but if you are not actively learning, subscribing to newsletters, sitting through webinars, opening your mind, then it's not going to grow as well as we would like it.

We're just going to just do a little bit of a recap.

3 billion people, the world's population is about 7 billion.

Almost half of the world's population has access to the internet and our message, the gospel, is to go to the ends of the world and only then will Jesus Christ return.

So if we truly want to finish the work, online evangelism plays a huge part of that work.

52% of online users access the internet through their mobile devices.

There are 2 billion social media accounts that are active, that number actually needs to be updated, and the average time that people spend on the internet every day is 4 hours.

So what are some common mistakes that we are making if we recognize that digital evangelism is important?

Number 1, poor quality for our church websites.

So we did this little, I don't want to call it a case study, where we would Google, we would search Adventist churches.

And we found a lot of things that could be made better.

The first thing, remember we were talking this morning about storytelling, your story absolutely needs a platform and when you tell someone about your church, 1 of the first things that they're going to do is that they are going to Google your church and Your church is like your your church website is like a front door So which door would you most likely walk through?

Let me see the hands of those who want to walk through this door.

It's inviting, it's just telling you, come on right in.

It's so funny, the sign on the door actually says, Jesus and Tomatoes, coming soon.

So yeah, no, we don't want to walk through this door.

So as we said, your website is like your front door.

People will decide whether they want to, if you're anything like me, you Google an organization or a place and you look at their website and you make some sort of judgment on that about that organization based on their website.

If a church does not have time, we have visited church websites, it's 2018 and they are promoting on their front page an event from 3 years ago.

And I'm thinking if the church does not have time to at least update its front page, you know, Come on.

Stock photos is when we go online and we download pictures of happy people.

And we take that and we post it on our church website.

So someone comes to your church looking for the happy couple and that happy couple is not there.

In an age where everyone has good quality phones, most people, you can go throughout your service and you can, with permission, snap photos of your service so people get an actual, a feel of what your church is really like.

I mean, you have many people at your church, you have enough people at your church where you don't need to go on Google and download a fake family to show that your church is a happy place.

Okay, outdated content, update your events page and so forth.

When someone is coming to your church website, We come with a mentality of what is this church going to offer me or how are they going to help me?

It could be a negative mindset or not, however you look at it.

Most people, most people are not really interested in the primary school that your pastor went to.

Most people really don't want to know that.

Sure, they may want to know the lead pastor, but there are pages with all of the lead pastor's information and a long history of the church and all of that content.

How many of you actually read all of that stuff?

Do you know that most internet users, when we go to a website that has a lot of content, we skim through it.

We're picking out, our brain is so distracted with everything else, your brain is picking out the most important points.

So that's 1 thing that you want to remember.

If your website has an antiquated look, it looks old.

Well, Maybe old isn't the best way, but it looks really outdated.

When you have platforms or, platform is in the word, like WordPress, they present themes even if you don't know how to design a website, you can easily download these themes and update your church website and then pour content.

Must have a visitor section, So if someone is new to your page totally, they need to know where do I go to first?

Like people have these legitimate questions.

If you grew up in the church, because it's something that you know, but imagine someone who for the first time they're coming to church or they're coming to an Adventist church, they probably already have a weird idea of who we are and they have no idea what to expect.

So you want to make sure that you have a section for visitors.

You want to have relevant content or a blog.

And when I say relevant content, I don't just mean a blog, it means either a podcast, not just featuring your pastor's sermon, but for example if you have a health ministries department, your health Ministries can have a podcast focusing on health.

If you have a children's department, maybe a children's ministries leader has a podcast where she records Bible stories for kids, specifically for parents when they're putting their kids to sleep.

So they can go to your church website and play a Bible story at night for kids.

So you create content that people would use on a regular or daily basis, so they're not just going to the church website to find out about the bulletin.

If you have a Pathfinder or a youth club, maybe you would do a short series of videos just answering the common questions that teenagers have.

And so yeah, so it's just so many ideas that you can put on your church website to make it as a hub for when people have issues they can go to your church website and it's not just talking about your church.

Clear contact details about a schedule of events and links to social media.

Here are some important questions that you want to ask.

And when I say church website, I'm not just speaking about churches.

This applies if you have a ministry or if it's just your own personal website that you want to start for ministry, this applies to it.

This is 1 of the most important questions, Because the kind of website that you would create for an Adventist population, for example, is not going to be the same kind of website that you're going to create for people who don't know about Seventh-day Adventists.

So those are things that you have to think about.

Is it primarily for your church members or is it primarily for non-church members?

And then interviewing, talking with people, talking about your friends and asking them, hey, if you go to a church website, what is it that you, what's the first thing that you are looking for?

So that's an important question that you want to answer.

Also, what are the goals of your church website?

If your goal is just to have a church website, it doesn't make much sense and you were going to lose out on a lot of things that you can be accomplishing.

So whether you want people to come to your website to learn more about the faith or to sign up for an online Bible study or to connect with some you want to make sure that you have some clear set goals so that you know what it is that you are working toward.

1 of the main issues that a lot of churches have is that a communication director would come, takes over the page, and the next year someone else gets elected and this person's like I know nothing about websites and they don't touch the website.

And the other mistake is that we have 1 person who's in charge of these online platforms.

Sooner or later because you have your job, because you have your kids, because you have your spouse, because you have a zillion other things, and the church website, if it's just you, it's not going to work.

Even if you have 2 other people who will dedicate 30 minutes of their time every week or an hour of their time, that will help you to serve more efficiently or to work more efficiently with your website.

And training resources, you need to make sure that the persons who are part of your team or even you yourself, that you are growing in knowledge and understanding about building a website.

Series

Digital Evangelism

Digital Evangelism Part 1

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Young Professionals

ASI 2020 Young Professionals: Speaker Panel

44m

The Doctrine of Personal Ministries

Part 4 - Doing the Wrong Job Well

1h 18m

Our Urgent Call: BUSINESS and the Three Angels' Messages

How Non-Profits Can Thrive in the Midst of Major World Crises

1h 14m

Stealing Lucifer’s Playground

Stealing Lucifer’s Playground - Part 2

1h 18m

ASI 2010 Plenary Meetings

ASI Presents

1h 58m

Total Member Involvement

4. The Ministry That Died And Nobody Noticed

1h

Adventist Apologetics: Complex Issues, Adventist Answers

5. Delusions of Grandeur? (Panel Discussion)

1h 18m

Sent

If Ellen White Had Facebook

1h 22m

Non-Profit Leadership

Digital Strategy: Strengthen Your Online Presence & Advance Your Mission

1h 18m

ASI 2013 Seminar: It's Time

Ministry and the Internet

1h 12m

Principles for Succesful Soul Winning

Interpersonal Relationships - The Art of Hospitality Part 2

50m

Sound Doctrine