ECYC 2012

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Eastern Canada Youth Conference

ECYC 2012 Seminar: Media Evangelism

Nwamiko Madden

The World is Watching, Part 1

Father in heaven, we are so thankful for another day of life, health, strength, and most importantly, a time that you've given us where we can be witnesses again to your glory, Lord.

And we're just so thankful that we have life and we have life in Christ.

And as we come together this afternoon, we just pray in a special way that you would speak to our hearts, Father.

You know where all of us are coming from, and you know where all of us are going, Father.

And we're here because we want to learn more from you directly.

And so we're praying in a special way that your sheep would hear your voice this afternoon, Father.

Let man's voice be put behind and let Christ's image be seen today, dear God, as we look at the material of how to be a media missionary, dear God.

And yet, at the same time, it's old, Father.

We're simply learning how to be the best witnesses we can.

So make everything clear, simple, and effective so that your people will be blessed.

Please let your spirit rest in this room, Father, because we need it.

So the title of this presentation is The World is Watching.

And just by way of introduction, I'd like to just say that we have 2 parts to this presentation and so I want to kind of lay out some principles in this first presentation and then in the second presentation we're gonna go into stuff more practical.

Alright, so in this presentation we're just gonna talk about what principles we need to look at in terms of being good media missionaries.

And just basically learning how to use the tools that are around us in a way that will make them spiritually edifying, right?

I'm gonna be very conversational, I'm gonna be very testimonial, because my life is kind of wrapped up with this.

Right now I run a full-time media ministry, it's called Certain Sound Media, and I spent 5 years in the entertainment industry as an actor.

And some of the things that I'm going to talk about, I mean, it's going to be very direct and very specific and maybe even cutting.

So if you want to ask me any questions about it, you know, you can let me know But I'm not gonna get into my testimony really today and so we begin I just wanted to share with you something really simple a Video that I thought was interesting regarding the world is watching Reading a letter a letter which you will find of great interest.

It has at the top of its letterhead the White House, Washington.

I send warm greetings to those attending the 59th session of the General Conference of Seventh-day Advocates.

Throughout history, faith has shaped our philosophies, our perspectives, and our lives.

It has helped us find the vision to see the world as it is and the strength to address the most challenging questions of our time.

It also brings us together to feed the hungry, comfort the afflicted, make peace where there is strife, and lift up those who have fallen on hard times.

As we face the challenges and opportunities of this unique moment in history, may faith move us to unite in common cause to serve our fellow brothers and sisters.

I hope that, as you gather on this special occasion, you are reminded of the abiding truth that each of us has the power to create a better world for ourselves and our children when we do God's work here on earth.

I wish you all the best for a wonderful event.

Barack Obama, President of the United States.

I just thought that was a really cool example of the world watching Seventh-day Adventists, right?

And as we look at the Bible this afternoon, we're gonna see some very interesting precedents that let us know that the world is watching God's people.

And particularly now, it is 1 of the most interesting times to be a Seventh-day Adventist.

And we're going to look at some specific examples, right?

But how many of you guys know the story of Rahab?

Lunch has just kicked in, and everybody's at the itis, Adventist itis, right?

We shouldn't have that though, because we don't eat meat, but anyway.

Rahab, she was the person living on the wall of Jericho, and she hid the spies, right?

But 1 thing that is really interesting is what Rahab says when she gets the spies in her house, right?

She says in Joshua chapter 2, verse 9, if you wanna go there, you can go.

Joshua 2, verse 9 says, and she said unto the men, I know that the Lord hath given you the land and that your terror is fallen upon us and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you.

For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what ye did unto the 2 kings of the Amorites that were on the other side of Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.

And 11, and as soon as we heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man because of you.

For the Lord your God, he is the God in heaven above and in earth beneath.

Now can you imagine somebody of the world coming up to you and telling you that?

But what's interesting to me was I was just like, how in the world did they know?

They didn't have Facebook, they didn't have Twitter, they didn't have Morse code, They didn't have 2 cans and a piece of string in between, you know, but they heard they're like Yeah, you're the people that walked out of Egypt and like God opened up the sea to save them, right?

What what impressed me brothers and sisters is that no matter what?

You think the world is watching us much more than we think the world is watching us much more than we think.

The world is watching us much more than we think, and there's a reason for it, because God wants us to be his, what?

The Bible says, ye are the whew, light of the world.

It doesn't say you are 1 of the lights in the world.

So think about it, if you're not there, what happens?

So basically we are supposed to be the center of attention in a way.

So I'm really trying to impress this upon you, that as we get into looking at ways to do media ministry, our efforts don't have to be as strong as you think.

It's not so much about trying to get people interested as much as finding interested hearers, okay?

So if the world is watching Christians, what will they see?

And that's the question you want to ask ourselves, right?

And what is the most important part of being a media missionary?

Well the most important part of being A media missionary is the me, is you.

You yourself are the most important part of being a media missionary.

Why do you want to create post-film Adventist media?

Why do you guys want to be involved in media evangelism?

Because it seems to get farther places faster.

It seems to get farther places answer, she said.

Excuse me, it seems to get farther places, right, is what she answered.

Why do we want to engage in media ministry as opposed to any other ministry?

The World is Watching, Part 2

It is time for the second part of our seminar.

So we just wanted to let you know we're going to kneel and say a prayer right now as we get into things and Right now what we're going to be doing just to let you know is more of a practical aspect at first we looked at the principles and Now we want to get it to the practical of why and how we can become effective media missionaries.

So let us kneel and say a prayer, and I'll just ask God to be here with us as we go into this presentation.

Father in Heaven, Lord, we thank you so much for this opportunity to serve and to get to know you better.

And we just ask in a special way that you would please impress us about what we can do in a practical way to advance your gospel, Father, so that, you know, in this digital age, everything we do will be glorifying to you through the tools that are used so frequently, like, you know, Facebook and Twitter and, you know, filming, all these different mediums by which souls can be reached or blessed.

We just ask that you would give us intelligence and wisdom to effectively use that which is within our grasp.

Make us faithful in the little things, dear God, so that You can be allowing our work to expand in the greater things.

We thank You so much for this opportunity.

We praise You, and we just glorify You once again, in Jesus' name.

Once again, I just want to let you know that this seminar is not really like a sermon.

It's just going to be basically a bunch of things that I do and I could recommend you doing for having a media ministry going or just getting something going that will be a blessing to other people, to reaching other souls through the internet and through film.

That's going to be the 2 places we're going to be focusing on the most.

But I want to start off with a Bible text, and That text is found in Habakkuk 2.2.

And Habakkuk 2.2 says, And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

Write the vision, make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it.

And this is kind of a principle text for what you want to have any media ministry that you're involved in or any media outreach you're involved in to kind of reflect.

You want it to be plain and simple, making what we believe the 3 angels message is as plain and simple as possible as well as the fact that You want it to be understood relatively quickly because people in this day and age don't really want to spend so much time getting deep into things.

You'll notice that usually YouTube puts like a 15 minute limit on their videos and there was a study done that says people don't usually want to watch a video that's much longer than 15 minutes.

So the text is kind of saying that he may run that read it that so somebody running by really quickly will be able to see it and know and that's kind of how the billboards are these days.

They're designed to get your attention while you're just kind of running down the road.

And actually on my way up here I spent a 21 hour drive coming up from North Carolina and I saw on this big sign, you know, I kind of was trying to ignore them just to stay focused on the road and stay awake.

But then as I was coming up the road, I saw this huge sign and I just saw like SDA and that really caught my attention.

And I saw it said, unlocking revelation, you know.

And in 1 of the states, they were doing some outreach and it said the name of an SDA church.

And I was like, hey, that's awesome, you know.

And literally it was as effective as what this text is describing.

It got my attention right away and I was running down the road and I was moving really fast and I was able to see it.

And so kind of keep that in mind as you think of different ways to do evangelistic outreach on the internet or through film as we go through the presentations here.

So 1 thing I want to say is that media evangelism or online evangelism works.

We're going to start off with online, then we're going to move to film.

1 of the ways you know that works is the success of AudioVerse.

In fact, right now this presentation is being recorded for AudioVerse and definitely we know that it has been a success.

Many people around the world have been blessed.

It's been a continual growth and it's 1 of the most awesome ways you can introduce people to Jesus because when people get behind a computer they feel a little bit more free because there's that element of anonymity.

So people are more inclined to inquire about things and so you can send a sermon to somebody online and Maybe they wouldn't want to go to church, they wouldn't want to show themselves in church, but they listen to a sermon and if it makes sense, they'll be impressed by it.

They cannot help but be impressed by it and nobody will know that necessarily, but it's just an awesome way that you can get people to inquire or inspect the gospel and they can feel like safe like oh You know nobody's gonna know really that I'm listening to this sermon or whatever it is And if it does make sense and touch their heart which obviously the Holy Spirit and the angels will do It could be an awesome means of bringing them to the truth or bringing them to that position where they can be reaped by the truth.

And so Audioverse is an awesome way, you know, shameless plug of something that we're using right now for that purpose.

But there are so many other tools to be used.

And so today we're just gonna talk about different tools.

We're just gonna go through some different things that you can use.

There's Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Dig, MySpace, Friendster, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Dell.eco.us, and there's meetup.

All effective means, there's just so many things.

I mean, I don't even use like half of these.

I just use a couple in my personal day-to-day use and even evangelistic promotion and stuff like that.

You can basically choose what you want to use and you know hone things in.

We're gonna look at a couple of different social media tools today but the main thing is you want to know who you're trying to reach and kind of what your purpose is in trying to reach them.

Are you trying to invite them to an event?

Are you trying to just get a message out there?

And there's different tools for different uses.

I can give you an example of Facebook working.

Not too long ago I had a friend who was a strict, strict, adamant carnivore.

And she was just like, you know, although I'm Adventist, she's like, I am serious about being a carnivore.

Like there's no 1 that's gonna take away my meat from me and she just is really really you know adamant about that and you know she's great spirit but she just that was just something that she was not gonna question.

So 1 day to our surprise we we saw that she posted on Facebook and I can tell the story because I got permission.

I blankety blank her name heretofore a proud carnivore hereby declare that I will become a vegetarian.

So, so, so she's making this, this, this pledge to become a vegetarian and you could feel that there's some kind of a lack of surety there.

And so we were just all kind of blown away and surprised by this, So everybody kind of likes her statement, but then somebody makes a comment, the first comment, and then somebody makes another comment, just kind of encouraging her and asking her a question.

But then the third comment is what's really interesting, because there's a third comment, and then the person says, you will feel so much better, right?

And the person that chimes in is Doug Batchelor you know the worldwide evangelist which is just like what you know he's got like 5, 000 friends he's like reached the cap limit of friends on Facebook but he just decided to chime in.

And I said to her, I was like, listen, you know, it's 1 thing for us to tell you.

But when a worldwide evangelist lets you know that you need to become vegetarian, that's conviction.

And she's just like, oh, my goodness, it's true.

And so she was just really trying to kind of, you know, be encouraged.

She was trying to avoid the situation, but now she was basically locked in.

Doug Batchelor told me I need to be vegetarian.

And it's just the fact that Facebook on the feed, everybody can just see different comments randomly or maybe there's some algorithm.

He just jumped in and gave her that little bit of encouragement and it helped.

And she's now 1 of the most awesome vegan chefs that I know.

And so all I'm trying to say is that you can use this tool for something good.

And I'm sure there can be people led to decisions to follow Christ.

And there's actually a website that says that's something that they do.

I do want to throw this out there on Facebook as well though, when you're using Facebook you can also go the opposite direction and kind of be, I don't want to say extreme, but there's a lot of people who post quotes and you know, Christian materials and stuff like that and then like stuff like this.

You know, this picture with the baby that says, back off devil, I belong to Jesus, like some of you who've seen this, right?

I wouldn't necessarily call that effective evangelistic media outreach, right?

You don't necessarily wanna post up things that are probably trite, because, and frequent.

What you wanna do is you really wanna pace yourself, and what I've found is that when you say something, what I found is that when you speak rarely or from time to time and from the heart and you say something profound that you really mean, people tend to be more interested as opposed to, you know, you're always posting like some quote or some picture, you know, or like footprints and then like 5 minutes later another thing and it's just like this string of things.

People will tend to just kind of tune out if there's kind of no, it's like what you're sharing is not really heart based, like it's something you feel and then you just share it as Opposed to just you know taking pictures and stuff like that from other walls to encourage people while those do help It's better to pace them out like you know 1 or 2 a day or Like like maybe even once every 2 3 days because what happens is you know If you just keep posting things it just kind of gets jaded and it doesn't seem like it's genuine from the heart.

And I've just noticed that when I've done it, every so often that people will just come and say, hey, this is interesting, you know, and they'll send you a message.

I was, you know, thinking about what you wrote there and I never really seen it like that or whatever.

They won't post on your wall, but maybe they'll send you a message and just say, hey, that touched me in a different way.

Don't overdo it and try to be from the heart, you know, and intentional about how you're trying to outreach through people.

1 of the most awesome ways to reach people is email.

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Series

ECYC 2012 Seminar: Media Evangelism

The World is Watching, Part 2

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

Parts

The World is Watching, Part 1

59m

The World is Watching, Part 2

51m

Sound Doctrine