For many years, It Is Written has used the Internet as an integral part of its global evangelism outreach. John Bradshaw, speaker/director for It Is Written, shares proven insights as to how the Internet can be used effectively in various kinds of ministry. He also addresses the pitfalls you’ll want to avoid.

ASI 2013: It's Time... To Be About Our Father's Business

<p>For many years, It Is Written has used the Internet as an integral part of its global evangelism outreach. John Bradshaw, speaker/director for It Is Written, shares proven insights as to how the Internet can be used effectively in various kinds of ministry. He also addresses the pitfalls you’ll want to avoid.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

ASI 2013 Seminar: It's Time

Scott Mayer

How Mainstream Media Destroys Families

As everybody's filtering in, I just wanted to kind of give you a little bit of a precursor here to what it is that you're about to see, because obviously the title is kind of a bit of a shock, but I want to explain a little bit about it.

How many of you, and I just want to know so I can understand how much I need to actually really explain, have ever seen any videos or any of the information that our ministry has ever presented before.

Wow, praise God, a lot of you in this room.

So that helps me a lot because now I don't got to go into a huge explanation of things in the past.

And I want to kind of tell you a little bit about this project because it's a project that we've been working on for 3 years now.

In fact, when we first started our ministry, we started with the intention of creating a DVD that really fully delve into and explained what happens inside your brain when you watch television or movies and did not come from a Christian perspective.

And the reason that we did that was because an argument that we got from non-Christian believers or non-Adventists a lot was, yes, I see what you're saying, but I don't believe it because you have a Christian perspective, you have a belief in God.

So what we did is we've spent the last 3 years traveling around the whole United States, talking to some of the top neurologists, UCLA, Seattle's Children's Hospital, and getting a perspective from people who have no invested interest in God whatsoever but are telling you exactly what this thing is doing to our minds.

So those are some of the things that we're going to show today And there are a few clips in here for those that are a bit weary of heart.

But the reason that I want to show you those clips is because we speak at a lot of colleges, a lot of universities, a lot of youth rallies.

I just came from last week at a youth rally, and when we would ask who here in this room is watching this movie or this movie or this movie, 90% of our Adventist children are watching these movies.

So, this is a new production that we just released.

We actually just finished it just before we came here to ASI.

We'll have them available at our booth, and we have limited copies, so please come and visit us.

Before we get started, let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Dear gracious Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this opportunity to come together, to unplug from the world, to set our eyes on eternal things.

Lord, may you open our eyes, open our hearts to the messages that you want us to hear.

May this message be from your throne on high.

And may everyone in this room and those individuals that have no understanding why they walked into this room, Lord, May there be something that is said that just raptures their hearts to want to have a closer relationship with you.

So the title, When I was asked to give this presentation, they wanted me to talk about mainstream media and what kind of an effect this has on families.

And it was kind of an interesting idea because I had sort of looked into it, but not really.

So I want to, I want to read a couple Spirit of Prophecy quotes to put this in perspective for you.

And this 1, If you read the description of this particular talk, this is what I actually had written on there.

The greatest evidence of the power of Christianity can be presented to the world is a well-ordered, well-disciplined family.

This will recommend the truth as nothing else can, for it is a living witness of the practical power upon the heart." The family unit is an amazing tool that God is using to teach the world these various different truths.

The father, what is the role of the father in the family?

All the members of the family center around the father.

He is the lawmaker, illustrating his own manly bearing, the sterner values, energy, integrity, honesty, patience, courage, diligence, practical usefulness.

The father is in 1 sense the priest of the household laying upon the altar of God in the morning and evening sacrifice.

And if you continue to read on, a lot of these quotes are coming from Adventist home.

If you haven't read this book in a while, I suggest read it.

There is some amazing information here in the light of the television and things.

You'll see things pop out that are amazing.

And just after this quote right here, she talks about the father being the priest of the household, needing to pray for the sins that your children have committed.

I had never really thought of that before.

That's interesting that the mini model that God has given to us is even just a microcosm of this great model of Christ being our father and God being our father.

So if the family centers around the father, don't get ahead of yourself, men.

The king upon his throne has no higher work than that of his mother.

The mother has almost a more important role.

The mother is the queen of the household.

She has in her power the molding of her children's characters that they may be fitted for a higher immortal life.

An angel could not ask for a higher mission for in doing this work she is doing the service of God.

Let her only realize her high character of her task and it shall inspire her with courage.

Let her realize the worth of her work and put on the whole armor of God that she may be able to resist temptation and to conform to the world's standards.

The role of the mother to teach the children and instill in them the characteristics that are setting you up for an eternity.

The children, Proverbs 6.20 says that the children's, what are they supposed to do in this role of the family?

My son, keep thy father's commandments and forsake not the law of the mother.

Bind them continually upon thy heart and tie them about your neck.

So the children, the way that God set this up is that the mother and the father teach the children, the children learn from them and take on these characteristics and the cycle continues and thus that's what describes God's character to the world.

I found this that was pretty interesting to me.

In the marriage vows, they have promised to be as 1.

The wife covenanting to love and obey her husband and The husband promising to love and cherish his wife.

If the law of God is obeyed, the demon of strife will be kept out of the family and no separation of interest will take place, no alienation of affection will be permitted.

What this is telling me that is in the family unit, if we are sold out to God, sold out to Christ, teaching our children in the model that God has set up, do you know that she goes on to say it's almost impenetrable by Satan to enter into our families.

But you know what every single 1 of us has as a family member inside of our families?

A window, a portal, something that allows the thoughts and things of the world to be channeled into our lives.

So this is why I believe it is very important to understand what proper use of media is.

I believe that it's a beautiful tool and can be used for God.

I'm not against all media, but there is a proper use of it and a way that It can be used so it's not hypnotic and not putting people into altered states like a lot of the mainstream media.

So that's why in the title of this, it was mainstream media is what destroys family.

You know, in television, they're flipping the model that God has set up.

Ellen White talks about the father must not be as a child or moved merely by impulse.

He is bound by his family's sacred, holy ties.

Here you see constantly, over and over and over again, from television shows, from movies, how do they always portray the father?

That she's so caring about the material things of this world, not about the character, not about what's inside.

They're taking the model of what God is setting up and flipping it upside down.

And So, by taking this apart, they're ultimately dividing and conquering against our families.

The Modern Family, this is a CBS television show that has come out recently.

I'm not gonna go into a big explanation of this, But here you have marriages that have been broken apart and pulled together.

Here's 2 gay guys that are entered into a marriage relationship.

And it's basically this real dysfunctional look at families together, but they're putting this out to the public as this is what the modern family should look like.

And if you just take a step back and analyze how does mainstream Hollywood portray a family And then look at what either Spirit of Prophecy or the Bible says about it, you start to see a stark contrast between the 2.

I want to show you this because I think this is pretty interesting.

The United States Labor Board did a study on what people are spending their time with.

Okay, so this is the average person, the average American that has a job and what are they doing with their time.

Notice here, people sleep 8.91 hours out of the day.

I thought that was kind of high, but this is what they're finding out.

John Bradshaw

Ministry and the Internet

But over the next little while, we're going to talk about ministry and the internet.

And that's a vital thing for us to be talking about, because this is the year 2013, and everything happens online.

Our Father in heaven, thank you that we can be here today.

We thank you for Jesus, and we thank you for the wonderful message of hope and blessing and salvation we have.

We thank you that the 3 angels are currently flying in the midst of heaven.

And I pray that we all can be part of that loud voice that is proclaiming in these last days your last day message.

So bless us as we meet together, bless this time.

We pray, I pray, that each of us would derive something from these few minutes that would enhance our ministry and help us to be more effective instruments in your hands.

Bless us, Lord, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

In case you didn't know, my name is John Bradshaw.

I represent a ministry called It Is Written, thank you very much, and we are going to be talking about ministry and the internet.

I titled this once upon a time, Sharing Jesus in the online marketplace, and really that's what I could title this today.

I shared this presentation or something very much like it at Southern Union ASI, and somebody evidently was blessed by it enough that it was suggested that we do something similar here.

And at that ASI gathering, I began by defining our topic.

You know, I was on the debating team in high school, and what our opening speaker would always do would be to define the topic, take each word of the topic and break it down and share what it meant.

So as we today are talking about the Internet and ministry, we're talking about sharing Jesus in the online marketplace.

Sharing Jesus connotes evangelism, connotes witnessing.

So as we talk about the Internet and ministry, we want to talk about how the internet can be used to share Jesus, to assist in the work of evangelism.

The internet, I'm digressing already, could be the most useless thing ever invented.

In fact, if you were looking for a quantity of uselessness, you would probably find more useless stuff on the Internet than in any 1 place in the universe.

On the other hand, there is now no more effective tool for sharing Jesus, no single more effective tool that we have than the internet.

Now, you know, somebody who believes in the printed page and leans in that direction probably has a point because, you know, books aren't ever affected by power outages.

But the internet gives us the opportunity to share 1 book with 7, almost 7000000000 people at once.

So when we're looking at sharing Jesus, the internet must be a tool that we use.

I would be saddened to think that there was any ministry or any person doing ministry who chose intentionally not to utilize the Internet, because via the Internet you can be all over the world in a single moment.

We recently held an evangelistic series in Lisbon, Portugal.

120 churches in Portugal joined with us in this evangelistic series via the internet.

No, Pretty basic technologies, all that was required.

I was in Lisbon, we were speaking to the central church, or the...

I think it's the central church, and then other churches and other sites around Portugal joined us.

When we did Le Grand Espoir in Paris, France last year, we had people from 80 different countries joining us.

No satellite dish was needed and in fact, we had people join us from Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen.

Now in Yemen, not too many people put up satellite dishes and tell their neighbors they're watching Christian broadcasting.

So the Internet gave us an unparalleled opportunity to share Jesus with the world.

So sharing, sharing, evangelizing, witnessing, proclaiming, sharing Jesus.

I think it's important to keep in mind because the Internet, anything, anything technological for some people can become an end in itself.

That is, you know, if the church has a whole lot of money to spend on PA equipment, on a sound system, you've got to look out for the sound system guys.

And I don't even mind if I offend them because what I'm about to say is true.

The sound guy in your church, or it might be a sound woman in your church, where you want to spend 6000 will want to spend ninety-six thousand.

Because he or she will tell you we've got to have the latest this and the greatest that and the best this and the best that.

They may even be right, they may even be right, but when it comes to technology, the technology can be an end in itself, you know what I'm saying, And there's no end to the spending and the creating and the making and the uploading and the designing.

When it comes to the internet and ministry, we're interested in sharing Jesus in the online marketplace.

We're not looking at sharing our creativity.

We don't want the world to think how clever we are.

The internet ought to be used by God's people to share Jesus as effectively as possible.

And then when we think about the online marketplace, that's where commerce happens, that's where for many people, church happens, that's where Bible study happens.

I had a fascinating conversation with my son and daughter.

We went to eat at an Indian restaurant not far from where I live.

And I remarked to my wife and I said, Melissa, do you remember when we came to Simi Valley?

That's where we now, where we live and work now, we used to go to Simi Valley sort of annually for the West Point of Evangelism conferences, and some of you know what I'm talking about, and we would go to West Point and then we'd say, well we need to go and eat, but where will we eat?

Now Simi Valley is a town of about a hundred and 20000 people and probably 500 restaurants, I don't know, and we never knew where to go and eat.

There was a list inside the little folder in the hotel room and then you would ask somebody at the door, where can we eat?

And I said to Melissa, do you remember when we came to see me and we couldn't hardly find a place to eat?

And I said, and now all you have to do if you wanna find a place to eat is go online.

We're in, I don't even know what part of Orlando we're in, but let's just say we're in Orlando.

And if you want to find an Ethiopian restaurant in Orlando, you go online and you Google Ethiopian restaurant Orlando, or near me.

My children said, Dad, what did you do before Google?

We had to ask the person at the front desk, look in a hotel room, or look in the yellow pages.

They couldn't imagine living in a society so backwards.

But you know, ladies and gentlemen, many of us here now are old enough that we were backwards once, and we need to force ourselves, cause ourselves, train ourselves to think forward.

I was speaking with a very large entity within the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Well, I wasn't speaking to the entity, but the leader of that entity, and he said that his sons are his best critics when it comes to online because his sons go to the website of that entity and say, dad there's nothing on your website that moves.

A guy like me I wouldn't even think about move I'd be saying hey we've got a website that's cool But anyone 25 years old or younger is going to go to the website and say, that is really a dull website.

So we need to be thinking that life happens online.

And it's good now to be thinking like our online audience thinks.

I'll talk about target demographics in just a moment, because your internet ministry might not be interested in the under 25 crowd, and that would be okay if that's where your aim is.

So, so these are just some things to keep in mind.

Sharing, witnessing, Jesus lifting up the Son of God and His end time message in the online marketplace.

Online requires a certain mindset, requires a special way to think.

I don't even know when I last looked in a telephone book.

In fact, I probably haven't looked in the last 2 telephone books that were sent to me at our home.

I remember years ago in the late 90s, Time magazine talking about how the internet was going to change your life, and I feel so far from you.

I'm actually feeling a sense of, My friend's dog had it.

When they were apart from people, the dog went crazy, and I feel like I might go crazy.

Here's what we'll do, is we'll just put this here, and then I'll cheat by reading my notes from there.

I didn't read the article through because honestly computers didn't turn me on.

When I was in high school, 1 of our locker rooms was gutted and they put in a computer room, and I said to the guy putting the computer room in, computers, they'll never last.

And as I looked at this article about the online marketplace, and did they used to call it the superhighway or the electronic highway or something?

I thought to myself I don't understand it and maybe I never will.

But that's where we are now, life has progressively gone in that direction.

Anil Kanda

Ellen White Outside Adventism

And the name of this presentation is entitled, Outside Adventism, Ellen White Exposed.

Now if you walked in here and you probably thought to yourself, is this an Adventist presentation?

I saw a few people come in, they stopped, they looked at that PowerPoint presentation.

Maybe they thought that this was some other kind of presentation, but I want to assure you This is very much an Adventist presentation.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for this time.

And God, we know knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.

We just want to pray that this would be more than knowledge, but God, this would teach us how to reach out to others and share the beautiful things you have given to us.

Father we pray and ask that you would show us great and mighty things which we do not know as it says in Jeremiah 33 verse 3 and Lord we pray by the end of this meeting we will know you have truly been with us and that this time has been productive.

We ask that you would maximize this time with the Holy Spirit.

For this we pray in the name of Jesus, amen.

Is there a little bit of an echo on this or is it just my voice?

Okay, I don't know where the AV people are.

I was actually going to name this a different title, but when I was going online, doing some research, I really love this because when you go to an anti-Ellen White website, this is what you'll find right here.

And oftentimes you look at it and you just think to yourself, what in the world is this all about?

Well, what this seminar is going to be, it's going to be an apologetic seminar, a presentation on the defense of why Ellen White should be really, really considered by the world.

You're going to really love this presentation.

This is going to be a unique angle in presenting Ellen G.

You know, when it comes right down to it, there are many leaders within Adventism that I really admire.

Can you name 1 leader besides Ellen White who you have high regards for within Adventism in the very beginning when this church started?

You know, when I went to Weimar College, I'll tell you this.

1 of my favorite classes was actually church history.

But when I started to go to school Adventist school from 2003 2004 I fell in love with church history all those great stories Anybody have 1 of those CDs where you can listen to the the pioneer stories?

They're very Suspenseful aren't they very dramatic You feel like you're right there with them.

But when it comes down to many of the leaders, the 1 I definitely respect above all the Adventist leaders was Ellen G.

Now the reason why I'm very fond of her writings is not just what the writings are communicating.

It was because I was actually born and raised a Hindu, as I said.

1 of the very first things that I read in the Spirit of Prophecy was not only the great controversy, but providentially I was also given Testimonies Volume 9.

Now the reason why Testimonies Volume 9 is very important is because Ellen White is actually dealing with pantheism.

It's the teaching that God is in everything, right?

And Ellen White was actually addressing this heresy of pantheism when it came down to Harvey Kellogg, John Harvey Kellogg.

But for me, coming out of Hinduism, I really was still formulating my picture of who God was.

And when I was reading Volume 9, I was so blown away as I began to understand more and more the relation of God and nature.

God is not nature, but God's signature is upon nature.

Series

ASI 2013 Seminar: It's Time

Ministry and the Internet

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Seminar: Management

Develop an Effective Marketing Strategy

58m

Non-Profit Leadership

Digital Strategy: Strengthen Your Online Presence & Advance Your Mission

1h 18m

ASI 2014 Plenary Sessions

Town Hall

1h 13m

Young Professionals

ASI 2020 Young Professionals: Felecia Datus

31m

Seminars

Our Best Year Yet Sharing Jesus

1h 16m

Plenary

The Adventist Catechism

1h 20m

Seminars

Heavenly Mergers and Acquisitions

1h 17m

Stealing Lucifer's Playground

How to Start a Viral Infection

59m

Is Social Media a Sin?

50m

ASI 2010 Seminar: Spiritual Growth

Growing Faith

1h 12m

Transformed

Only by His Spirit

1h 17m

Seminar: Lift Him Up

Health Message & Righteousness by Faith

1h 22m

Sound Doctrine