Peering into the Future
“Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations ...”
When Jesus gave these marching orders to his disciples/church, they took off by foot, pack animal, and boat. Now we go at the speed of the internet.
When I began a conversation with an ad hoc communications team from our staff and asked the question what needs to be our top emphases to reach people with the gospel. Here is what they suggested and how these items were ranked:
Add variety to our website, show inclusiveness, and add links to social media.
Teach the congregation how to witness digitally.
Show playfulness.
Intentionally grow our number of followers.
Create video shorts.
Deliver all of the above in the highest quality.
This is a far cry from going by foot, pack animal, and boat. It is the world we live in now. Churches that thrive will be those that adopt, adapt, and expand these avenues. Our Futurist Team’s work is underlining these directions.
To that end, I gave our staff a heart attack when I told them as a last piece of business that Ephraim Nitanga had accepted a new position … with us. Ephraim is now our Director of Media, a program-level position by which he will work with leadership and volunteers to cast vision and help us develop our online presence more fully for the growing number of people we are reaching with our excellent livestream and other digital offerings. As Ephraim has done in his first two years here, so he will do still more: enabling us to digitally connect God and grace to self and community.
More announcements on new hires coming; stay tuned. See you Sunday, from wherever you are!
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
