April 29, 2024 • 22 mins
Support Hope In Him Today here.
Join host Gary Miller in this enlightening episode of the Hope and Him Today Podcast as we dive into the interesting world of digital evangelism. Leverage the power of online spaces like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels to share your faith more effectively. Learn key strategies adopted by successful religious influencers from the Catholic and Muslim community who have made a substantial impact with their digital ministries.
Discover the power of consistent content creation and engagement. Examine how their regular appearances in followers' feeds with their intriguing, insightful short video clips help to expand reach and draw more believers. Delve into their secret sauce: the blend of engaging, fun, and compelling content that keeps their audiences hooked and spiritually illuminated.
This episode encourages you to break free from your comfort zone, explore fresh ideas and effectively disseminate your faith in the digital arena.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hey there, friends. Gary Miller here. This is Hope and Him Today.
Great to have you back. We're on the second to last day of our run in April,
where we've done an episode every day. Have you enjoyed this?
According to the show's email box and some texts from the people that know me
personally, but most of the emails that I've gotten in the show's email,
everybody has really enjoyed the of run. And so thank you for being part of it.
(00:27):
A lot of people love the short form content, three minute devotionals.
They're like, man, I'm all in for that because I'm so crazy,
busy and podcasts in general are just too long.
I agree, by the way. So they've really liked the short form.
They've also liked the long form stuff, too. A lot of people like the mix.
I mean, there's Latter-day Saint stuff.
We were talking about the gifts differing thing yesterday, which is funny.
(00:48):
That was like I figured I was going to get like bombarded in the email box.
The comments have been very positive, so I really appreciate that.
So anyway, if you haven't taken in all the stuff in April, listen,
it's all free. It's all available.
Take advantage of it. You can go out to HopeAndHimToday.com and listen to all
of it right there, as much or as little as you want.
Again, it's free. You don't have to opt in. It's not behind a wall.
(01:10):
You can just hit play and go or wherever you listen to our show.
And thanks to everybody who has shared an episode on out on social media,
who has supported the show at HopeAndHimToday.com and you hit donate.
Donate. Thank you for doing that.
It doesn't matter if you do 20 bucks or two bucks. It's dude, it helps. So thank you.
So everybody that's been playing with us here in April, we appreciate it.
(01:31):
Doing a little bit of a different episode today where we're just having a conversation
about effective evangelism in a digital age.
And then tomorrow we're ending it with just straight up preaching y'all.
We're teaching Mosiah for tomorrow. And it's, I taught the lesson this morning.
It'll be hitting the feed tomorrow and we're, we're ending with a bang for April,
and then we'll take a little bit of a break because I've been doing a lot of
(01:53):
teaching here. Come on now.
So I want to talk to you about the Great Commission in a very simple way today.
We're not going to cover everything about evangelizing the world.
We don't have time for that on one episode, but you and I would,
as Christian people, as Jesus followers, would go to places like Mark 16,
and we would highlight that, and we'd say, go forth and preach the.
(02:14):
Every creature. And in 2024, there's a lot of ways to do that.
But one of the most effective ways is places like TikTok and YouTube Shorts
and Instagram Reels, video content where people are sharing their stories,
their faith journeys, particularly their conversion, or as some of my Muslim
(02:34):
friends would say, reversion, reverting to Islam.
People sharing those stories, it is powerful.
And there are a couple of groups that I think are doing some amazing things.
And I think all of us, regardless of where you land denominationally or what
is officially on your religious label, I think all of us can learn from what's happening there.
(02:58):
Now I get like most of the people listening to me right now are Latter-day Saints,
but the good news is not everybody in my audience is.
I'm a really big fan of it not all being the same thing. If you listen into
gifts differing just yesterday, you know why I believe that.
But here's what's interesting. All of us can learn from this,
but I don't know if you saw it.
Over the weekend, I saw it come up on my feed that a very famous celebrity named
(03:20):
Russell, I'm sure you know who I'm talking about, got baptized on Sunday.
And as I was reading the comments, it reminded me of all the things I see on
my YouTube shorts and TikTok every single day when I finally take a minute,
you know, after I've actually done work and done the rest of my life.
And, you know, you take 10 minutes and you kind of scroll.
I see a lot of this going on. And there are two groups that I think are doing it really effectively.
(03:44):
I want to borrow from their strategies and have all of us try to apply it.
Now, before you get bent out of shape thinking, oh, those aren't the only two
groups that are doing it well. You're right. Right. For sure.
There's people in all kinds of denominations and religious persuasions that create good content.
I just happen to hang out with these two groups a lot online.
(04:06):
And so I naturally see more of their content. And I think I can make a case
just from a content and marketing perspective that they're doing an incredible job.
But from a spiritual or theological perspective, I think there's real juice
there as well that we can all learn from. Okay. Disclaimer done.
So there's two groups that I've been watching. They're doing it incredibly on places like TikTok.
(04:27):
One are my Catholic friends, okay?
And if you are finding Catholic creators on TikTok, that's a good world to just
follow a bunch of them and take some notes on what they're doing.
The second group, I mentioned it earlier, are my Muslim friends.
And what they are doing when they're telling the story of their experience with
(04:50):
Islam, it is impressive.
So with that being said, you might go, I'm not in either one of those groups. Perfect.
You need to get something from
outside your lane. Sometimes a new perspective can help you immensely.
Open minds create good things. Okay.
So here's one of the, there's just a few traits I wanted to share with you that
(05:10):
I'm noticing that I'm seeing that it's hard to ignore.
Number one, and by the way, before I even get into this, every one of us is a publisher.
Every one of us can open up a TikTok account and start sharing content about what we believe.
Now, I think everybody, a publisher can be a disaster or it can also be a massive opportunity.
If we're prayed up and we're scripturally rooted, and I think we've got the
(05:34):
right heart, I think it can be a great opportunity.
If we're just going out to try to argue with people and create division and
contention, I think it can eat us up, right? Right.
Basic stuff kind of applies to everything in life, but certainly here in this
content sharing social media zone.
So the number one thing I see these two groups doing really well that you and I can adopt is.
(05:54):
Number one is they create a ton of content.
They're relentlessly consistent in creating content.
So they're not just creating one video every four weeks.
No, they are creating content on the daily or they're creating it every other
day. And it's not big, long form stuff.
(06:15):
We're talking about 15, 30, 45 seconds, 60 second clips.
Some will do two or three minutes, but the majority of them are a minute and
a half or less, but they're doing a lot of it.
Friends, let's learn from this when it comes to our own evangelization,
is that, listen, numbers matter.
Anybody that's ever served a mission out there, I've been fortunate to do a
(06:39):
lot of teaching to missionaries.
I did a bunch of it virtually during COVID, and I just did days where I was
on one session teaching another group, teaching another group, teach another group.
And I know in interacting with them that obviously they know,
and you know, many of you who have been on a mission, you know about,
hey, I need to knock enough doors.
(07:01):
I need to talk to enough people in order to make the numbers work for me, right?
And we can say all the things we want about supernatural and God does the changing
and the converting and all of that is true.
But man, you got to talk to a lot of people. It's just like in prospecting for my sales friends.
Listen, there's a lot of no's before you get a yes.
(07:21):
So there has to be some volume. It's something for us to kind of consider in the secret place.
In my own soul winning efforts, am I talking to enough people?
And in this case, digitally, am I creating enough content to even make a dent?
You know, I was looking at our stats and I don't like to look at stats very
often because they're not always...
They can do bad things to your head as a content creator. If they're not so
(07:44):
good, you can think, oh, I'm terrible. If they're really good,
you start to think you're amazing.
Both of those things are lying to you. So you kind of avoid them.
But when I was looking at it, just doing content every single day in April,
and I was really inspired by my Catholic and Muslim friends that I've been watching online.
I did this every day. I've seen an over 300% uptick in our downloads in plays
(08:09):
just in the last roughly 15 days.
That's a crazy jump in the metrics. So we're not doing evangelization just to
like get numbers and create content and go, you know, we're not going to stand
before God and judgment and go, look, I have 500 plays on this video.
But the point is, is that if we're creating enough content, that means we're
(08:30):
probably being consistent in our soul winning efforts.
Right. And so what I'm seeing from these two groups is an incredible amount
of content that is consistent and relentlessly consistent.
And you know what? People who are generally relentlessly consistent in sharing
their faith tend to be relentlessly consistent in actually practicing it.
They're actually praying and they're reading their scriptures,
(08:52):
whatever their scriptures are.
They're actually going and gathering as a community, whatever that looks like for them.
It's a correlation that's hard to argue.
Give that some thought when you're thinking about soul learning.
Am I just talking to enough people?
Am I consistent enough? And if you're not out there and you're not creating
content, maybe the question is why not?
(09:13):
Why aren't you? Why aren't you sharing what it is you believe?
I would make the case, and I have a buddy of mine that I've known in ministry for a number of years.
He said, Gary, I believe the number one reason people don't share and talk about
Jesus more, whether it's digitally or in real life, is because they don't really
believe what they say they believe.
Because if they did, they would be telling literally everybody that they ran into.
(09:36):
And so maybe it's a time for us to check. Are my own beliefs as jacked up and
fired up as I say they are?
Like, am I really on fire or do I need to maybe rekindle it and get out there
and go forth and preach the gospel, right?
Number two, the second thing they're doing a really great job of is their content
is engaging. aging. It's fun.
(09:58):
It's compelling enough to watch.
In other words, they're not vanilla and boring.
Friends. Friends.
What did Paul say, right? I would persuade, right?
There is some persuasion that I might persuade some that we actually have to
(10:23):
be interesting enough to persuade some people that they would listen to us long
enough in the natural for the supernatural to come down, right?
Guys, we can't be boring. We can't be vanilla.
What I'm seeing in this content, you know, one of the most fascinating things
you can and watch is, is there's a number of channels that do this.
(10:44):
You'll see these guys sit, sat up, sat up.
I don't think that let's try this set up. They're set up.
They have like a table sat up at a, at like, they're like fairs or they're like public areas.
And they've got copies of the Quran out and they've got, you know,
a couple of guys standing there and they're talking to people.
People are coming up and asking them questions about Islam and they're having conversations.
(11:08):
And as they're having these conversations, they film this, right?
They film these interactions.
And let me tell you something. These guys are interesting and compelling and,
and, and they're at times fun.
And, and, and you can't stop, like, even if you're not of that persuasion,
you're going, man, hold on. I got to watch it. Like, what, what are they saying?
(11:31):
There's, you know, if you want people to be interested, what's the old adage?
If you want people to be interested, be interesting.
Like, I mean, so much of the content I see in Christian circles,
and I'm not going to focus on one group who I think is very vanilla and I find
their content agonizingly boring.
And you know what I'm talking about, but in general, and you know,
(11:55):
I'm talking about, cause it's very close to home for me, like across the board,
a lot of it it as just sort of the typical,
you know, kind of tropes and approach.
And it doesn't feel very compelling. It doesn't give me a reason to like,
wait, what did you just say?
I have a feeling if we would have been in the early Acts church and we would
(12:17):
have been at the street corner and we saw Paul and Peter or Silas or somebody
walking by and they were talking about Jesus, I bet it would be compelling enough for us to listen.
Are we interesting enough for people to be interested? stead.
And I'm not suggesting that we have to use tricks, employs, and this isn't a sales pitch.
And, you know, we're doing all this in the natural, but friend,
(12:39):
there is some of it we have to do in the natural so that, you know,
there's an opportunity for the supernatural to kind of get up in there for people
to listen to us long enough.
When I'm watching these groups, they're a mix of it. I mean,
are you, are you, when you talk about the gospel, it is good news, right?
Why do you look like you've been baptized and do pickle juice content creators?
Let me tell you about Jesus Christ. What? I thought it was good news, right?
(13:02):
Like, we need to be people that have a nice countenance and we're smiling and
we're interesting and we're engaging as soul winners.
Because when we're a little bit more fun and a little bit more engaging,
frankly, guys, we're less weird.
And when we're less weird, even if we have to talk about some weird things,
heaven, hell, eternity, everything else, it doesn't feel as weird.
(13:23):
And people won't be, like, repelled by that. that why do
we see so many people converting to catholicism
why do we see so many people opening and
going wait a minute let me read the quran now i've been watching these guys on on
you know youtube shorts why well
it's interesting enough to go well wait a minute that doesn't feel weird that
(13:44):
actually like makes sense and that person's cool let me let me listen there's
really something to that something that we can apply in our soul winning in
evangelization efforts like Like we can think, wait a minute, is my content,
even if my content, if you're not ready to publish or start a podcast or whatever,
like maybe your content is just a conversation with somebody.
(14:06):
Are you fun enough, interesting enough, cool enough, like chill enough,
like not weird that it just feels comfortable and people are good having a conversation
with you and are interested enough to do that?
I think there's something to that. But number three, and this one,
this one, man, this gets me.
Number three, as I see in both of these groups, there is real conviction,
conviction enough to defend, right? Right.
(14:30):
It's not just, Hey, on the other side of interesting and, and fun and engaging
is a side that says, but by the way, here's what we believe.
And it is clear and it is simple. It's logical.
You don't have to sort of squint your eyes to make sense of it.
(14:51):
Do you know what I mean by that? You know, sometimes, you know,
if you're like looking far off and someone's like, Hey, do you see the thing over there?
You know, sometimes you, you might be looking for a house number and the lighting's
not great, so you're kind of squinting to go, yeah, I guess that could be a
seven. You know, you're looking for the number.
It's the same way a lot in content online, particularly faith-based stuff.
(15:11):
A lot of times you kind of have to squint and go, okay, I guess that's right.
What you will see a lot from Catholic apologists, what you will see a lot from
these content creators sharing information about Islam, is it's very logical.
And in a world, it's a really cool combination of logical and strong conviction.
(15:32):
And in a world where everything is milquetoast, in a world where everything
seems to be great, in a world where like, I mean, you can identify as a cat for crying out loud.
I mean, where there's not any real certainty, it's really compelling and interesting
to people when they go, wait a minute,
even if it seems like, maybe if I don't even agree with you,
but man, there's something Something really attractive about clear conviction that's logical.
(15:59):
Like, that's good stuff. Listen, there's plenty of things in faith,
at least in my own tradition, like as a Christian, that always doesn't make logical sense.
You got to extend some heart and some mind and some spirit and just some raw
faith to go, okay, I guess so.
Like, I understand that. But when we're sharing the basics, do we have real conviction?
(16:22):
And is it logical? I think that combination is powerful. And when you combine
this, so let's review it.
We're creating consistent content. Or if you're not a content creator,
you are talking consistently about your faith to other people.
There's enough numbers there to make sense. You combine that with a message
that is both you personally are fun and interesting enough for people to be interested. instead.
(16:46):
And it's, it's personal. It's compelling without being weird.
Like without just being like, you know, I mean, you've been around people who
share faith and make it weird.
I have countless examples and everybody can feel it.
But then you combine that with, I'm presenting this in just a logical way,
but I've got no kidding conviction.
(17:07):
I've got, you know, I've got some serious backbone.
It's not just, I don't have a backbone made out of like, you know,
a wet pasta noodle that kind of just flops all over the place.
No, it's, it is steel straight rod.
I mean, I have a backbone.
I got conviction on this and I'm making this out.
I've got it spelled out to you. One plus one equals two. You don't have to squint
(17:30):
to make sense of what I'm talking about.
If we combine this to whatever your persuasion is, whether you lead a small
group, whether you're someone that, you know, teaches and, and maybe heads up some quorum somewhere.
Maybe you're someone that is the pastor of a non-denominational church,
like whatever, because I know there's listeners in all those categories.
(17:51):
We can take these elements and apply them to our own witnessing and soul winning
efforts and have a lot of success.
Volume, just pure numbers.
We can have it because we're engaging and compelling and it's interesting enough
for people to be interested, but yet we also combine conviction with logic.
(18:16):
And that's why you see these videos. You see people going, I'm praying the rosary
for the first time because I saw so-and-so's content.
There is a ton of people making videos going, I got a copy of the clear Quran.
I'm reading it for the first time.
Pastors going, I'm reading it for the first time.
Non-denominational Christians, I'm reading the Quran for the first time.
(18:36):
In the last year, I've got three different versions that I've gone through of
the Quran because of content that I saw, because it helped me open my eyes a
little bit and appreciate what people are talking about.
I'm obviously not a Muslim. I am completely, I'm not, there are novices with information.
There are people that aren't even at the novice level. Like I'm way before the novice level.
(18:58):
I know nothing just because I've read it a few times means nothing.
Thing, but I can tell you, I was inspired by some of that content that I thought
about it from my perspective as someone that's talking about Jesus.
And I'm going, man, what do we learn from this?
And these are the three takeaways. I tell you, if you'll examine these in the
secret place, maybe go back and look at those great commission verses in the
(19:21):
Bible, thinking about going forth,
preaching the gospel and going forth, making disciples of the nations, right?
Like if we're thinking about how we're doing that, I wonder what God would tell
us about these areas and how we can be the person as Paul prayed for boldness in Ephesians, right?
How can we be the person that's bold enough to do it consistently,
(19:42):
to do it in an interesting but not weird way with conviction and with logic?
Man, what would happen in just our own faith journey?
How would that change how we study and how we pray and how we walk and how we
talk? but how would it change the interactions we have with other people?
And I guess that would leave you with two final thoughts.
(20:03):
One is if you're not doing this in your particular faith persuasion,
if you're not creating content, if you're not shooting a video,
if you're not making an audio, if you're not talking to your neighbor,
if you're not talking to a friend, if there are people in your cell phone,
in your contacts that you've never invited to church or never talked to about Jesus. Why is that?
And I'm not shouting you down. All of us have somebody on the phone.
(20:25):
So it's you and it's me and it's everybody.
Why are we not doing that? Maybe that's an examination in the secret place.
It's probably even more important.
Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's doubt. Maybe we don't think we know enough.
Whatever the case, hey, why aren't we doing that? Examine that.
But then also, maybe think about your own consumption. Now, you may not be on TikTok.
(20:47):
You may not be on Instagram or whatever. That's fine. I'm not suggesting you
should start if you're not.
But if you are, maybe you need to ask the question, what can I learn from other
people who are passionate about their faith, even if their faith is different than mine?
What can I learn from them? That question naturally pushes against the eye on
(21:11):
the franchise, which is a dangerous place to be, in my opinion.
I know some people disagree with me vehemently about that. That's okay.
I just think if we open up to go, what can I learn?
I think God is using a lot of people in a lot of different ways that are really incredible.
And we lose so much of the benefit of it because we're too strapped and chained
(21:35):
to our own ego that is shutting our mind and our hearts.
And we're not learning. We're going, Lord, help me to be a better soul owner.
There are people that are already doing things that you can learn to help you,
but we're closed down because they might meet in a different building,
might call themselves something else, might read from a different book,
and we lose incredible benefits that we could have.
(21:56):
Amen? So maybe think about that as you think about this entire subject so that
we can go forth. And what does the proverb say?
He that win his souls is wise.
Well, let's go get wise. Let's do this.
And if you are on those platforms, check out some of these creators.
They are fascinating, really interesting.
(22:17):
And man, I don't know about you. I learn a lot.
And I think if you will give them a chance, you will learn a lot as well.
Well, not trying to learn a lot to change where you are.
Don't walk away from this going, Gary's telling us all to jump teams. No, no, no, not at all.
I think what it does is you learn things. You'll often appreciate where you are even more, right?
(22:40):
You kind of appreciate your side of the field even more.
But then you start to realize, wait a minute, I don't have a side of the field.
We're all in this field together. Amen. I'll see you next time.
Hey there, friends. Gary Miller here. This is Hope and Him Today.
Great to have you back. We're on the second to last day of our run in April,
where we've done an episode every day. Have you enjoyed this?
According to the show's email box and some texts from the people that know me
personally, but most of the emails that I've gotten in the show's email,
everybody has really enjoyed the of run. And so thank you for being part of it.
(00:27):
A lot of people love the short form content, three minute devotionals.
They're like, man, I'm all in for that because I'm so crazy,
busy and podcasts in general are just too long.
I agree, by the way. So they've really liked the short form.
They've also liked the long form stuff, too. A lot of people like the mix.
I mean, there's Latter-day Saint stuff.
We were talking about the gifts differing thing yesterday, which is funny.
(00:48):
That was like I figured I was going to get like bombarded in the email box.
The comments have been very positive, so I really appreciate that.
So anyway, if you haven't taken in all the stuff in April, listen,
it's all free. It's all available.
Take advantage of it. You can go out to HopeAndHimToday.com and listen to all
of it right there, as much or as little as you want.
Again, it's free. You don't have to opt in. It's not behind a wall.
(01:10):
You can just hit play and go or wherever you listen to our show.
And thanks to everybody who has shared an episode on out on social media,
who has supported the show at HopeAndHimToday.com and you hit donate.
Donate. Thank you for doing that.
It doesn't matter if you do 20 bucks or two bucks. It's dude, it helps. So thank you.
So everybody that's been playing with us here in April, we appreciate it.
(01:31):
Doing a little bit of a different episode today where we're just having a conversation
about effective evangelism in a digital age.
And then tomorrow we're ending it with just straight up preaching y'all.
We're teaching Mosiah for tomorrow. And it's, I taught the lesson this morning.
It'll be hitting the feed tomorrow and we're, we're ending with a bang for April,
and then we'll take a little bit of a break because I've been doing a lot of
(01:53):
teaching here. Come on now.
So I want to talk to you about the Great Commission in a very simple way today.
We're not going to cover everything about evangelizing the world.
We don't have time for that on one episode, but you and I would,
as Christian people, as Jesus followers, would go to places like Mark 16,
and we would highlight that, and we'd say, go forth and preach the.
(02:14):
Every creature. And in 2024, there's a lot of ways to do that.
But one of the most effective ways is places like TikTok and YouTube Shorts
and Instagram Reels, video content where people are sharing their stories,
their faith journeys, particularly their conversion, or as some of my Muslim
(02:34):
friends would say, reversion, reverting to Islam.
People sharing those stories, it is powerful.
And there are a couple of groups that I think are doing some amazing things.
And I think all of us, regardless of where you land denominationally or what
is officially on your religious label, I think all of us can learn from what's happening there.
(02:58):
Now I get like most of the people listening to me right now are Latter-day Saints,
but the good news is not everybody in my audience is.
I'm a really big fan of it not all being the same thing. If you listen into
gifts differing just yesterday, you know why I believe that.
But here's what's interesting. All of us can learn from this,
but I don't know if you saw it.
Over the weekend, I saw it come up on my feed that a very famous celebrity named
(03:20):
Russell, I'm sure you know who I'm talking about, got baptized on Sunday.
And as I was reading the comments, it reminded me of all the things I see on
my YouTube shorts and TikTok every single day when I finally take a minute,
you know, after I've actually done work and done the rest of my life.
And, you know, you take 10 minutes and you kind of scroll.
I see a lot of this going on. And there are two groups that I think are doing it really effectively.
(03:44):
I want to borrow from their strategies and have all of us try to apply it.
Now, before you get bent out of shape thinking, oh, those aren't the only two
groups that are doing it well. You're right. Right. For sure.
There's people in all kinds of denominations and religious persuasions that create good content.
I just happen to hang out with these two groups a lot online.
(04:06):
And so I naturally see more of their content. And I think I can make a case
just from a content and marketing perspective that they're doing an incredible job.
But from a spiritual or theological perspective, I think there's real juice
there as well that we can all learn from. Okay. Disclaimer done.
So there's two groups that I've been watching. They're doing it incredibly on places like TikTok.
(04:27):
One are my Catholic friends, okay?
And if you are finding Catholic creators on TikTok, that's a good world to just
follow a bunch of them and take some notes on what they're doing.
The second group, I mentioned it earlier, are my Muslim friends.
And what they are doing when they're telling the story of their experience with
(04:50):
Islam, it is impressive.
So with that being said, you might go, I'm not in either one of those groups. Perfect.
You need to get something from
outside your lane. Sometimes a new perspective can help you immensely.
Open minds create good things. Okay.
So here's one of the, there's just a few traits I wanted to share with you that
(05:10):
I'm noticing that I'm seeing that it's hard to ignore.
Number one, and by the way, before I even get into this, every one of us is a publisher.
Every one of us can open up a TikTok account and start sharing content about what we believe.
Now, I think everybody, a publisher can be a disaster or it can also be a massive opportunity.
If we're prayed up and we're scripturally rooted, and I think we've got the
(05:34):
right heart, I think it can be a great opportunity.
If we're just going out to try to argue with people and create division and
contention, I think it can eat us up, right? Right.
Basic stuff kind of applies to everything in life, but certainly here in this
content sharing social media zone.
So the number one thing I see these two groups doing really well that you and I can adopt is.
(05:54):
Number one is they create a ton of content.
They're relentlessly consistent in creating content.
So they're not just creating one video every four weeks.
No, they are creating content on the daily or they're creating it every other
day. And it's not big, long form stuff.
(06:15):
We're talking about 15, 30, 45 seconds, 60 second clips.
Some will do two or three minutes, but the majority of them are a minute and
a half or less, but they're doing a lot of it.
Friends, let's learn from this when it comes to our own evangelization,
is that, listen, numbers matter.
Anybody that's ever served a mission out there, I've been fortunate to do a
(06:39):
lot of teaching to missionaries.
I did a bunch of it virtually during COVID, and I just did days where I was
on one session teaching another group, teaching another group, teach another group.
And I know in interacting with them that obviously they know,
and you know, many of you who have been on a mission, you know about,
hey, I need to knock enough doors.
(07:01):
I need to talk to enough people in order to make the numbers work for me, right?
And we can say all the things we want about supernatural and God does the changing
and the converting and all of that is true.
But man, you got to talk to a lot of people. It's just like in prospecting for my sales friends.
Listen, there's a lot of no's before you get a yes.
(07:21):
So there has to be some volume. It's something for us to kind of consider in the secret place.
In my own soul winning efforts, am I talking to enough people?
And in this case, digitally, am I creating enough content to even make a dent?
You know, I was looking at our stats and I don't like to look at stats very
often because they're not always...
They can do bad things to your head as a content creator. If they're not so
(07:44):
good, you can think, oh, I'm terrible. If they're really good,
you start to think you're amazing.
Both of those things are lying to you. So you kind of avoid them.
But when I was looking at it, just doing content every single day in April,
and I was really inspired by my Catholic and Muslim friends that I've been watching online.
I did this every day. I've seen an over 300% uptick in our downloads in plays
(08:09):
just in the last roughly 15 days.
That's a crazy jump in the metrics. So we're not doing evangelization just to
like get numbers and create content and go, you know, we're not going to stand
before God and judgment and go, look, I have 500 plays on this video.
But the point is, is that if we're creating enough content, that means we're
(08:30):
probably being consistent in our soul winning efforts.
Right. And so what I'm seeing from these two groups is an incredible amount
of content that is consistent and relentlessly consistent.
And you know what? People who are generally relentlessly consistent in sharing
their faith tend to be relentlessly consistent in actually practicing it.
They're actually praying and they're reading their scriptures,
(08:52):
whatever their scriptures are.
They're actually going and gathering as a community, whatever that looks like for them.
It's a correlation that's hard to argue.
Give that some thought when you're thinking about soul learning.
Am I just talking to enough people?
Am I consistent enough? And if you're not out there and you're not creating
content, maybe the question is why not?
(09:13):
Why aren't you? Why aren't you sharing what it is you believe?
I would make the case, and I have a buddy of mine that I've known in ministry for a number of years.
He said, Gary, I believe the number one reason people don't share and talk about
Jesus more, whether it's digitally or in real life, is because they don't really
believe what they say they believe.
Because if they did, they would be telling literally everybody that they ran into.
(09:36):
And so maybe it's a time for us to check. Are my own beliefs as jacked up and
fired up as I say they are?
Like, am I really on fire or do I need to maybe rekindle it and get out there
and go forth and preach the gospel, right?
Number two, the second thing they're doing a really great job of is their content
is engaging. aging. It's fun.
(09:58):
It's compelling enough to watch.
In other words, they're not vanilla and boring.
Friends. Friends.
What did Paul say, right? I would persuade, right?
There is some persuasion that I might persuade some that we actually have to
(10:23):
be interesting enough to persuade some people that they would listen to us long
enough in the natural for the supernatural to come down, right?
Guys, we can't be boring. We can't be vanilla.
What I'm seeing in this content, you know, one of the most fascinating things
you can and watch is, is there's a number of channels that do this.
(10:44):
You'll see these guys sit, sat up, sat up.
I don't think that let's try this set up. They're set up.
They have like a table sat up at a, at like, they're like fairs or they're like public areas.
And they've got copies of the Quran out and they've got, you know,
a couple of guys standing there and they're talking to people.
People are coming up and asking them questions about Islam and they're having conversations.
(11:08):
And as they're having these conversations, they film this, right?
They film these interactions.
And let me tell you something. These guys are interesting and compelling and,
and, and they're at times fun.
And, and, and you can't stop, like, even if you're not of that persuasion,
you're going, man, hold on. I got to watch it. Like, what, what are they saying?
(11:31):
There's, you know, if you want people to be interested, what's the old adage?
If you want people to be interested, be interesting.
Like, I mean, so much of the content I see in Christian circles,
and I'm not going to focus on one group who I think is very vanilla and I find
their content agonizingly boring.
And you know what I'm talking about, but in general, and you know,
(11:55):
I'm talking about, cause it's very close to home for me, like across the board,
a lot of it it as just sort of the typical,
you know, kind of tropes and approach.
And it doesn't feel very compelling. It doesn't give me a reason to like,
wait, what did you just say?
I have a feeling if we would have been in the early Acts church and we would
(12:17):
have been at the street corner and we saw Paul and Peter or Silas or somebody
walking by and they were talking about Jesus, I bet it would be compelling enough for us to listen.
Are we interesting enough for people to be interested? stead.
And I'm not suggesting that we have to use tricks, employs, and this isn't a sales pitch.
And, you know, we're doing all this in the natural, but friend,
(12:39):
there is some of it we have to do in the natural so that, you know,
there's an opportunity for the supernatural to kind of get up in there for people
to listen to us long enough.
When I'm watching these groups, they're a mix of it. I mean,
are you, are you, when you talk about the gospel, it is good news, right?
Why do you look like you've been baptized and do pickle juice content creators?
Let me tell you about Jesus Christ. What? I thought it was good news, right?
(13:02):
Like, we need to be people that have a nice countenance and we're smiling and
we're interesting and we're engaging as soul winners.
Because when we're a little bit more fun and a little bit more engaging,
frankly, guys, we're less weird.
And when we're less weird, even if we have to talk about some weird things,
heaven, hell, eternity, everything else, it doesn't feel as weird.
(13:23):
And people won't be, like, repelled by that. that why do
we see so many people converting to catholicism
why do we see so many people opening and
going wait a minute let me read the quran now i've been watching these guys on on
you know youtube shorts why well
it's interesting enough to go well wait a minute that doesn't feel weird that
(13:44):
actually like makes sense and that person's cool let me let me listen there's
really something to that something that we can apply in our soul winning in
evangelization efforts like Like we can think, wait a minute, is my content,
even if my content, if you're not ready to publish or start a podcast or whatever,
like maybe your content is just a conversation with somebody.
(14:06):
Are you fun enough, interesting enough, cool enough, like chill enough,
like not weird that it just feels comfortable and people are good having a conversation
with you and are interested enough to do that?
I think there's something to that. But number three, and this one,
this one, man, this gets me.
Number three, as I see in both of these groups, there is real conviction,
conviction enough to defend, right? Right.
(14:30):
It's not just, Hey, on the other side of interesting and, and fun and engaging
is a side that says, but by the way, here's what we believe.
And it is clear and it is simple. It's logical.
You don't have to sort of squint your eyes to make sense of it.
(14:51):
Do you know what I mean by that? You know, sometimes, you know,
if you're like looking far off and someone's like, Hey, do you see the thing over there?
You know, sometimes you, you might be looking for a house number and the lighting's
not great, so you're kind of squinting to go, yeah, I guess that could be a
seven. You know, you're looking for the number.
It's the same way a lot in content online, particularly faith-based stuff.
(15:11):
A lot of times you kind of have to squint and go, okay, I guess that's right.
What you will see a lot from Catholic apologists, what you will see a lot from
these content creators sharing information about Islam, is it's very logical.
And in a world, it's a really cool combination of logical and strong conviction.
(15:32):
And in a world where everything is milquetoast, in a world where everything
seems to be great, in a world where like, I mean, you can identify as a cat for crying out loud.
I mean, where there's not any real certainty, it's really compelling and interesting
to people when they go, wait a minute,
even if it seems like, maybe if I don't even agree with you,
but man, there's something Something really attractive about clear conviction that's logical.
(15:59):
Like, that's good stuff. Listen, there's plenty of things in faith,
at least in my own tradition, like as a Christian, that always doesn't make logical sense.
You got to extend some heart and some mind and some spirit and just some raw
faith to go, okay, I guess so.
Like, I understand that. But when we're sharing the basics, do we have real conviction?
(16:22):
And is it logical? I think that combination is powerful. And when you combine
this, so let's review it.
We're creating consistent content. Or if you're not a content creator,
you are talking consistently about your faith to other people.
There's enough numbers there to make sense. You combine that with a message
that is both you personally are fun and interesting enough for people to be interested. instead.
(16:46):
And it's, it's personal. It's compelling without being weird.
Like without just being like, you know, I mean, you've been around people who
share faith and make it weird.
I have countless examples and everybody can feel it.
But then you combine that with, I'm presenting this in just a logical way,
but I've got no kidding conviction.
(17:07):
I've got, you know, I've got some serious backbone.
It's not just, I don't have a backbone made out of like, you know,
a wet pasta noodle that kind of just flops all over the place.
No, it's, it is steel straight rod.
I mean, I have a backbone.
I got conviction on this and I'm making this out.
I've got it spelled out to you. One plus one equals two. You don't have to squint
(17:30):
to make sense of what I'm talking about.
If we combine this to whatever your persuasion is, whether you lead a small
group, whether you're someone that, you know, teaches and, and maybe heads up some quorum somewhere.
Maybe you're someone that is the pastor of a non-denominational church,
like whatever, because I know there's listeners in all those categories.
(17:51):
We can take these elements and apply them to our own witnessing and soul winning
efforts and have a lot of success.
Volume, just pure numbers.
We can have it because we're engaging and compelling and it's interesting enough
for people to be interested, but yet we also combine conviction with logic.
(18:16):
And that's why you see these videos. You see people going, I'm praying the rosary
for the first time because I saw so-and-so's content.
There is a ton of people making videos going, I got a copy of the clear Quran.
I'm reading it for the first time.
Pastors going, I'm reading it for the first time.
Non-denominational Christians, I'm reading the Quran for the first time.
(18:36):
In the last year, I've got three different versions that I've gone through of
the Quran because of content that I saw, because it helped me open my eyes a
little bit and appreciate what people are talking about.
I'm obviously not a Muslim. I am completely, I'm not, there are novices with information.
There are people that aren't even at the novice level. Like I'm way before the novice level.
(18:58):
I know nothing just because I've read it a few times means nothing.
Thing, but I can tell you, I was inspired by some of that content that I thought
about it from my perspective as someone that's talking about Jesus.
And I'm going, man, what do we learn from this?
And these are the three takeaways. I tell you, if you'll examine these in the
secret place, maybe go back and look at those great commission verses in the
(19:21):
Bible, thinking about going forth,
preaching the gospel and going forth, making disciples of the nations, right?
Like if we're thinking about how we're doing that, I wonder what God would tell
us about these areas and how we can be the person as Paul prayed for boldness in Ephesians, right?
How can we be the person that's bold enough to do it consistently,
(19:42):
to do it in an interesting but not weird way with conviction and with logic?
Man, what would happen in just our own faith journey?
How would that change how we study and how we pray and how we walk and how we
talk? but how would it change the interactions we have with other people?
And I guess that would leave you with two final thoughts.
(20:03):
One is if you're not doing this in your particular faith persuasion,
if you're not creating content, if you're not shooting a video,
if you're not making an audio, if you're not talking to your neighbor,
if you're not talking to a friend, if there are people in your cell phone,
in your contacts that you've never invited to church or never talked to about Jesus. Why is that?
And I'm not shouting you down. All of us have somebody on the phone.
(20:25):
So it's you and it's me and it's everybody.
Why are we not doing that? Maybe that's an examination in the secret place.
It's probably even more important.
Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's doubt. Maybe we don't think we know enough.
Whatever the case, hey, why aren't we doing that? Examine that.
But then also, maybe think about your own consumption. Now, you may not be on TikTok.
(20:47):
You may not be on Instagram or whatever. That's fine. I'm not suggesting you
should start if you're not.
But if you are, maybe you need to ask the question, what can I learn from other
people who are passionate about their faith, even if their faith is different than mine?
What can I learn from them? That question naturally pushes against the eye on
(21:11):
the franchise, which is a dangerous place to be, in my opinion.
I know some people disagree with me vehemently about that. That's okay.
I just think if we open up to go, what can I learn?
I think God is using a lot of people in a lot of different ways that are really incredible.
And we lose so much of the benefit of it because we're too strapped and chained
(21:35):
to our own ego that is shutting our mind and our hearts.
And we're not learning. We're going, Lord, help me to be a better soul owner.
There are people that are already doing things that you can learn to help you,
but we're closed down because they might meet in a different building,
might call themselves something else, might read from a different book,
and we lose incredible benefits that we could have.
(21:56):
Amen? So maybe think about that as you think about this entire subject so that
we can go forth. And what does the proverb say?
He that win his souls is wise.
Well, let's go get wise. Let's do this.
And if you are on those platforms, check out some of these creators.
They are fascinating, really interesting.
(22:17):
And man, I don't know about you. I learn a lot.
And I think if you will give them a chance, you will learn a lot as well.
Well, not trying to learn a lot to change where you are.
Don't walk away from this going, Gary's telling us all to jump teams. No, no, no, not at all.
I think what it does is you learn things. You'll often appreciate where you are even more, right?
(22:40):
You kind of appreciate your side of the field even more.
But then you start to realize, wait a minute, I don't have a side of the field.
We're all in this field together. Amen. I'll see you next time.
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