Participants:
Series Code: TDY
Program Code: TDY220058A
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00:01 ♪ ♪
00:04 ♪ I want to spend my life mending broken people ♪ 00:15 ♪ I want to spend my life removing pain ♪ 00:26 ♪ Lord let my words heal a heart that hurts ♪ 00:36 ♪ I want to spend my life mending broken people ♪ 00:59 ♪ ♪ 01:07 Hello friends, welcome to 3ABN Today. My name is John Lomacang 01:10 and you know I cannot top who I have sitting next to me, my 01:14 Lovely wife Angela. Good to have you here. 01:16 I am always happy to be here and I'm glad that you have tuned in 01:20 today and you're going to be blessed by this program. It's a 01:23 great couple and they have a lot to share with us today. 01:27 It's about evangelism and because I'm director of world 01:31 evangelism for 3ABN it has taken on a more particular special 01:36 meaning to me because evangelism the single word may mean 01:40 something different to a lot of different people but today we're 01:42 going to talk about the expanded view. What is evangelism and 01:46 what kind of evangelism is relevant and necessary for the 01:50 challenges of the days in which we live. But before we introduce 01:54 our guests we'll go to our music We want to just thank you for 01:57 your prayers and financial support of this network as we 02:00 continue going and growing getting ready for the coming of 02:02 the Lord. Honey who do we have for music today? 02:06 Oh we have Pastor Wintley Phipps is going to share a wonderful 02:11 song entitled Coming Again. 02:14 ♪ ♪ 02:50 ♪ Why stand ye gazing there up into the sky ♪ 03:02 ♪ Be not discouraged for we have brought good news ♪ 03:15 ♪ This same Jesus whom we do magnify ♪ 03:23 ♪ Soon He will come again for all to glorify ♪ 03:39 ♪ He is coming again He is coming again ♪ 03:50 ♪ Son of the Father He is coming again ♪ 04:04 ♪ On Calvary He claimed my destiny ♪ 04:10 ♪ Lord I humble myself to Thee ♪ 04:31 ♪ Lord I want to see your face just help me be strong ♪ 04:42 ♪ I know you will return I know it won't be long ♪ 04:54 ♪ He is coming again He is coming again ♪ 05:08 ♪ Son of the Father He is coming again ♪ 05:19 ♪ On Calvary He claimed my destiny ♪ 05:25 ♪ Lord I humble myself to Thee ♪ 05:41 ♪ Lift up the trumpet and Loud let it ring ♪ 05:44 ♪ Jesus is coming again ♪ 05:50 ♪ Cheer up ye pilgrims be joyful and sing ♪ 05:55 ♪ Jesus is coming again ♪ 05:59 ♪ Coming again, coming again Jesus is coming again ♪ 06:09 ♪ Coming again, Coming again Jesus is coming again ♪ 06:22 Thank you so much, Pastor Wintley Phipps. You know every 06:30 time I see Wintley Pastor Phipps singing he's singing for a 06:34 president which he sang for so many of our presidents or 06:36 dignitaries or at a funeral or at inauguration. God has really 06:41 gifted Pastor Wintley Phipps to be able to be in circles that 06:43 many of us will never get into and he's lifting up Jesus with 06:47 that wonderful song Jesus is coming again. What a wonderful 06:50 song. 06:52 Beautiful. 06:53 Let's introduce our guests. 06:54 Oh this is the best part right here. Stephen and Felecia Lee, 06:58 welcome. 07:00 Thank you. Thank you for having us. Excited to be here. 07:02 Now Felecia you've been here before. 07:04 Yeah so it feels like coming home. 07:05 There you go, there you go. 07:07 Always feels comfortable here with you guys. (Yeah) 07:09 Is this your first time here? 07:11 It is my first time. 07:13 Yeah so Felecia has to show you the ropes... 07:16 I feel like I'm bringing him home to my parents 07:19 Yeah, there you go I like that. And you are well been married 07:23 a couple years now. 07:25 Two years. (Two years) 07:27 That's wonderful. How's married life? 07:30 Amazing. Beautiful. There's so much to learn. It's one of the 07:36 best experiences that you could have to learn about that 07:39 relationship that God has with the church. It's not always easy 07:42 and you know but we're doing great but a lot to learn. 07:47 That's right. And the other thing we're excited about is you 07:50 both are on the cutting edge and since our topic is about 07:55 evangelism what I'd like to begin with and by the way just 08:00 briefly for our viewing audience and listening audience give us a 08:04 little bit about your background Let's start with ladies first. 08:07 Give us kind of the concoction of your nationality. 08:11 You have an accent. 08:12 Sure yeah so I am from the islands like Angie so I relate 08:16 to you on that level. But I'm originally from the Bahamas. I 08:19 studied in Jamaica. My parents are originally from Haiti and 08:24 now I live in the U.S. and I'm married to a South Korean. Like 08:29 all of the United Nations all in one. But my background is I 08:33 studied elementary education. Then I got involved in radio and 08:36 television. Then I got into online evangelism through the 08:39 Center for Online Evangelism and through that work that's how I 08:43 got to meet Stephen. That's how we met, me working for Center of 08:49 Online Evangelism and I met him so that's a little bit about my 08:51 background. 08:52 He was your first convert or you were his first convert? I don't 08:56 know which way it went. That's a good way. Stephen what about you 09:00 Tell us about yourself. 09:02 Like she said I am South Korean born and I was raised in south 09:09 California area so that's where I grew up. Coming from a non 09:14 Adventist background so my parents weren't Christians or 09:19 nominal Christians and eventually I learned about the 09:21 Adventist truth in my high school. So I have some stories 09:25 to tell about that later on. (Okay) Yeah. 09:30 Well let's start with the basics since we're talking about 09:33 evangelism. Just give us a snippet what's the difference 09:36 between evangelism and what you are involved in and let's talk 09:40 about that. Either one of you just begin. 09:42 Yeah, the best way that I could describe evangelism: Imagine if 09:47 you go to the store and you found out there's a huge sale 09:49 and this is a shadow of an example, but there's a huge sale 09:53 and you know that you can benefit a lot. You cannot help 09:57 but tell people. Hey this is where you can find everything 10:00 that you need, like groceries are 99 percent off and clothes 10:06 and shoes and your tuition paid. Well we have a good news in the 10:12 gospel. Jesus Christ died for us so that we could be reconciled 10:16 with the Father and when you experience that you cannot help 10:21 but tell people everywhere using whatever means possible. So 10:27 that's the edge of evangelism sharing that good news and we 10:30 are commanded by Christ, in a good way, to tell others and to 10:35 make disciples. So that's the basis of evangelism. 10:38 And what about you Stephen? 10:40 I think she did a wonderful job I don't know if I could top that 10:44 For me if it wasn't for evangelism I wouldn't be here. 10:49 For some point. So it really has more of a heart wrenching I 10:58 think the principle and someone actually evangelizing to someone 11:01 else, sharing the good news, has impacted my life personally 11:05 and brought me out of depression and suicidal things. You know I 11:10 am here because of it so it's very personal and I think we 11:14 have to have every way possible to share that. 11:18 Now many people are not doing online evangelism, many churches 11:24 I should say. Why is it a problem if we are not doing 11:27 online evangelism. 11:29 You know I have some numbers here and it might seem a little 11:33 striking but I feel like it's so important to sort of get 11:37 why online evangelism is so important. So every month there 11:45 are 49,500 searches for Sabbath. So somebody's going online every 11:49 single month someone is typing in: What happens when you die? 11:53 Well not someone 74,000 searches for What happens when you die? 11:58 There are 550,000 related to anxiety and 324,000 searches 12:07 related to Bible prophecy. They might not be coming to your 12:12 church door or knocking but asking about Bible prophecy. 12:15 but that does not mean that people are not searching. People 12:18 are searching online. So why would we not want to be where 12:24 people are searching. We would be doing a great disservice to 12:30 the gospel, to the spread of evangelism if we're not making 12:33 that emphasis to have a presence where people are. So that's one 12:39 of the reasons why, like the foundational reasons why 12:42 Center for Online Evangelism and its founders are so passionate 12:46 about equipping churches and equipping individuals and 12:50 ministries to get online and to optimize or make their presence 12:53 be better seen online. 12:56 So many people are online today aren't they? 12:59 That's true, I mean... 13:00 it's the way of the world it seems huh? 13:02 It's called social media, the YouTube universe, Twitter, 13:05 Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. People are online and there are 13:11 hardly any people today that don't own a phone. So that's a 13:14 really amazing statistics. So what I hear you saying is, if 13:18 they're going to search we need to be where they're searching. 13:21 (Yeah exactly) That really makes a difference, Wow. 13:23 There's a story, most of us might be familiar with it in 13:27 John chapter 4. It's the story of the woman at the well. (Oh 13:31 yes) Why didn't Jesus stay in Jerusalem and have the woman 13:35 come find Him in Jerusalem? When we're not online it's like we're 13:40 staying in Jerusalem expecting the Samaritan's to come find us. 13:43 (Good point) Jesus didn't do that. He took His disciples who 13:47 were very uncomfortable. Ah we can't go through Samaria. Like 13:52 they were uncomfortable but Jesus was like that's the only 13:54 way that He's going to get through to her. So He took that 13:58 trip and His disciples and met her at the well where she was. 14:02 That's what online evangelism is We're not staying in Jerusalem 14:05 We're going to the well because that's where people are. 14:09 Wow, preacher! (Multiple voices) That was beautiful. I love what 14:15 you said. Go to the well. That's a sermon title which you be 14:20 working on. 14:22 I can see you brain already. 14:23 It's going to work at the well. All right. That's really really 14:28 good. But now talk about...You hinted to something about 14:31 evangelism was the reason why your life was saved. Now would 14:35 you like to share that after or would you like us to show Tina's 14:38 story first. 14:39 I think we should start with the good news first. Let's start 14:42 with Tina's story because I think it's an amazing testimony. 14:45 Yeah. What you're about to hear is...if you're listening or if 14:50 you're watching what you're about to see is a...one of the 14:53 beautiful stories about online evangelism can turn a life 14:57 around. Right after this you'll hear Stephen's story. 15:01 I drank every night to the point where I didn't really care if I 15:08 lived or not. It was just when's my next drink. I'll go to work 15:12 and be sober but then when's my next drink. It just got to the 15:16 point where I just want to get a divorce or I just want to die. 15:19 I just don't want to be here anymore. 15:22 ♪ ♪ 15:29 Most of my life I didn't realize it I think God really had a plan 15:33 for me all along. Before I was born, my mom was 15 when she got 15:40 pregnant and she had me and had to go into a home for moms and 15:44 she almost gave me up but my grandma decided you know I want 15:47 to keep her and I'll help you raise her and so she raised me 15:51 Throughout my teenage years life was a little rough. My dad was 15:57 an alcoholic. Then I eventually got saved and baptized in the 16:05 Baptist church. But then I met my husband-to-be and we got 16:12 married. He was from a family that liked to party a lot and so 16:17 I just got sucked into that and that's what we did. We would 16:20 party all the time. I became a bad alcoholic and my kids 16:26 suffered as a result of it. But then I just got tired of it. I 16:32 was on the verge of divorce so many times but then something, 16:36 probably my mom's prayers, just kept me going. And I started 16:41 doing some searching online, reading the Bible and googling 16:48 some different questions I had about the Bible. And I found 16:52 that there was people that worship on Saturday and I'd 16:56 never heard of that before. I checked it out and there were 16:59 two churches in the area that worshipped on Sabbath. They were 17:03 called Seventh-day Adventist so I went to the one church and it 17:08 was actually in Edenville, Michigan. So then I started 17:11 doing more research. I did find a lot of negative things about 17:15 Seventh-day Adventists on there saying they worship Ellen White 17:19 they're a cult and just some weird stuff and I thought you 17:24 know I just don't know if I believe all that. So I did some 17:28 more researching and the people that I met they just didn't seem 17:31 like that. They didn't do those things that I saw on the 17:35 internet. And I decided I want to get baptized. I believe this 17:40 is where God's leading me. This is what I want to do. I wouldn't 17:44 be here if I wouldn't have looked up and listened to the 17:48 podcasts and did my research and not believed some of the stuff 17:52 that was out there. I found out for myself whether it was true 17:56 or not. I highly encourage no matter how old you are to get 18:00 involved. My mom, she's almost 70 and she gets on Facebook and she 18:07 posts verses and encouraging words and people see that. It 18:14 helps. It does help. I encourage you as a church member or even a 18:20 leader to get your church online get them the materials they need 18:24 You don't have to know how to get online and how to do these 18:29 things. Center for Online has a ton of stuff that you can look 18:33 at and you can get members of your church that knows how to do 18:38 these things already. Get the young people involved. Get the 18:41 older people involved. They may not want to get online and do 18:46 things but they'll help support either financially or they'll 18:50 pray for your ministry and if the churches don't get involved 18:53 digitally we are missing millions of people and people 18:57 that are going to be lost, my children, your children, your 19:01 grandchildren, they're all online If you don't get involved online 19:05 you're missing all these people. 19:08 ♪ ♪ 19:25 Wow, what a powerful story. (Yes it was) What I love about is 19:28 that it took away the mist and brought into focus the truth 19:33 I like how Tina said there were a lot of negative things about 19:36 Seventh-day Adventist online and I know we've run into that 19:41 ourselves but instead of trying to find out from other people 19:44 what we believe how did you change that? By giving the true 19:49 story. Wow, wow. 19:51 She went to church. She found the church, she ignored that and 19:54 she went to church, found a church. 19:57 And not so much ignoring it but she said I'm not going to be my 20:03 last understanding of what people are saying about 20:05 Adventists. I want to find out for myself. (You're right) And 20:08 found out that was a misrepresentation. 20:10 Praise God for that. 20:12 It is very good and what's remarkable about Tina's story 20:15 is that she actually works with us now. 20:17 She does?! 20:18 Not only was she able to find the truth through online but 20:23 now she is one of the ones in the forefront to work with us. 20:28 Her story is just amazing what God is able to do through her. 20:33 Now on the other side like you were saying some people or 20:37 actually, most people are very discouraged by what is said 20:40 online about Adventists. Sadly that is my story, more so my dad. 20:45 When I came to know about the Adventist truth it was the 20:49 Sabbath that really converted me and there's a whole long story 20:52 about that. 20:53 Were you a Christian before? 20:55 I was kind of a Christian. I went to church because of sadly 20:59 ladies and basketball. That's really what I cared about. 21:03 back in the day. So I just went because my parents went, people 21:07 went but for me I came to a point where I was very depressed 21:12 and I didn't want to live but I then found the Adventist truth 21:15 eventually. But the sad part about this is when I learned 21:20 about the Seventh-day Adventist truth my parents had no idea 21:25 what we were. And so what did they do. They went to Pastor 21:30 Google because everyone is going to Google for answers even 21:35 spiritual answers. So when they searched about Seventh-day 21:39 Adventists in Google the Google said they're a cult. The Google 21:45 said they believe in all these false ideas and they are brain 21:50 washing people. Especially from a Korean background if you're a 21:55 cult you're thinking about baby sacrifices and arranged 21:59 marriages and the whole nine yards. So when they saw that 22:04 online they came to me like Stephen no matter what you do 22:08 you're not going to believe in this. But for me, that was where 22:14 I found hope. And so I had this conflict. Long story short I 22:23 basically went straight fulltime ministry and started working for 22:28 the Lord because I believed that was my calling. And literally 22:33 because of that information that my parents found online, not 22:37 from anyone else, from Pastor Google for 10 years they have 22:42 been distrusting of Adventists. Now my mom is coming around but 22:48 my dad, my stepdad actually, he completely left the church. He 22:53 doesn't believe in Christ anymore and it all started 22:57 because they got the wrong information. He's gotten the 23:00 wrong information from Google search. 23:04 So you eventually joined an Adventist church and got 23:07 baptized. 23:09 That's right amen. 23:10 In Southern California? 23:11 No that was actually...I traveled a bit. I was baptized 23:16 in New Hampshire. That's where we're at now. But I learned 23:20 about the truth in California. 23:24 Wow, wow, so we got some, I mean once again I've never heard 23:29 about Pastor Google but... (laughter) 23:33 Now whose church do you go to? Pastor Google's church? 23:36 And believe everything Google says. 23:38 As strange as that my sound people take online postings as 23:44 valid. It seems to be somebody says I saw it online. It must be 23:48 true. Friends of that's the position you have be very, very 23:51 careful. Because it's online doesn't mean it's true. 23:54 Check it out, follow the bread crumbs. So now tell us about 24:01 online evangelism as it connects to what you do. I'll go back to 24:05 you Felecia. 24:07 Yeah, so the Center for Online Evangelism just a little bit of 24:10 a background. Ed Wagner who is the founder of it, he would 24:14 travel and he would find you know whenever he was in a new 24:18 city where do I find an Adventist church. And it's when 24:21 he pulls up his phone and he says Seventh-day Adventist all 24:23 this negative content is coming up and he said well if I am 24:28 seeing this and I know better as a Seventh-day Adventist what 24:32 is happening for people who don't know and they're searching 24:35 and they're pulling up all this negative information. And so 24:38 that was how the Center for Online Evangelism was birthed 24:41 He saw this need. He saw this problem actually and how many 24:47 people were turning away from truth because of what Pastor 24:51 Google was saying. So with the Center for Online Evangelism 24:54 the focus is and it's a word that might go over our heads a 24:58 little bit: Search Engine Optimization but it is 25:02 essentially finding ways to optimize your website, make your 25:07 website more visible so that when people search that it's 25:11 coming up on the first page of Google because people rarely 25:14 when they search a question or a topic, if it's not in those 25:19 first 10 results they're not going to switch the second page. 25:23 So they're going to focus on what's at the top of that list. 25:27 So the Center for Online Evangelism is trying to get the 25:32 website of our churches, of Adventist.org, all of our 25:36 ministries to be on that first page because people are away 25:41 searching. They want to know about God. They want to know why 25:43 there's suffering. They want to know what is the Sabbath. What 25:46 is going to happen and so we are targeting what we call the low 25:52 hanging fruit, people who are already searching. So that is 25:55 the focus of the Center for Online Evangelism. I don't know 26:00 if you want to add something. 26:01 Yeah with that there's a good example that we could say like 26:05 it's hard to reach the Muslim countries right? Because they 26:08 do not allow such religious things to be seen or heard. Well 26:13 we are partnering with our coordinator for Adventist/ 26:19 Muslim relations in NAD and so what we're trying to do is 26:24 something that we're doing already where we have a website 26:26 that when people in those Muslim countries search our content 26:33 will come up so now they can find those answers where they 26:37 couldn't find it physically around them. (I like that) 26:39 They, the Muslims, they favor more the Adventists don't they? 26:44 Right and that helps because there's so much, once again, 26:47 Pastor Google. You know a lot of time people go online you 26:50 know...Matter of fact, I recently saw online, this is a 26:53 very good time to say this, how there are a lot of things online 26:58 are shifting. I think that the pressures of religious 27:01 influences are even taking things that we know are 27:05 historically true and changing it is because other people said 27:07 that's not what we want to come up online. Like I put what is 27:11 the seventh day of the week? Well, we know that's a given. The 27:14 Saturday is. But now you go online and you put that in, they 27:18 say Sunday because this push to bring Sunday to the forefront 27:22 is leaking out of Europe where they changed the calendar to 27:26 make Sunday the last day of the week. And now it's influencing 27:29 America so you put that in there now they say Sunday. But we know 27:33 that historically you know period from creation to the 27:36 present Saturday is the last day of the week. So we could say 27:39 if you just go to Google and ask Google that's what you're going 27:42 get. You're going to get conflicting views. But when you 27:45 go to the Encyclopedia and the Britannica and official 27:49 authoritative sources you get the truth. So we're saying 27:56 that's what online evangelism is doing, taking you to the source 27:57 not just to this gigantic market flea market of ideology. (Right) 28:02 So when you think about that what can we do to enhance search 28:07 engine optimization. By the way before you go to that I want to 28:11 bring up a slate of your website because this is something that I 28:14 think is so significant for people when they see this. 28:18 Millions are Asking (they are) and there on the bottom left 28:22 CenterForOnlineEvangelism.org and take note of that. We're 28:26 going to give that address again but wonderful website. I thank 28:31 the Lord that the person who brought this about, what was his 28:33 name again? (Ed Wagner) I mean when you see this need, it's not 28:37 just helping your ministry but it's putting us in the proper 28:40 light. So what can we do to increase search engine 28:43 optimization? 28:44 That's a great question because like you said even Google is 28:49 turning their algorithm; what I mean by algorithm is why they 28:53 will put certain websites first, certain answers first when 28:57 people search. That is actually changing. They are trying to 29:02 implement more of the consensus way of giving the results. Kind 29:07 of like you said if you ask Google when is the seventh day, 29:12 they are saying Sunday. You know why that is, is because most 29:15 people online are saying that is true. So it's the consensus 29:21 based result which is not right. Right because we have the truth, 29:26 we know what the Biblical truths are. That should be what's true. 29:30 But now what they're doing is going by what majority of the 29:33 people are saying which could be a devastating thing. That's why 29:37 for us, the Center for Online Evangelism, we really want to 29:40 encourage and help even other ministries to have more of our 29:44 content, more of our truths, out there so that every single page 29:48 that people find, say if they're asking when is the seventh day, 29:52 we're all saying the same thing and when they see that the 29:57 Google...Google is just the machine, you know, picking 29:59 things up. So when they see that it automatically goes toward our 30:02 favor so that when the majority of the people are searching they 30:06 find the right answer. And that's really, I think, one of 30:08 the best ways that we want to encourage our Adventist 30:13 ministries and churches and even members to put the right and the 30:17 truthful answers online. 30:19 You know I'm smiling because I thought about that search engine 30:21 optimization. Now I am actually blessed in this area, not that 30:24 my website is SEO-friendly, working on that, but my name is 30:28 so unique that when you put John Lomacang you're not going to get 30:31 another John Lomacang. Right. So unique and that's what you're 30:36 talking about. Get the right results. If you put Adventists 30:40 you're going to get the right results. If you put seventh day 30:42 Sabbath you're going to get the right results. 30:43 And also when people...say you lost a loved one, you know, 30:48 people are devastated so they put in what happens when you die 30:51 you know, they want to know. How does that reach your website 30:57 or how does it come up or help the website? 31:02 Help answer that question. 31:03 Exactly. We do search engine optimization like you said and 31:08 the thing that you have to do to make that happen is a lot of 31:12 work. We have a team of 30 now all over the world. We all work 31:16 remotely and just to have one page come up it takes sometimes 31:20 two years to get to that first page because, depending on the 31:24 search term and phrase you have to compete with other websites 31:29 to have it up there and it just takes a lot of work. So what we 31:34 do is specifically like those questions that people are asking 31:37 What are people asking. You search and we do research about 31:40 what people are actually wanting to talk about or asking and 31:44 creating the website, writing the website, putting the 31:49 structures in place so that Google when they are searching 31:52 for that answer which website gives the best answer for this 31:55 question. They are able to say hey our website actually makes 31:59 sense, what we're saying and also the structure and the 32:03 technical aspect, how fast does it load. There's so many things 32:05 that they would check off to say okay this website is actually 32:08 giving the best answer, and they will put that up in the first 32:12 page. 32:13 Wow. When you think about the amount of work the millions but 32:16 the billions because you'll never exhaust a search. If you 32:20 just put the letter A in the internet and hit enter you'll 32:24 have millions of responses. So we know that the competition is 32:29 really, reallly great. Before we go any further I just want to 32:32 say Praise God. It's so encouraging to hear that they're 32:35 say hey we will not allow ourselves to be misrepresented. 32:40 Because misrepresentation could be the matter of salvation or 32:44 being lost. 32:45 Yeah. I want to add to that too. It goes with this concept in 32:48 Matthew chapter 5 where Jesus says you are the light of the 32:52 world. You don't put a light under a basket. But most of us 32:56 that's what we're doing. Right. We're putting our light under 32:59 the basket which is somewhere else when everyone else is 33:03 online. So all right guys put that light where everyone can 33:06 see it. And in this morning age where is the place if you put a 33:11 light everyone's going to see it It's going to be online. It's 33:14 not a matter of if you feel comfortable with it or 33:18 if technology and the world is changing us, that's true. But 33:21 again as I mentioned the disciples had to go through 33:24 Samaria even though they were uncomfortable because Jesus knew 33:27 that there was a soul that had to be saved and the whole town 33:31 was converted. So that's how I like to see SEO too is putting 33:34 the light where everyone is going to see it. 33:38 I like that. (Beautiful) You're not only an online evangelist, 33:40 you're an offline evangelist. I mean... 33:44 She does speak for women's ministries and things like that. 33:47 Right? Yeah. 33:49 What a wonderful dynamic team. Let's talk about some of the 33:51 ways we could modify this and help get this message out there. 33:55 You talked about some cards. Let's kind of go down that road. 34:01 Yeah perfect. So like I said it gets a little complicated 34:06 when it comes to SEO. Not everyone is able to do that. 34:10 It takes so much resources. But what we did at Center for Online 34:16 Evangelism, we wanted to make it so much more easier for all of 34:20 our church members to be involved in helping in this 34:23 mission. And what we decided to do was we created something 34:27 called the Ask a Friend card. And these cards are just such an 34:32 easy way, you can see it on the screen. It has a very simple 34:37 design. People love the quality of the cards in the touch (like 34:43 a credit card) yes exactly. It's like a business card where you 34:45 can carry it around in your wallet. And the front has a 34:49 simple question that people are asking online or even offline. 34:52 And the back has a QR code where people can scan with any of 34:57 their smartphones and find the answer online. Now it's coming 35:01 from an offline place. Everyone can spread this out just like any 35:06 literature. You spread them out when you go to the grocery store 35:10 you're talking to someone or you go to an auto mechanics shop 35:12 right. Maybe you don't have all the time to answer the questions 35:16 they ask or you don't feel comfortable. And you just share 35:19 that card and they could check it out. Once they go online now it 35:23 opens up a whole other world, right? They can now look at 35:26 other answers and even come to a Bible study through their 35:31 website. 35:32 Great! We need this. 35:34 I am just excited. Just hold me back somebody. Now this is 35:38 evangelism. I want to go back to something that I was talking 35:40 about at the beginning here and I alluded to it. You know in the 35:44 old way of evangelism, it still has its benefits to having a 35:48 center rather than a center of the online evangelism. Sometimes 35:52 an evangelistic series will be held at a particular location 35:56 which could be one of three things: The seed could be 35:58 planted, it could be watered, or it could be the time of increase 36:02 because you never know. So what you're doing in fact um I see 36:06 it in ways: You may be planting the seed, you may be watering 36:10 the seed or God may be using your ministry to bring about 36:13 the increase. So we talked about that. There's only three ways: 36:18 One plant. Paul planted, Apollos watered, God gave the increase. 36:20 And so what you're doing now is...Church members...You don't 36:26 have to be a church member. If you're watching and you want 36:28 to be an evangelist say I need a couple of those boxes. Or 36:33 maybe...How many cards do you have in total. So there are a 36:38 total of nine topics. We want to increase a lot more. We have so 36:41 many more questions but a total of nine different topics and 36:44 what you saw on the screen at the last screen we call that a 36:50 Starter Kit. So every church or even a business if you have one 36:52 could order the starter kit that comes with about 900 cards, 100 37:01 cards for each on the topic and it also comes with a display 37:03 like a rack that could hold the cards in place so you could put 37:09 it in your foyer, you could put it in an office desk or 37:13 something like that and now everyone can see all the 37:16 questions. 37:18 I can't wait till this program is over so I can order that. 37:20 I mean really. That's...So a hundred in a box. (900) Oh 900! 37:26 in a box?! Really. 37:29 One hundred for each topic. (Woo-ooo) 37:32 Okay so in the box, all 900 are there. All nine topics are 37:35 represented. (Yes exactly) Wow! You know you guys are... 37:43 Imagine going to a restaurant and you want to leave a tip. 37:45 Put the card with the tip. Priceless. 37:47 And I actually went to the website. I scanned it with my 37:51 phone and it took me to the page which led me to other questions. 37:55 (Exactly) That's the beautiful thing about it. An evangelistic 38:00 series on your phone. This is phenomenal! This is Phenomenal! 38:03 We've got to order it for our church. 38:05 Order for our church. 38:07 There is something else that I want to address while we're 38:10 talking about online evangelism. It's a question that I'm faced 38:13 with. With persons who are a little bit hesitant when it 38:16 comes to online evangelism. Well are you replacing community? Are 38:20 you replacing in-person contact in the church. It's not about 38:24 It's not about that. It's not that at all. It's about one, 38:27 reaching people where they are and then bringing them into a 38:30 deeper connection. Most of us especially in this day and age 38:34 my parents for example live in the Bahamas. When we had our 38:38 wedding we got married in the middle of COVID, our parents 38:40 could not be there, well my parents could not be there. 38:42 Right. But they did not miss that opportunity to be present 38:46 because we had Zoom and we had all of these online ways. And so 38:51 with online evangelism you're connecting with people and then 38:56 drawing them. We have to go where they are. So it's not 38:59 about replacing church and replacing connection or 39:02 replacing relationships. We can't just sit back and be like 39:07 well I don't know about it and I'm not comfortable and people 39:10 are online too much anyway. Well they're online whether we're 39:14 doing online evangelism or not. So we might as well use the 39:18 opportunity to share the gospel. (Well said) 39:20 Is it also accessible to Facebook or Instagram. Do you 39:25 have links in those communities. (We do) Okay. 39:29 We have all those. We try to utilize every platform that we 39:32 can. It all depends on how much can we do as a team. But what's 39:39 also really nice is we actually did a research on why do our 39:45 members have a difficulty in evangelizing? And I think that's 39:49 something that you'd be interested in as well. And we 39:52 talked with pastors, we talked with conference leaders and did 39:56 a lot of interviews asking them you know what do you think is 40:00 hindering our church members? There were top four reasons why 40:04 All of them kind of had a similar answer. And one of the 40:08 biggest reasons is because they fear sharing. A lot of members 40:15 fear sharing. They feel like they don't know enough. They are 40:19 not competent in what they want to share what they believe or 40:24 what they think they know. And so that hinders a lot of our 40:29 members from going out. Another thing is they're tired of doing 40:33 the same thing over and over, which we know that traditional 40:38 evangelistic series has it's place but a lot of the members 40:42 are saying, We've been doing that so long. Is there something 40:45 that is more relevant. And so when we did this research we 40:49 said this is perfect. We have these cards and this is 40:53 completely new. It's different than before where they actually, 40:56 the people that are not just reading it from the literature 40:59 but they're reading it online and now they...It's a way of 41:06 sharing in different ways where churches could get involved. 41:07 And so it kind of answered all those questions and now you 41:10 don't need to know everything you need to know about the Bible 41:13 None of us do. Right. But now you are equipped to share these 41:20 cards anywhere you go because you have it in your pocket and 41:22 it has the answer that they need to know. 41:25 Wow, that's really good. Go ahead. 41:28 No, I'm just saying this is so necessary. We're in the last 41:30 days we need to get the gospel out to the world. This is a 41:34 a great avenue to get the gospel out. 41:36 I'm interested in hearing. Did you cover all the four reasons? 41:40 All for reasons, Ah. You were listening. Yeah, so the four 41:45 reasons...So I covered two right The other two are...well I 41:52 covered three actually: Being incompetent to share, a fear 41:55 of sharing and then the third one was tired of doing the same 41:59 thing. The last one is they don't own their faith. That was 42:03 one of the answers that a lot of the pastors and the leaders 42:06 were saying that we are kind of afraid of being known as 42:11 Adventists. We're afraid because people have this negative view 42:15 about Adventism and that's why we actually did our cards and 42:20 the website is called Ask an Adventist Friend. 42:23 Right, to make it clear. 42:24 Make it clear were coming from an Adventist stance. The reason 42:29 why that is, and personally you know that was a problem for my 42:31 family. It's because in the past maybe a lot of people felt that 42:40 there was enough knowledge about Adventism where oh they're a 42:43 cult or they have these negative views. But now we're in a 42:48 different generation where many people don't even know who 42:50 Adventists are. We're not in the forefront anymore. Nobody knows 42:54 who we are anymore. That is a tragedy but it could work for us 43:00 and leverage that where if people don't know who Adventists 43:03 are let's start from a blank canvas. Start painting a picture 43:07 that we know who we are and letting people know truly who we 43:12 are instead of hearing from someone else. 43:15 That's right. We don't want to be the best-kept secret. That's 43:18 a horrible title. You know it's like coming in second place. 43:21 You know you're the first place loser. You don't hey I came in 43:27 second. In the Olympics that may be a glorified thing, first, 43:31 second and third. However why as one of my good friend Dr. Sudho 43:36 Pandit he asked me a question once that really got me thinking 43:38 He said when is a good decision a bad decision and a bad 43:45 decision a good decision? And I thought Why you want to mess 43:49 with me like that? And so here's what his answer was. He says 43:53 a good decision is a bad decision when it could have been 43:57 a better decision or the best decision. So we're making a lot 44:02 of good decisions about evangelism but it could be 44:04 better and why not be the best decision? So this is what I see 44:10 Center for Online Evangelism is all about let's not be known as 44:15 they're good Bible students. Why not be They're the best Bible 44:21 students I've ever met. And I like that what you just said: 44:24 Own it. I'm a Seventh-day Adventist. I'm not ashamed of it 44:28 because the world is not hiding behind any _ right now. 44:31 And when is a good decision, when is a bad decision a good 44:35 decision? That's the other part. When a bad decision could be a 44:40 worse decision or the worst decision. See so we have to make 44:46 sure that we're in the proper context. And thank you for what 44:48 you do here. Now how do we get involved. Let's just kind of... 44:52 you're talking to the viewers here. How could we get involved 44:56 in two ways? Getting you equipped to continue going and 45:01 growing and getting us equipped to continue going and growing 45:04 and getting out there? 45:05 Yeah, so just two ways. Start off with a really short story. I 45:10 love stories. A few maybe months ago I was in my kitchen and 45:15 cutting up peppers. And I saw all the pepper seeds and I was 45:18 about to throw them in the trash. I'm like man this is a 45:20 waste. I had a little planter with soil and I took a handful 45:27 of those seeds...I'm not a gardener, I'm not good at all 45:32 but I thought I wonder what would happen if I just threw 45:34 these seeds in that soil. I threw them in, covered them, 45:37 watered them and all of these sprouts came up. These cards are 45:43 seeds and pastors can purchase the kit, so that's one thing. 45:48 Pastors, business leaders, if you have some sort of influence 45:53 over people, when you purchase the kit and you hand your 45:56 members these cards you're giving them seed. So I say go 46:00 throughout the week they can spread these seeds in the super 46:03 market and so forth so that's the very first thing that you 46:05 can do. Just purchase the kit. It is one of the simplest ways 46:08 to get people started with evangelism. You're not going 46:12 to take a church member and have them preach an evangelistic 46:15 series. They can't do that. Or have them going door to door. 46:20 That's great but not every person is ready to do that 46:24 but each person can take a handful of seeds and put them in 46:27 some soil and then the Lord does the rest of the work. So that's 46:31 the first thing and then second the work that the Center for 46:34 Online Evangelism is doing we won't be able to see the 46:38 effect of it until we get to heaven (multiple voices) 46:41 the bounty. But we need more support, the finances go such a 46:46 long way of helping us to hire more people to write, getting 46:52 more questions on these cards, creating more cards to give them 46:55 out to more people. So those are two main ways, purchase the 46:59 cards and then donating to the ministry. 47:02 And more specifically for the second part we definitely want 47:06 more of these cards. We have some about mental health like 47:10 what do you do with grief? We have things about prophecy. We 47:14 have questions about our own doctrines. Even a prayer, can we 47:18 pray for you. We partner with AWR, Adventist World Radio, to 47:21 have answers when people submit prayers they pray for them. And 47:28 so we want all sorts of cards. Think about it when you go into 47:32 Uber and there's a card about as an Uber driver, how do I 47:39 stress less. Right. If you have a card like that and then after 47:42 you get off Uber you just hand them...hey I hope you have a 47:45 better day today or you just give them the card and it's just 47:50 a phenomenal way of just sharing it right. So we want more of 47:53 these cards which means we need more these pages. It takes a lot 47:57 of work and financial support and workers to get that done. 48:01 And we also not only have more pages but we want other 48:06 languages. One of the biggest requests has been different 48:10 languages. When we go to different events people come to 48:14 us in our booth and say you know can we have this in Spanish? 48:16 We would love to have more of these but right now we need we 48:24 need more resources to make that happen. So that's really where 48:27 we want to... 48:28 You know that's really when you think about the number of 48:30 languages and not only languages but dialects when you come to 48:33 come of these countries. Because I'll say do you speak Philippine 48:36 and somebody says what's that mean. Is it Tagalog or Versai, 48:40 which one is it? What part of... You go to New Guinea...We were 48:46 in Africa and we were speaking English to one person in Kenya 48:50 who was interpreting for another person in Kenya who was 48:55 interpreting... I said what's _. We don't, these 48:58 dialects. We need a person between us. So what a challenge. 49:03 What a challenge. 49:05 Everybody has a phone. They could go... 49:07 That's right. Right on my phone. There it is. That's why I got it 49:11 on my phone. So I scanned it and it took me to the website and 49:14 the topical information is just phenomenal. I want to thank you 49:17 for that. I want to reach out briefly, before we go to our news 49:20 break to some of our audience here. Because you've heard about 49:24 this Center for Online Evangelism. 49:32 CenterForOnlineEvangelism.org and if you just put that in 49:34 in the Pastor, Google search it will at least guide you right to 49:38 it. (multiple voices) Let me make this correct. What is the 49:46 cost of the kit for the cards, the 900 cards. What's it average 49:51 So depending on how many cards you do want exactly on the kit 49:55 it goes anywhere from 59.99 all the way to 89.99 but it comes 50:02 with...the highest one comes with the 900 cards and display. 50:06 Okay that's the 89.99 the cards and the display. (Yes) Which is 50:11 great. I mean that's 900 evangelistic series for $89 50:19 That's just...You can't pay for that. (You can't) And when you 50:22 give one person or 100 people that kind of empowerment you 50:27 cannot tell. Like she just said When would we know the impact? 50:30 Mm-hmm. When we get to heaven. 50:33 Well the great thing is we already have so many churches 50:37 signing up. I think we have now about I think 70,000 cards out 50:43 there in peoples' hands, I mean our church members' pockets. 50:47 Or the churches. So that's slowly growing little by little. 50:52 Yeah. So we want every single member to have these cards in 50:57 their pockets. So no matter where you go you're able to hand 51:01 them out. 51:03 Wow. So what are you going to do Honey? 51:04 I'm going to plant my seed. 51:06 You're going to become an evangelist? 51:07 I'm going to become an evangelist. I love that 51:10 illustration you said about the pot. That's great. 51:12 I learned that early in marriage when I was about to throw away 51:16 a little twig my wife planted that and eventually gave away an 51:19 aloe vera plant. To me, it looked like nothing but a twig. You 51:22 know the gospel may look like nothing but a twig or just a 51:25 seed, a byproduct of some fruit or vegetable. That's the way you 51:29 might see evangelism but when you sow the seed of the truth 51:33 as Center for Online Evangelism is doing you'll be able to 51:38 proliferate the gospel and get the world ready. We're going to 51:41 take a short break but on the other side we have a few closing 51:44 thoughts so don't go away. 51:45 If you would like to contact or know more about the Center for 51:51 Online Evangelism you can do so on the following ways. You can 51:54 write to them at 1867 Williams Hwy Suite 255 51:59 Grants Pass, OR 97527. You can call them at (541) 236-4960. You 52:14 can visit their website at CenterForOnlineEvangelism.org 52:22 You can also send them an email at 52:25 Info@ CenterForOnlineEvangelism.org |
Revised 2023-06-28