The internet has outpaced the gospel in reaching the world.
2/3 of the world has internet access. But less than 1/3 of the world would self-proclaim to be Christian.
It’s amazing to see how fast the internet has been adopted worldwide. In just a handful of decades, the internet has reached more lives than the Church has after more than 2,000 years. Now it may not be fair to compare the global adoption of a religion to a technological infrastructure, but both require significant work, partnerships, and resources in order to gain global adoption, and we see the results of both efforts.
Even as my wife and I have traveled to remote regions of the globe, we’ve seen some communities that don’t have access to running water, but they do have cell phones. That amazes me! Something about the internet and digital technologies is so compelling that they’ve chosen to invest their time, talents, and treasures towards getting internet or phones long before they would chase after the gospel.
And now, I can talk with someone half-way across the world from the comfort of my own living room. I don’t have to get on a plane or boat, and I don’t have to wait to see them. I can open up Zoom or WhatsApp and immediately connect with virtually any person in the world. The internet has allowed us to reach more people, faster and more easily than any other technology in human history.
More and more people are living large portions of their lives online.
Did you know the average person spends 6 hours and 58 minutes online each day? “What?!?” I know, that’s what I thought too. How could people POSSIBLY spend nearly 7 hours a day online? And EVERY day? Surely that’s just the techie fanatics or something.
Here’s some crazy things about that average person who spends 7 hours a day online (let’s call them Sam for the sake of conversation):
Sam spends about 2.5 hours each day on social media
Sam spends 1.5 hours listening to music streaming services
Sam spends 1 hr daily listening to podcasts
And Sam spends 1.25 hrs playing video games.
Sam is your average internet user anywhere in the world.
For more stats like these, check out the rest of the Digital 2022: Global Overview Report from Data Reportal.
We’ve all seen and experienced it. There’s a lot of negative and terrible things that happen online. There’s also a lot of falsehoods, half-truths, and temptations that point us to false gods and destructive ways of living.
Maybe you’ve heard the famous quote, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” (Jim Rohn, author). Considering how much time people are spending online, it’s not hard to see how much influence the digital world is having on people every single day.
There is a global war for people’s hearts and minds. People are being massively influenced and discipled by the digital world.
But... what if we could use the internet to reach & influence the world for Jesus?
Imagine if we could...
offer every person with internet access the opportunity to discover Jesus?
give each of them ways to grow and mature in their faith online?
connect them with a body of believers, whether locally, online, or some combination of both?
give them ways to experience the life change that Jesus brings? And empower them to become fully mature in Christ?
empower believers to discover their part of God’s Kingdom, and offer them ways to live it out?
send believers out as disciple makers to reach their neighborhoods or the online communities they’re part of?
And what if those sent believers were empowered with digital resources to be sent to the communities around them that don’t yet have internet access?
Imagine if the internet and digital platforms could be used to give every person in the world the opportunity to know Jesus, to grow in relationship with Him, and to discover their part in God’s kingdom.
God has already been at work to do this, and we want to join Him in that work.
As more and more of the world comes online, the opportunity to share the gospel & help people experience the Kingdom life increases.
Global internet adoption is set to rapidly increase in the next few years. That’s thanks in large part to the creation of new global internet companies like Starlink by SpaceX or Amazon’s Project Kuiper. And as companies race to provide global internet coverage, the Church needs to race alongside it to use the internet as a worldwide platform to reach the world for Jesus. Even if the internet doesn’t reach 100% of the global population in the next few decades, it already has reached a significant portion of the global population, and likely the most influential portion of the population, at that.
The internet and its related technologies are some of the greatest tools ever developed for human flourishing, even if some choose to use it for harmful reasons. God is in the work of redeeming what the enemy uses for evil and transforming it for His good and for His glory. I believe that’s exactly what God is doing with the internet and digital platforms — creating new ways for people all over the world to come to know Jesus and experience the joy that comes from walking in his ways.
Perhaps the Internet could even be the way God aims to fulfill Habakkuk 2:14:
“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD’s glory, as the water covers the sea.” - Habakkuk 2:14, CSB
As more and more people continue using the internet to answer the questions of everyday life, they also begin to use it to answer deeper, more personal, and spiritual questions. Will we as the global church be there in the midst of their searching? Could we leverage digital to offer people the hope of Jesus in the moment of their struggle or questions? And could we support them digitally in their walks with Jesus after they’ve discovered Him and aim to grow in relationship with Him?
A new kind of ministry is needed to make disciples effectively in this new digital era.
As more and more people live their lives online and are influenced by the digital world, new ministry strategies are needed to make disciples well. We also need a new breed of missionaries who know how to traverse the digital world, build digital platforms that make disciples, and translate the gospel into a rapidly changing global culture being shaped by the online world. Like the sons of Issachar, we need people who “understand the times and know what to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32)
This is why we are building Lightworks — a new kind of missions organization that harnesses the power of digital to make disciples who walk in the way of Jesus.
As we get started, we see our work of making disciples digitally falling into a few key categories:
Build digital experiences that meet people at every point on their spiritual journey.
Connect the hoses between digital experiences to ensure people can move from never having heard of Jesus to walking in His ways.
Inspire and activate the body of Christ to participate in digital missions as well.
Over time, these strategies may change, but our vision will always remain the same:
We dream of a day when every person with internet access would have the opportunity to become disciples of Jesus and to be fully supported every step along their journey with Him.
We’re excited and passionate about the opportunity that lies ahead in this new ministry. And while many have gone before us to take on various parts of the task of making disciples digitally, we have yet to find another missions organization dedicated to digitally supporting people across their entire spiritual journey - from never having heard of the name of Jesus, to fully walking in the ways of Jesus (something I’m excited to unpack in future posts.)
We long to be faithful to the commission Jesus gave to His disciples and to us in Matthew 28 to make disciples:
Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20 CSB
And while the command will always stay the same, our strategic methods will need to change to reach the people God has called us to, as Paul demonstrated in 1 Corinthians 9:
“Although I am free from all and not anyone’s slave, I have made myself a slave to everyone, in order to win more people. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win Jews; to those under the law, like one under the law—though I myself am not under the law—to win those under the law. To those who are without the law, like one without the law— though I am not without God’s law but under the law of Christ—to win those without the law. To the weak I became weak, in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I may by every possible means save some. Now I do all this because of the gospel, so that I may share in the blessings.” 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 CSB
As the world continues to undergo this massive digital culture shift, we are excited to bring the gospel to a world that desperately needs Jesus and to support them in their walks with Jesus from start to finish. There’s still much left to discover as we follow the Lord in faith, but we’ve also been incredibly blessed with each step of faith we’ve taken in starting this new digital ministry. It’s been an incredible adventure already, and we can’t wait to see what the Lord continues to do as we step out in faith to make disciples digitally.
Lightworks. Making Disciples Digitally.
If you want to follow our journey of building this new digital missions organization, be sure to subscribe to this newsletter. We’ll send out regular updates along the way about our progress, processes, and things we’re learning. Join us, and lets celebrate God’s work together.
Want to read what happened last week at Lightworks? Check out the latest Captain’s Log Update: