Statistics are everywhere today. Americans use numbers to keep track of everything. Christians are no exception. That fact is a source of irritation to some, though not all agree.
In his article titled God Likes Big Numbers, World magazine founder Joel Belz said, “God doesn’t need big numbers to bring about His purpose, but without numbers you can’t appreciate what (He) is doing.” I like that.
To illustrate what God is doing around the world through online missions and technology, I’m experimenting with a new feature called, “The Online Missions Big Number of the Week.”
For a while now, we’ve been covering developments in the use of digital technology for carrying out nearly all aspects of church ministry. Some ministries invest primarily in website technology, but not a whole lot more. Some, like the 12,000 member Northland Church of Orlando, FL, are on the cutting-edge in how they integrate the Web and New Media into ministry.
In March, Northland debuted the first Facebook application that allows members to watch a live service and chat with other viewers. A pastor is on hand to do Q&A.
Bringing church to the people
Northlander’s have a vision to bring the church to where the people are, rather than waiting for the people to come to church. In addition to the Facebook app, Northland’s online outreach initiatives include:
• Live, two-way video connections to broadcast services to other satellite locations
• Interactive webcasting
• An iPhone app
• Internet evangelism
Northland has 250 online missionaries doing Internet evangelism through its partnership with Global Media Outreach (GMO). The 250 members are divided into 8 communities – 7 English language, 1 Spanish – with 30 members in each group. Several Swedish and Portuguese speaking members participate with GMO communities outside Northland that are doing online missions in those languages.
In 2009, the church’s 250 missionaries responded to more than 91,000 seekers that indicated making a decision for Christ, a recommitment, or had a spiritual question.
That’s huge, but there’s more.
Simple church
Many online seekers that come to Christ through the Northland-GMO partnership are not involved with a local church or community of believers. Many are in countries that don’t even allow traditional churches to exist.
Northland’s vision for solving that dilemma is to bring at least two different families together for worship, anywhere in the world, to form a “simple church.”
Dr. Joel C. Hunter, Northland’s senior pastor and one of GMO’s online missionaries, believes resourcing people to be the church where they are is the ultimate missions experience. These simple churches (or house churches) can then multiply and make other churches.
The cost of starting a simple church is considerably less than traditional church planting approaches.
Northland and GMO provide free training and ministry resources translated into the native languages. Worship takes place in homes or online. Along with GMO’s network of church partners, Northland has church communities on the ground in Cairo, Kiev and Capetown.
Everyone will be able to hear the Gospel and not only have an invitation to know Jesus Christ but, should He tarry, have the support that they need to grow in Christ and impact their communities for Him.” Dr. Joel Hunter
According to Dr. Dan Lacich, who oversees the GMO simple church strategy, “The goal is to give the top 15 language groups access to everything they need for starting a house church.”
Pastor Hunter predicts that the earth can be covered with the gospel in our lifetime.
People that started out as simple seekers, responding to a simple presentation of the gospel on a website, are being given the tools and support to form a simple church. They can conduct evangelical worship in their own language.
God is using 250 online missionaries, working out of one local church in Orlando, as the first link in a process to reach people with the gospel, to help grow them in knowledge of the word and to start churches, literally anywhere in the world.
250, the online missions big number of the week.