DAVID ADAMS reports…
On Sunday, Christians around the world will mark Pentecost – the day recorded in the Biblical book of the Acts of the Apostles when the Holy Spirit poured out upon members of the early church. Thanks to a global social media campaign, tens of thousands of who don’t yet know Jesus as their Saviour, may also mark that day as a significant one in their lives.
UK-based charity Christian Vision (CV) is enlisting the help of Christians around the world in a bid to create a global “thunderclap” on 8th June which will see an automated post or tweet about their faith sent to a million of their friends and family members simultaneously.
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“Something big happened on that one day (Pentecost). In a way, this is what we want to see through #goeverywhere. Christians acting in unity, cross-denominationally, in a single moment on a single day to see the world hear the Gospel.”– Christian Vision spokesman Rob Stinson |
The tweet will simply read “This is why I believe #Jesus #goeverywhere” and refer people to the website www.goeverywhere.co where they will find a two minute video in which an Australian-based presenter, Terrence, presenter shares about his faith in Jesus Christ.
Rob Stinson, Australian-based marketing manager for CV’s international English team, says the idea for the #goeverywhere emerged when the organisation began to see lives changed through Christians sharing their faith on its video sharing website, yesHeis.
The website, one of numerous Gospel sharing sites CV operates around ther world, features some 6,000 videos sourced from across the web in which people share their faith and which those who sign up to the site can share with family and friends.
“Because the content on yesHEis all has a Gospel component and then directly links through to a Gospel presentation, people who engaged with it on social media were being impacted by the good news,” he says.
“We then asked ourselves, what would it looks like if Christians all did something around the Gospel at exactly the same time online? Could we make the Gospel go ‘viral’? Could the Gospel become headline news again? These ideas turned in to this question: ‘What does it look like when Christians all over the world stand together in a single moment, make the most of the opportunity and share the Gospel?’”
Mr Stinson says the aim of the campaign is to see as many Christians as possible across the world share the Gospel presentation at the same time, creating a “spike” of social media activity on the subject of the Gospel.
“When the tweets and posts go out on 8th June we are expecting and hoping for a huge amount of people to click through to the Gospel presentation,” he says.
“If they watch it through to the end they will be given an opportunity to respond to the message they have just heard, even if it is only to get in contact with someone in our response team to ask further questions.”
These specially trained teams are based across its offices internationally and can respond in multiple languages. One of their main aims is to connect people to local churches in their area.
Mr Stinson says it is hoped the social media reach of the campaign will exceed a million people, noting that when he spoke to Sight last week, more than 900 Christians with a combined social media reach of 724,000, had signed up.
He says the selection of Pentecost Sunday as the day when the thunderclap is to take place reflects the day’s significance.
“Something big happened on that one day. In a way, this is what we want to see through #goeverywhere. Christians acting in unity, cross-denominationally, in a single moment on a single day to see the world hear the Gospel.”
