Jesus’ mandate to his
disciples was simple: “Go into all the
world and preach the Good News to everyone.” – Mark 16:15. At that time
that seemed to be a herculean task for the disciples, but the mandate was much
more fulfilling than any challenge posed to them. In this new era, the world is
now virtually accessible and one does not have to “go” into all the world, but
rather one can now “Google, tweet, post, like and share” all the world.
The 21st Century has created various opportunities
through the advent of social media. More so, any believer in Christ’s kingdom can
now easily fulfill this mandate to spread the Good News wherever
we may be. Access to Social media is now
as common as universal primary education. Everyone is either directly or indirectly
influenced and informed by it, so doesn’t this make the mandate become easier for
His disciples?
The church now has a major opportunity to not only meet its members
and friends that are associated with their fellowship, but to now capitalize on
these opportunities presented by the advent of social media by reaching the
masses beyond their borders.
Tweets, posts, blogs, shares, links and likes
are the new hot words due to the social media era. The gospel, by definition, is the teaching of the life of Jesus Christ
and with these social media
platforms; Facebook, Twitter, Google + to name a few, they have all made it
quite easy to now consume and create multimedia content that can teach the
masses of Jesus. The world has successfully used these platforms to constantly
inform their subscribers of the latest news, the hottest gossip and the most
current update for the next best application
in the market, but what about the church? More so, what about the Caribbean
church? What is the Caribbean church doing with these amazing and influential
sites that seem to have the attention of the majority of its population which
are the youth?
With a more local focus, Churches in Guyana have been grappling with this opportunity. Fundamentally, they’ve
tried to use these platforms exactly the way the North American, Asian and
European territories have done it, forgetting that we don’t have to use their
method wholesale, but we can tweak it to suit our congregations. Along with
tweaking, we also have to effectively communicate with the congregation using our
own language that is unique and attractive that would automatically appeal to
our masses.
The art of social media is attractiveness in text, visuals
and sound. The church now has to form messages from the Word of God that
will be impactful yet simple enough to fulfill Jesus’ mandate. The next step
after conceptualizing these messages is dissemination – which is already
catered for by these social media platforms – but this can only be reached if
the members play an active role at the dissemination stage. This should be
easy, seeing that we’re all mandated by the same Jesus to “Go into all the world and teach…” or is it?
The effective utilization of our networks as members –
through the advent of social media - can expedite this God-given mandate.
The “Church” – which is not the building we congregate in on Sundays, but
rather “we” as individuals are the church – should rethink and reconsider our
ways in reaching the masses. It is the
belief of many that the Senior Pastor and
its board members– have to come up with these plans and strategies to fulfill
its God given mandate. If we’re to continue with this attitude, each of us would single
handedly obstruct the realization of every soul coming to
hear of the Lord Jesus Christ. “I’ve come not to condemn you”, but to encourage
you as believers in the Kingdom of God to remember the mandate and to use these
same social media platforms that we use on a daily basis to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.
