The Field is The World

A brief testimony posted on our private Facebook page for Online Missionaries recently illustrates how vital the connection between an Online Missionary and a disciple can be. Jim writes:

“I thank God everyday for Global Media Outreach.This week a man from Uganda shared this with me. ‘Thank you for teaching me sir. 7 years back… GOD said to me I'm giving you a friend called JIM. I will thank my GOD because the message is doing a good work in me.’ What if I had not been faithful to the call? This is just a reminder to me of God's calling upon our lives and that we should be faithful.”

Jim later shared more of what his disciple had shared about his cultural situation: “I questioned myself why you asked my name. My mother produced 6 baby boys. It annoyed [my father], because he wanted a baby girl; he was very very poor. In our tribe, you get dowry for girls. He was hoping to come out of poverty, so he made a plan that if my mother has a boy, both she and I will be killed. He acted in all ways of killing me. So my mother named me Bokino the aborted calf, the spirit of abomination, of the clan. The situation was very bad to me until the time I got saved, God changed my name MWEBAZA PAUL. mwebaza meaning (thank you.)"

Have you ever worried, “What about those who have never heard?” This is a question concerned Christians often ask themselves. As Jim’s and Mbweza’s story shows, God is actively involved in the lives of those who are seeking Him; and we’re so excited to be a part of that!

As Volunteer Care Coordinator, Cindy is regularly communicating with Online Missionaries like Jim. Today, she heard back from a Nigerian OM serving in Malaysia who asked for prayer for his wife’s painful illness, but mostly that he’d continue to be faithful to the call to spread the gospel. Because of your support and prayers, we’re able to serve in this worldwide outreach. Thank you so much! We’re going to ask you to pray for us in the same way Cindy prayed for our brother serving in Malaysia:

“…that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.” (Ephesians 6:19, ESV)

Please let us know how we can pray for you!

As our ministry nears the two billion mark of gospel visits, I thought I’d show some data from the last few years to try to explain how we’ve been refining our approach.

First, end-of-year results from 2015-2019:

These graphs illustrate several trends: first, our slightly lower gospel visit rate shows that our central funding hasn’t quite kept pace with the rapid growth of our ministry between 2007 and 2013 as the world came online on smartphones. Second, please notice the relative growth in new contacts as we’ve learned to optimize for those who fully engage with our ministry. The way I look at it, the contacts are our true ministry, the results of the “harvest.”

These are the people who have actually given us a way to connect with them by providing an email or social media address. They receive our initial “Look To Jesus” follow-up material, (created by my friend Dan Lee and myself), and an additional thirty days of “Next Steps.” (created by board member John Beckett) They are assigned an Online Missionary whose job it is to follow-up with them, personally verify their indicated decision, partner with them in prayer, engage in personalized discipleship and even help them find a church if possible. (We call the process “Share, Grow, Connect.”)

By God’s grace, through the prayers and support of consistent partners like you, our ministry efforts brought new contacts in at a rate in 2019 that was 314% of what we were doing in 2015! Please join us in prayer for the dramatic growth of God’s Kingdom in their home nations!

Love, in Christ,

One Day Closer!
Romans 13:11