Tag: missions

A Shift in Attitude

Read Isaiah 38

“Then, Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, and said, ‘Please, O Lord, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.’ And Hezekiah wept bitterly.” – Isaiah 38:2-3

God told Hezekiah he would die and to set his house in order. Upon hearing this, Hezekiah wept bitterly. He turned his face to the wall to pray privately. The commentary discusses the difference in how Christians pray today under the New Covenant.

We have the assurance of Salvation, whereas the Old Testament required sacrifices, and the afterlife was not clearly understood. Death was naturally feared. Hezekiah is said to pray, saying how good he’s been and pleading for mercy, and this is said to be a normal way in the Old Testament to approach the Lord. Today, we pray differently.

“We pray in the name of Jesus (John 16:23-24), not in the name of who we are or what we have done.” (David Guzik, Blue Letter Bible)

God answered Hezekiah’s prayer and gave him 15 more years to do better as a man of faith and to set his house in order. This reminded me of the many times we are given mercy rather than consequences, but do we see it?

As a believer, I try to appreciate those moments of mercy, not because I deserve it or because I’m such a great person (I’m not), but because He loves me and is wise. He loves you, too. He loved you all the way to the cross. Maybe God’s acts of mercy in your life are because of something He sees in your future or someone else’s future. Mercy may be more beneficial in some way than the consequences.

Trust the Lord for the outcome amid terrible circumstances or wrestling with the aftermath of bad decisions. God gave Hezekiah 15 more years to do the right thing and get his house in order. Not many of us are given that kind of second chance. Death can come instantly. It’s too late to make better decisions or to accept Christ once death comes. Even on a Roman cross, a man can repent, and Jesus will accept Him into heaven at the last minute.

But the other one made him shut up: “Have you no fear of God? You’re getting the same as him. We deserve this, but not him—he did nothing to deserve this. Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.” – Luke 23:40-42 (MSG)

  • Pray in humility.
  • Pray with a healthy fear of God, that He is holy.
  • Trust the Lord. Pray for Him to help you with this.

Related Verses:

Youtube: Gen Z Report

Hey, church, missionaries, and church communicators!

Youtube has released their 2022 Gen Z report. Why is this important?

Because we want content for them, too! In any social media platform, engagement is important. Let’s build community together and inspire people to pray, serve, give, and go with our posts.

Gen Z is 18-24 year olds. If you are a mission org, this is a good age to begin to see how God wants them to serve others. Can you use the ideas (or come up with your own) to help move them to pray, serve, give, or go on Youtube?

This interpretation of the report comes from both a mission org and church communicator perspective.

  • “65% of Gen Z agree that content that’s personally relevant to them is more important than the content that lots of other people talk about.” Can we create content in our contexts that are relevant to the questions being asked or searched for by Gen Z? For a church, this is a great jumping off point. You can engage them in the questions that are important to them.
  • Youtube communities are groups that actively participate in a shared identity or interest online.
    • Example was “Flightspotting”. When disaster happens in an area of the world, perhaps we can show videos of people helping with the recovery? Maybe inspire them with personal stories? Short ones?
    • According to a marketing article, National Geographic shows video of beautiful scenery in stories to stop the quick consummation of online content. It causes people to pause and watch. In the Youtube report, Gen Z is looking for videos that help them relax.
  • Is your church a “Superfan” of something? Gen Z videos that follow someone or something and gives a narrative of it is also popular. Watch some of the videos on Youtube to get some ideas of how you, as a church, can get into good discussion with Gen Z on movies, television shows, characters, books, etc.
    • “Growing fan formats include videos about how to start your own K-pop fan channel, while fancam videos — fan edits focusing on individual band members — have billions of views. K-pop labels have even started releasing these videos as official content.”
  • In a church conference I attended in Georgia, they talked about meming the sermon, but how about doing this via video? “63% of Gen Z followed one or more meme accounts in the past 12-months.”
  • Short is better…most of the time, right? How about produce a quick 1 minute or less “complete” soundbite that people can preview and have in the YouTube description the link to the whole version or longer version? People are watching the Sunday services in pieces anyway. What about a several part Bible study? Or a topic that covers one of Gen Z’s questions? “59% of Gen Z agree that they use short-form video apps to discover things that they then watch longer versions of.” Maybe a missionary could produce a Bible Study and have a short form video to give a preview of the study with a link in the YouTube description to the longer version?
  • “People are expressing themselves through metaverse content. In the Middle East and North Africa, gamers live streaming during Ramadan carry their fasts over to their digital avatars.” Missionaries, are you into gaming? Churches, do you have gamers in your midst that can reach out to people through gaming?
  • “90% of Gen Z have watched a video that helped them feel like they were in a different place.” Mission orgs! Are you doing digital prayer walks or ministry tours? Are you sharing video that help them feel like they are there in that place?
  • “69% of Gen Z agree that they often find themselves returning to creators or content that feels comforting to them.” Nostalgia, comfort media, and highly aesthetic “vibe” content. The example YouTube used was a Puerto Rican artist who used 360-video to enable the viewer to “vibe out with him and his friends on a tropical beach.” Church creators can do this with Bible teachings, Sunday School, prayer walks, women’s events, camps, men’s events, etc. Mission org creators can use this to get content from missionaries overseas who are willing to share videos that help transport someone to an area. Maybe a “hang out with a missionary” day or hang out with someone who lives and is native to the area that day to learn about a people group?

Many thanks to MII for having “The Connected Church News” each week which is helpful to both the church communicator and mission org communicator. To read week one of July where this report first came to my attention, click here.

(Pictured: Last week, I was visiting Nutrioso Bible Church in Nutrioso, AZ – 19-minutes from Eager, AZ. I am currently training Grace Church in Chino Valley, AZ, The Outpour in Toccoa, GA, and now Nutrioso Bible Church in digital disciple-making tools and practices).

Upcoming Social Media Workshop!

A friend shared Proverbs 25:21-22 with me, and it helped me better understand it in light of the whole Bible. It reads, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.”

RedeemingGod.org said, “Proverbs 25:22 instructs us to give our enemy so many burning coals they have to carry them the way burdens are carried in the Middle East: in a container on the head. Then they can go back and immediately bake their bread without having to wait for the wood to become suitable coals for cooking. burning coals. This is quite different than setting someone’s head on fire.”

“When a person’s fire went out,” one commentary says in the article, “he needed to borrow some live coals to restart his fire.”  

We should use social media to “restart the fires” of those whose coals are cold, even if they are our enemies. This is not an easy task, and the effort has a cost.

Ephesians 6:12 says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”  This verse makes it easier to view others as image-bearers of God instead of an enemy or someone that offends us mightily. The cost is in the effort of self-control and choosing our words and battles wisely, and investing our time in others. This means learning about the people we follow on social media, their needs, and how to love and pray them to heart transformation. It also means being patient.

Baptism is just the start of a journey. We forget all the interactions that lead up to that baptism. We also forget the journey that follows to surrendering ourselves to the Lord.

On January 15, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., I am hosting a workshop on “Five Habits to Change on Your Social Media to Transform Your Heart and Community.”

Registration is required. If you want to learn how to restart the fires of those whose fires have gone out, join me that day to learn more. Maybe it will help restart your own fire?

WorldVenture is about engaging the world for Gospel impact through multiple disciples compelled by the love of God and willing to risk all so that people are transformed by God, impacting their families, communities, and the world.

And, God has given us the technology to make meaningful connections with people from all over the world. What’s stopping you from getting more involved in what God is doing?

(This is a WorldVenture event. Click here to register.)

The Man With The Bullhorn

A man stood on the corner, shouting into his bullhorn, “Repent, or you will go to hell!” Social Media has become the bullhorn–A place rife with opinions. What if instead, we asked questions?

Rather than tell people how to think, walk with them as they think. 1 Peter 5:2-3 talks about shepherding. The commentary by David Guzik speaks of pastors.

“Shepherds should not do their job as lords, because the sheep do not belong to them. The sheep are entrusted to them. Instead, shepherds are to serve by being examples, not dictators. (emphasis mine)” (from here)

Every person on social becomes a shepherd; an example people follow whether they want that role or not. What we post both visually and literally shares our character with others. Everything from how often we check in to a church, to what we are studying in the Bible, to how we interact with others gives a visual story of our life to others. If we become the man with the bullhorn, we will only get people who agree with us and alienate the rest of them. If we alienate others, we do not have any connection with them.

Seek to honor others and slow down in building those friendships. A former pastor friend once said, “Salvation is a supernatural miracle.” It won’t happen overnight.

  • First, get to know your friends, what they post, what they are thrilled with, and how they struggle.
  • Converse with them often.
  • Most importantly, seek to meet them for coffee where the Spirit leads. Let the online friendship complement the face-to-face one.
  • Seek friendship because you care, and remain friends with them even if they choose not to become a believer. Always be authentic in all your friendships.

As to the man with the bullhorn, I only saw him once or twice. Most people avoided him. Others, like me, stared because it was so freakish. Things could have been different had he just talked to people.

Good Reads:

When I Grow Up…

From the WorldVenture Blog Post

In 2015, Megan Murphy started “The Kindness Rock Project.” She left a rock on the beach of Cape Cod with the words “You’ve Got This” painted on it. Facebook rock painting groups began where communities did a grown-up Easter egg-like hunt for hand-painted rocks, leaving pictures with hints on Facebook groups so a family or person could find it and report it to the group. Over the past year or two, I’ve participated in this trend as a form of community outreach for online connections. Last week, my prayers yielded phenomenal results.

Kairi and her mom were hiking in the Dells in Prescott, Arizona when Kairi discovered my painted rock sitting near the Highline Trail. She turned the stone over and saw the contact information Modge-Podged and taped to the back.

The back of the rock contained a QR code, my email, and the instructions, “Please post to the Chino Valley Rock Facebook Group.” The QR code included a link to BibleGateway. Kairi sent me a message through her mom’s email account, saying, “Found your rock. I am 11-years old, and I want to do what you are doing. I want to be a missionary when I grow up.”

Read more by clicking here

Pipeline: A Review

At times, Pipeline: Engaging the Church in Missionary Mobilization felt like a morning devotional rich in Scripture. Other moments, the book became a how-to manual on how to engage your church in the Great Commission, ending in pages of written essays from representatives of different missionary agencies. If you are indecisive where to sign up, this book is quite helpful.

Of course, I knew where I wanted to sign up.

It wasn’t because a church mentored me into missions. God called me to WorldVenture to serve in an area very few recognized as a mission field—social media. It’s important to invite me to a committee to answer questions as most people get it wrong when they try to present what I do. Some think I mentor other missionaries. Others think I play online. Why should I support someone to play on social media, right?

Marketers understand. They’ve used social media for years to manipulate us to buy cereals we shouldn’t eat, cars we can’t afford, and books we end up not reading again. An unknown number of books exist online on how to use story, algorithms, and bots to get our product or services in front of people using social media. Churches also use these tools to market their church. Even your favorite speakers have a social media communicator on staff which is how you find their publications online.  

In Pipeline: Engaging the Church in Missionary Mobilization, they suggested the church mentor a future generation of missionaries through training, prayer, and coaching. What they left out was social media. We can use all the same tools as a marketer to get God’s story of missions into our church, through meaningful and authentic interaction, videos that come alive (like Movingworks.org), and help foster emotional involvement. Social Media allows missionaries to talk to their partners, to the people they serve in their areas, and to church congregations. For the first time, we don’t have to wait for a missionary to mail a letter. Social media can be used to coach others and build relationships through online connections.

Some notable quotes from the book include,

  • “The call to minister cross-culturally is a call to suffer for the sake of a message and the glory of Jesus’ name.” (Pg. 11)
  • “Was I going to allow God to interrupt my life with his purpose and push mine aside? Or was I going to cling to the life I had always wanted?” (Pg. 13)
  • “The warning here is that the institutional church, just like the humans who inhabit it, will always take the path of least resistance unless its leaders fully surrender to the hard work of obedience to the call of God and the Great Commission.” (Pg. 62)

After spending almost 11-years as a church secretary, I knew we needed to tell a better story of what God is doing in the world so the congregation not only gets emotionally involved, but is on fire in their own communities to share the Gospel (on and offline) with the unchurched, the unloved, and the unreached even at great sacrifice and much discomfort. Pipeline gives a thorough understanding of missionary mobilization from the perspectives of missionaries, churches, and mission organizations.

And even better, the work God has called me into involves mobilization. Social media touches nearly every ministry in WorldVenture. My work will be multi-faceted because we use social media to make disciples.

3 Reasons Why You Should Get Involved in Social Media

I shared with 50 women at Grace Baptist Church’s Women’s Luncheon on May 5:

  • Pastors of less than 100 congregants are usually bi-vocational.
  • When a pastor says he is part-time, he is being paid for part-time, but working full time.
  • Depending on where you get your data, there is 1 missionary for every 200,000 to 400,000 people. That is a lot of friend requests on Facebook. It is difficult to give that many people (if not impossible) quality interaction.
  • The church is still polarized regarding social media.
  • Average 300-people churches don’t have a large staff. Therefore, it is difficult for one pastor to do both discipleship and run a church by himself.
  • Shared about my new role with WorldVenture. It is not uncommon for non-profit organizations to have their social media person do multiple duties. This supported position is important as my duties focus solely on social media and technology, including mobilizing the church to serve online in missions alongside WorldVenture.
  • A generation gap is widening. In our post-Christian generation, we need our Senior Adults online more than ever.

Here are the main 3 reasons to get involved with social media and technology:

  1. Missions need all of us involved in discipleship. Every Bible-believing church. Every solid Christian.
  2. Lack of discernment and vision is destroying American Christianity. American Christianity is losing influence. With only 7-20% of Americans measurably active in their Christian faith and Bible illiteracy reining, using social media for teaching and discipling is a priority.
  3. People move from different countries. They have retired from missions. They know a second or third language. Family relationships are international. People in church like this are important for online discipleship and sharing of the Gospel.

**To ask me to speak to your church, please email me or leave a comment. You can send a comment through here: www.worldventure.com/nhahn. 

Volunteers Needed #Missions #Mentors #Writers

TRC Magazine:

You told her many times that you aren’t a writer. She heard your testimony many times and so have others. You can’t put two sentences together. TRC Magazine is looking for writers who will give a voice to the people God is working through that can’t write. We are looking for writers to show us all aspects of the Christian life. We are a very diverse crowd. Provided the story follows the usual statement of faith and won’t lead anyone astray, you are welcome to apply here.

Cataclysm Missions Intl LLC:

Many volunteer positions exist here. Can you mentor someone online? Can you help a church or ministry do online work better? Can you write once per month on the blog and help others evangelize online and face-to-face? Check out this ministry here.

Walking the Walk

5.02%

It’s been quite a week. I go home from one job to start another (my favorite one).

This morning I have a list of things to accomplish before Monday. I look forward to the day when I only have to work one job (this one). Meanwhile, I am happy to report the new numbers for May. Many thanks for your financial partnerships. Together we can make a difference in the world with God working through us.

For those not understanding why missionaries raise funding, here is an article that goes into a little bit of scripture. As a friend reminded me, there is no such thing as part time ministry. Help me help you serve people online.

Keep praying me to 100%!

The Bible contains numerous examples of both Jesus, His disciples and the Apostles depending on the financial support of others during their ministry. Luke 8:1-3 says,“Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities—Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance.” These women, among others, were paying the expenses for Jesus to travel through the cities “bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.” Jesus depended on others for support. READ MORE

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