Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 <inaudible> village church basing your here. I'm sitting with pastor Michael fueling
Speaker 1 00:00:10 Who just started a four week series in June, 2021. Um, practical evangelism. And we're sitting here going through some sermon Q and a, and today's question is a good one. If you're ready, I'm ready. We are going to talk about, can I, or should I share the gospel on social media? And if I do, can I get out of sharing it with people? Wouldn't that be great?
Speaker 2 00:00:30 Right. So there's, there's two separate questions here, which one is, can I share the gospel on social media? And then number two would be to the exclusion of actually like human relationships that are personal alive. Face-to-face like that. Okay. So I mean, the answer to the first one is it's a really easy answer. Can I share the gospel online? Social media? Yes. Yeah, but
Speaker 3 00:00:50 Yeah. That's but so let's, let's provide
Speaker 2 00:00:52 Some rules there and then we'll get to the second one. Here's like a good rule in one of our other sermon Q and A's from this series. Um, uh, it was the one on, uh, what if my spouse is not a believer. Um, and so do I keep praying for them? And so one of the things that we shared was this really wonderful principle, which is don't be a jerk dummy,
Speaker 3 00:01:11 So simple. Right? So simple.
Speaker 2 00:01:13 So rule number one though, is, is just, honestly, don't muddy the gospel with your mean cutting, like edgy, like controversial stuff, you know, like it doesn't need that the gospel needs to be kept pure and simple, and I'll tell you, it never have, we been more attempted to just muddy the gospel with all of our preferences and politics, et cetera, and don't get me wrong. I think it's really important to talk about politics. Yeah. That's a fair thing. Like what's happening in the world right now has real life implications for you and me enter a year of shutdowns. Right. But the gospel is not politics. I mean, the gospel informs politics, but it is not politics. And so if, if we're thinking about our, our platform, you know, um, the gospel should be kept pure and simple and unmarried. And so don't be a jerk. That'd be number one. Um, and give us another one. I mean, we have a few rules we've talked about. Okay. And the second
Speaker 1 00:02:05 One really you kind of touched on, which is, you know, don't bring politics and all of your personal stances on it and, you know, get it really kind of, because that's really what divides people. If you really want the gospel to get somewhere with somebody, if you want to plant a seed with somebody, you don't also put in like, oh, and this is also what I believe about, you know, COVID politics, like whatever it is, it's just, it's bad decision. So another one is know your audience.
Speaker 3 00:02:28 Okay. So let's talk about you and me and Keith, our producer, right? Our
Speaker 2 00:02:31 Social media audit audiences are very different. I have thousands of friends. I don't even know most of them. Right. And so I have to understand that when I post something, I bear the weight of pastor. There's a spiritual kind of authority connection there for some that's good, some bad. Um, and like, I can, I can create a lot of controversy very quickly, surely by the way, to my position. Um, I, I have been very good and I'm very good by not posting. Yes. That's what I don't do. So life's too busy. So, um, now for you though, like what would happen if you went online and you did a mixed gospel politics Facebook?
Speaker 1 00:03:06 Well, that'd be really interesting. Um, so I've recently purged my social media friends because I'm taking privacy a little bit more seriously than a lot of kids. Um, but I, you know, for me being in my mid thirties, uh, you have a lot of people who are around your age who have, you know, fallen into that progressive Christianity kind of muddled liberal, uh, well, I'll call it a mess, but truly it is just kind of confusing for them. So if I were to post a gospel slash political stance, it either would rally them like, oh yeah. You know, like you're on my side. Or it would be like, how could you, and you know, Jesus wouldn't do that. And it would really just cause like the comment section to be so horribly difficult to manage. And, um, everybody's got a troll,
Speaker 2 00:03:51 Which is number four. Yes. Everybody's got a truck, everybody's
Speaker 1 00:03:55 Got a troll. So whether it's the person that you knew in college, who either walked away from the faith or who has always hated the Lord and just kind of has this huge chip on their shoulder, anytime you post about Jesus, especially if you're pulling in politics that they disagree with, they are going to come after you and they're going to come after you. Yep. And if you don't
Speaker 2 00:04:12 Have a troll, let me, let me tell you why, because you've probably chosen your friend group very carefully. It's probably a smaller group. And typically this is an exclusive, but typically if you're going to say over 45, maybe 50, you're probably going to have a smaller friend group of people that know you, they looked for, you found you, et cetera. Uh, if you had Facebook when you were in college, right. It's a very different world because now you're just connecting with like-minded people,
Speaker 3 00:04:38 People shared interests, your posture is different. And now here we are, well,
Speaker 2 00:04:43 Instagram is Instagram gives you a little bit more control over some of that stuff. It's a lot less cluttered, you know? And so you need to think about your platform. You need to think about all that stuff, but like, um, number, what was the first one I said, number one is, don't be a jerk dummy. Yeah. It was like, my brain already was like, thinking about trolls. Like all these trolls are going
Speaker 0 00:05:00 Through my brain to don't be a jerk. Don't be a jerk dummy because
Speaker 2 00:05:03 There are a lot of jerks who are going to be coming after you.
Speaker 3 00:05:05 And it's just creating a vicious cycle
Speaker 1 00:05:08 Back with, you know, horrible things. So number
Speaker 2 00:05:11 One is, don't be a jerk on me. Number two is, keep the gospel simple. Sure, sure. Uh, three is keep politics out of it. There's too much heat right now. And number three is just like, you gotta troll, be very aware of that person because you can have a really good intention to post that can be hijacked and taken to terrible places because of one troll. And we were just, uh, last night we were watching a thread, just lose it to a nine from a common friend. And it was like, what is going on? That wasn't
Speaker 1 00:05:40 The intention of the post. No, but you could have called it. Oh
Speaker 3 00:05:43 Yeah. I mean, I knew it was gonna happen. The moment I saw the post, I was like, well, I know where that's going. Yeah. You really
Speaker 1 00:05:47 Have to know that audience know that there's a troll in there somewhere. And you need to know like, if, is this what I'm posting actually going to share the gospel? Or is this just going to cause more division and problems? Yep.
Speaker 2 00:05:58 So I do have a, I do have a bone to pick with what I would say. I'm going to use generalities generalizations, the majority of people, not all for sure, because there's a few people that are so skillful in the way they handle social media and Christianity and politics and all this stuff. Um, but the majority that I see, excuse me, they, I think the, uh, like a yawn is contagious. Um, they are not effective and here's how I would measure effectiveness. So you want to preach the gospel online. Awesome. It's admirable. I love that. You wanna bring the gospel. So here's my questions. Number one, has anybody ever come to faith because of your social media evangelism? Now I expect the answer's going to be zero for almost everybody. There might be an exception or two out there, but almost everybody, the answers can be zero, but there's a follow-up question.
Speaker 2 00:06:52 And I think this is fair. They'll say no, but I'm planting seeds and that is very fair. That's very appropriate. And here's my question. Um, has anybody ever followed up with you and said, I'd like to talk more about that? So I'm looking at the principle of follow the fruit. Is it effective now? Um, in my sermon on June 6th, 2021, again, somebody might be parachuting into this from years down the road. So June 6th, 2021. Um, my favorite part of the sermon, which I think again, to say that we're to talk about sermons that way. Um, well, my favorite part of it was the beginning because, or workout and preaching prep. Yeah. Um, we were working through the good old days when, um, you could do things like, uh, you could invite someone to a crusade, a non-Christian,
Speaker 3 00:07:36 They would go and then would get saved
Speaker 2 00:07:39 Or you could give them a track. Right? Attract is a, uh, usually a small piece of paper or pamphlets with that. They usually have some gimmick and you read through it at the end, they tell you the gospel and trucks used to work. Right. Remember the one I showed in the sermon was of a $5 bill. Well,
Speaker 3 00:07:53 That is of giving a waiter or waitress, a server, I'd say up, you give them a fake $5 bill. They open it up and it says, disappointed, you know, like hell was disappointing trust in Jesus Christ and getting that, oh my gosh. Um, and then there was like door to door
Speaker 2 00:08:06 Evangelism, which was really so like now the only person I want to go into my door is the Amazon guy preach. Right. You come to my door and I'm like, what are you doing at my house? Yes. And I like people, I like to be around people. I'm like, I like strangers. I'm like, but for some reason, if try to sell me something, I'm just like, get away from me. This is my space. I'll come and I'll hang out with you, but I don't want you to try to like, like use me and bite me or sell me stuff. So, um, I just found it very interesting. We used to work. It doesn't work. Right. And it's interesting because if you were to look at social media in the mid two thousands, remember MySpace, MySpace,
Speaker 3 00:08:43 And Facebook, and they were competing. And
Speaker 2 00:08:46 Really people were just learning how to relate on social media and evangelism actually was much more effective at the beginning of it. And there's a little bit tact, especially there's a lot less vitriol online. Um, but it's interesting because the principle is what used to work, doesn't work as well anymore. And here's what we know that we know the most effective evangelism, Barna, pew, everybody tells you the same thing. It happens in the context of a personal relationship, which brings me to relate the second point here, which is, can I evangelize online, but not in person. Oh, okay. I mean maybe 15 years ago I would have said, yeah, you probably can have a full time job evangelizing online. I don't think you can probably do that anymore. Not anymore to, to sacrifice the human relational side is to sacrifice hands down the most effective evangelism strategy in human history. Yep, absolutely. So I would say, um, I get it. Maybe you're shut in, but there's also a phone, you know, but personal relationships is just going to be,
Speaker 1 00:09:51 And that's the same way with everything. I mean, you even see it in marketing today. Like what used to work doesn't work anymore. You could just push a bunch of stuff out, push, push, pull marketing. So when you push market marketing out billboards, advertisements, you know, just stuff that you're shouting at. People like, look at us, get my stuff. You know, all that pull marketing is like, Hey, I'm enticing you to come to my website and read this article, which I'm going to give you something of value that you would actually enjoy. And then over time, I'm going to build a relationship of trust with you. And then you're going to buy my brand or
Speaker 2 00:10:24 Yep. Well, it's interesting because the push is becoming less and less effective and everybody's moving over to the pole side of it. And this is the same with evangelism. It's not that push was bad. It's just that what once was effective is now no longer effective and you can keep trying it. But if you actually want to bear fruit, um, there's, there are a few things right now, as powerful, especially in a ambivalent culture or a hostile culture to Christianity, then relationships. Yeah. And
Speaker 1 00:10:49 You even see that, you know, with the influencer movement, right? So if you follow an influencer on Instagram and they tell you about a shoe and how great it is, and they're like modeling it and their pictures and it looks great. You're probably going to be more prone to buy that shoe because you have a relationship with them. Even if it's one sided, they might not know anything about you, but you feel invested in their life. You trust them, but it's different than, you know, vans being like, Hey, buy our shoes. Um, so when you look at it that way too, like influencers, do you have a different opportunity to share the gospel? A lot of the ones that I've seen online do a fairly decent job and they look to their direct messages to kind of have that one-on-one conversation. Um, but getting rid of that, one-on-one relational element. It doesn't work for anything. Certainly doesn't work for sharing
Speaker 2 00:11:32 The gospel. So you just can't eliminate. Yup. Yup. So our big encouragement is build relationships, be faithful, good friends, neighbors, family members, live for the Lord and pray that the Lord open up doors for you to share the gospel. And the most effective way is, is literally person to person. And again, utilize online, just be very wise, follow our rules. Don't be a jerk dummy, uh, keep the gospel simple. Uh, don't politicize the gospel and be aware of the trolls. Everybody's got a troll. I think if you can do that, uh, I think you can do good shape pretty. Yeah. You can do pretty well. So, um, awesome. Thank you for joining us Vicki. Next time we're gonna answer the question. What is an evangelist? And we're going to go deeper into that to help people understand that. So join us next time. Thanks for being here today.
