Advancements in technology have created new opportunities for sharing the gospel around the world.
Forestville Baptist Church, Greenville, is heeding the Great Commission with the implementation of an Internet-based outreach program. The church has joined with Global Missions Outreach (GMO), a ministry with a program that allows “online missionaries,” or responders, to answer spiritual questions they receive from people all over the world.
Members of Forestville were introduced to the program by senior pastor Rob Jackson, who has been an online missionary with the GMO since October 2006.
Forestville members responded positively. Jackson said a large group of people signed up early on to become online missionaries. Another church member, Rob Clayborn, serves as coordinator of Forestville’s online community.
Church member Linwood Hagin, mass communication department chair at North Greenville University, and his wife are two of the 60-80 online missionaries at Forestville who are taking part in the new ministry.
Hagin said Jackson encourages families to pray together for the people they are responding to as they hit “send” on their responses. Hagin said he and his family are participating on a weekly level. The weekly level is set up to let responders receive 15-20 messages per week.
Those who sign up to be online missionaries get training for a 30-day period by GMO, Jackson said. He said the program is flexible and allows people to choose how many messages they will receive per day or week.
Forestville is the primary community responding to messages coming from people in North and South Carolina.
Jackson said that once people decide to receive Christ, they automatically receive a 30-day devotional that introduces them to a discipleship program and directs them to a Web site (iChristianlife.com) that helps them find a local church.
With GMO, Jackson said the paradigm of witnessing is “completely switched.” Usually Christians are trying to reach out to others, but with this program, “these are people looking to me,” he explained.
Jackson said approximately 25 percent of the people he responds to remain in contact with him for discipleship. He said that once an online missionary replies to a person, the sender’s subsequent messages go directly to his or her first responder.
Jackson said some people who send questions through GMO put themselves in danger from their families or government, but he added that the server used by the program is safe. “It’s a very secure system, and it doesn’t put anybody at risk,” Jackson said.
Jackson has recommended the program to other churches. He said large or small churches can take part. There are 3,500 online missionaries who have been a part of more than a million decisions through GMO, he said.
As the founders of GMO state on their Web site, their strategy is to “move people from isolation to connection and from information to transformation.”
Jackson encouraged people who want to learn more about the GMO to visit GMOJoinUs.com or GMOAlwaysReady.com.