In the last few weeks, we have looked at the pluses and the minuses of social media from a Christian perspective. We end with a simple thought about how a medium reaching over four billion people worldwide can be harnessed to bring God glory and spread His gospel.
To showcase the presence of Christianity online perhaps nothing beats this bit of recent news. The much heralded “Asbury Revival” which began in February at a little Christian College in the southeast U.S. has “gone viral” on the internet. In fact, according to The Atlantic magazine “on TikTok, the hashtag #asburyrevival has more than 100 million views and counting.”
Whatever you think about the Internet, the message of Jesus is all over it, and well it should be. From the invention of the printing press which led to the widespread distribution ole in the 15th Century to the “virtual church” of the 21st , God has used every technical advance in human communication to further the expansion of His kingdom on Earth. Social media-based evangelism certainly has its drawbacks, and so does the medium itself, but its advent was inevitable. This cannot and should not be ignored.
So, as believers in 2023, what can we do to maximize our online witness and minimize online wasting of time? If you are going to have a personal presence on social media, pray to do it as a representative of God in how you conduct and express yourselves. If you are serious about living out the Christian life and the Great Commission in the cockpit, cabin, ticket counter, and ramp be just as serious about living it out the same way on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Let your words both on the job and online be well seasoned with the sincere salt of the gospel of Christ…and watch for the results.
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world
as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
Matthew 24:14 ESV
This thought was written by Shea Oakley. Shea is Principal Contributor for FCAP Social Media and also serves on our Advisory Board.
