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April 16, 2024

Online Evangelists

Dear Friends,

Where do young people gather today?

Jesus wasn’t content to just share the good news in synagogues and homes—he boldly proclaimed the gospel in the streets, fields, and squares where large crowds gathered. Today’s young people are in the midst of global change that is taking them online and into social media through their smartphones. They spend an average of 6 hours a day in this digital world.

Alex put his faith in Jesus as a 14-year-old and immediately began to devour the Word of God for 3-4 hours a day. There are few evangelical believers in Serbia, where he lives, and he noticed all his friends were spending most of their time-consuming media from their phones. Knowing they were not hearing the gospel in those places, at 15 years of age, he decided to record a short Bible message with a challenge and post it on TikTok.

With only an old Android phone propped up on an orange and no special equipment, he passionately spoke into the camera. A few hours later he checked his post and found there were only five views. Later that day, there were a few more. The one that caught his attention most, however, was a message left by one of Serbia’s most prominent TikTokers, who had randomly come across his feed. The note was full of scorn and ridicule, telling him he was stupid and incompetent and that the message he was giving was worthless.

Discouraged, Alex put his phone away and decided this was not a good idea. But a week later, he checked, and there were over 1000 views. Encouraged by the response, Alex posted another passionate message about Jesus and then another. To his surprise, the unique nature of his bold proclamation attracted controversy—and with it, many viewings. The numbers on his original video climbed to 28,000.  Some of his later messages reached an astounding 154,000 views in a country with only 8,000 evangelical believers.

Realizing that seeing something on the screen is only the first step, Alex offered to send free Bibles to those interested in learning more about Jesus. Last month, he mailed 300 Bibles to people who wrote to him from across Serbia. Watching their response gave him another idea: to announce to his digital audience that he was setting up a book table in the city, inviting them to come and purchase books about the Bible and about God. His bold experiment worked, and the small book table resulted in many conversations, as well as getting books into the hands of searching people.

Our JV Serbia team heard of Alex’s work and began mentoring and discipling him as an online evangelist. Last month, he joined 35 other young leaders like him from eight countries that we gathered for our first-ever Digital Missions Summit. This small group of online evangelists has an audience of over 1 million followers and are boldly teaching God’s Word and sharing the gospel with their peers through the channels of YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok.

Once again, Jesus is entering the public square—this time through the voices of his young followers. Thanks for making this possible through your support and prayers.

Dave Patty President

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