This event not only celebrated Moody's rich spiritual heritage, but Moody's President, J. Paul Niquist, also took a strategic look to the future. Rev. Nyquist identified FOUR MEGA TRENDS THAT DEFINE OUR RAPIDLY CHANGING WORLD.
The first trend mentioned was GLOBALIZATION.
- "The world is flat & increasingly interconnected through a wireless mobile web."
- One fourth of the world's population is online - 1.7 Billion People!
- Two thirds of the 4 billion mobile phone contracts are in the emerging world. - if half of these soon become web enabled, it would add another 1 billion people to the web.
Other trends mentioned were URBANIZATION and SECULARIZATION. The world is flocking to cities -soon there will be 33 mega cities with a population of over 10 million. The fastest growing "religious" group in America are those who have no religious beliefs.
I was thrilled to hear a respected Evangelical leader list the world's growing Internet population as the first consideration for strategic future ministry. Not that long ago it seemed like few leaders had this foresight.
As Christian Leaders and Pastors begin to see the awesome potential of Web Evangelism and Christian Internet Ministry I hope they will be willing to invest financial resources into Internet Ministry endeavors.
The harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Let's pray that the Lord of the harvest will send laborers into His harvest field. The harvest field is unimaginably large and I believe there is great potential to recruit laypeople who would be willing to share their faith online if they were instructed and empowered on how to do it.
A strategic missing piece of the puzzle are Web Evangelists and Internet Ministers to invest their time and talent tackling this problem. Too often the large churches and Christian non profits have the expansion of their ministry as the priority of their web endeavors. Important goals of Web Evangelism should be 1) sharing the GOOD NEWS of the gospel to the lost, 2) mobilizing & inspiring the multitude of Christians who spend many hours a day on Facebook to reach out in love to the world. Please see http://christianinternetministry.com ( a ministry of ChristCares.org) for more information or to make a financial donation.
I believe a third strategic goal for Internet Ministry is to encourage other believers - praying for them and collaborating on ministry projects see ChristianInternetMinistry.com for more info.
Rev. Nyquist also shared that there is tremendous growth in the Christian Church around the world. In 1917 there was only an estimated 11,000 (evangelical) Christians in all of South America, now there is 90 million! Africa now has 182 million Christians and Kenya has a 45% Evangelical Christian population. There is great revival in Korea and China now has 125 million Christians. With the possible exception of the Chinese, there are ways that the American Church can reach out in love and encouragement through the Internet to these fellow Christians. I believe the Lord has given me vision and ideas how this could be done to some degree. At this point I am praying and asking God to provide the funding if he wants me to invest more time into Internet Ministry. I'd appreciate your prayer and comments - Web Evangelist Scott Reese - WebEvangelist@gmail.com
