The New Frontier for Proclaiming the Gospel

The Williamsburg Christadelphian Foundation (WCF) is launching a major new outreach initiative on YouTube.

Editor’s Note: Bro. Geoffrey Smith, from the Ware Ecclesia in the UK. wrote the following article. He shares some important information about a new Williamsburg Christadelphian Foundation (WCF) program, and also provides helpful insights into the world of digital preaching. Bro. Geoff is exceptionally qualified to write this article, having been a double Emmy award winner and documentary professional for over thirty years, many of them at the BBC in London.

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The Williamsburg Christadelphian Foundation (WCF) is launching a major new outreach initiative on YouTube, one of the world’s largest digital platforms. This article discusses the approach we’re taking on YouTube and why. Even though we’re using a 21st-century digital tool, the approach conforms with the general principle of Jesus’ own preaching. A second, upcoming article will show how our YouTube videos connect those seeking faith with a panoply of resources to help their faith progress. It will also show how you can be involved.

Jesus gave us a timeless imperative: “Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.” (Mark 16:15). For centuries, Christians did this in person, meeting one individual or small gathering at a time. Today, the internet allows us to reach millions of people instantly. As we know from the Parable of the Sower, however, reaching individuals is one thing; growing genuine faith is another.

Jesus followed a simple but powerful principle in his preaching: Meet people where they are. He met them where they were physically: public spaces, synagogues, temple courtyards, open-air locations, the roadside and private homes. He also met them where they were socially and culturally. Like us, his audience felt more comfortable in familiar places, which made them more receptive to his message.

Above all, Jesus met people where they were in how he spoke to them. Perhaps the most significant way he did this was with parables—short, relatable stories illustrating profound spiritual truths. These stories often used everyday situations and characters to convey complex ideas.

Why the heavy reliance on stories? Jesus knew the real power of communicating in stories is that our brains process them differently from factual information. Modern neuroscience confirms that stories engage multiple areas in the brain, including those related to emotions, sensory experiences, and even motor skills, and this leads to a much more immersive experience, one that we will remember.

What can we learn from our Master about the best way to preach today? We must meet people where they are and then use the power of stories to introduce the uninitiated to the Gospel message.

This principle squares with everything we know about our present world. Research groups like Barna Group tell us many people in the Western world are now looking for something beyond the material. More people, particularly young people, believe the secular world is increasingly failing them. These seekers want to know more about God and Jesus. But there is a big caveat. The seekers mainly want to find out about God on their own terms, starting with where they are in their life journey. At least initially, that does not include a conventional Church setting with sermons and study. (See this link for more findings about faith seekers today: www.barna.com/the-open-generation)

Where are these seekers, people on the cusp of discovering real faith? No doubt many YouTube users are faith seekers. Every month, more than 2.5 billion people view YouTube, two-thirds of whom are under 45. Even if Christian faith material interests only 0.1% of this potential audience, that is already 2.5 million viewers. Raise that to a still insignificant 0.5% and you have 12.5 million interested people we could reach.

To use YouTube to spread the gospel, one of the first decisions we faced was whether to base our video content on traditional community preaching methods or to change to another model. Having worked in professional broadcasting for the past thirty years, I have seen a quantum shift in how people consume media. Before the widespread use of social media, many people accepted a professional broadcaster or media narrator as a presenter of “objective” truth. But those days are gone.

As social media took off, suddenly everyone could present their own version of the truth online. “My truth” became a byword. This development had a powerful impact on how people consume online information as the “subjective” became dominant. Being vain creatures, people became enamored with likes, validation, and instant fame. Meanwhile, people grew much more skeptical of the authority of mainstream broadcasting. Some individuals even noticed that being controversial (expressing a different “truth”) soon gave them more hits and perceived importance online. In the monetized world of YouTube, it even made them more money. If a high enough number of viewers click on a post because it is deliberately provocative, the amoral algorithms underlying social media will then feed that to even more people, and it grows exponentially, regardless of whether it is true or not. In all, this downward spiral has led to what many call the “Post-Truth Society.”

Broadcasters and visual storytellers have reacted to this changing landscape by fully embracing the power of subjective stories. This resonates well with social media users, who are used to people speaking their “own truth.” In short, the new norm for communicating through digital platforms is personal testimony.

Further reflection leads us to the truth that Jesus and his Father are the pre-eminent storytellers. All known human stories derive from seven basic story types, or archetypes. Each of these archetypes derives from God’s creative genius, and they are the basis of the powerful stories in the Old and New Testaments. Simply put, “stories” are God’s chosen way of communicating with us. Is it any wonder then, that human stories built on His archetypes and made accessible to us through platforms like YouTube are so impactful?

Given this change in the media landscape and the underlying cultural shifts, and the strong foundation of scriptural precedents, we concluded that storytelling would also be the best way to capture viewers’ interest in faith.

What does this mean for this new outreach initiative? We consciously decided to film personal and heartfelt stories of genuine faith given by real people—and to do this at a high-quality standard. Think about the last time you were watching a film or a TV program, and someone made an impression on you. Almost invariably, this was because their story resonated with your own emotional experience. They “let you in,” as we say. Today’s viewers look for these shared experiences to not feel so alone in the world and to learn from the experiences of others. Our faith stories need to do the same to meet our audience where they are.

In many Scriptural stories, the strength and deliverance God provides in response to faith shine a powerful new light to those suffering through their own life crises. Seeing such faith in action may encourage viewers to embrace a belief in God, reignite a lapsed faith, or strengthen an existing one.

This is the primary reason we have chosen to film personal stories of faith. As we add to the Big Leap YouTube Channel, we will reflect all genders, backgrounds, and experiences, both the dramatic and the everyday. As Jesus showed, we think the story is the most powerful initial means of sharing the Gospel’s good news in this new forum. Just look again at the first few sentences of Jesus’ parables, and you find an intriguing first hook of a story that immediately drew in his audience.

Once we have powerful stories to tell, how do we capture and retain our audience’s attention? We consulted with a Christian YouTube expert to explore the best answer. He quickly stressed the make-or-break importance of the video’s title, the thumbnail image used with that title, and the first thirty seconds of the video. If the title and/or the image get a viewer to click through (experts consider 5% a good rate), the next major hurdle is the video’s first 30 seconds. Most YouTube videos lose over 60% of their potential audience in this critical window by not paying attention to what matters, namely, giving viewers something personal and meaningful to keep them watching.

When does solid Bible instruction and study enter this bold new initiative? The short answer is that it comes later, not when people are just starting their faith journey. Just as Jesus spoke differently to his disciples than to the masses he often addressed, and just as Paul in 1 Corinthians 3 makes a distinction between milk and meat for different levels of spiritual maturity, we too need to nurture those who are just starting to explore what Faith can mean, rather than possibly alienate them with too much Bible doctrine immediately.

As someone who came into our faith community from outside, I am very passionate about giving this priceless gift to others. These videos are not primarily for us as baptized Christadelphians, though they can certainly inspire us. They are also not meant to be compared to doctrinally based preaching material that still has many valid uses for those who are more spiritually mature (just as we see in Paul’s letters to baptized believers).

In conclusion, WCF’s outreach initiative aims to heed our Master’s imperative to preach the Gospel and to follow his principles of meeting people where they are with the enduring power of faith stories. We pray for your blessing on this effort. In the next article, we’ll show how we connect faith seekers with resources and personal connections that help them start a lifelong journey of faith.

(to be continued.)

Geoffrey Smith,
Ware Ecclesia, UK