Ministry has changed...

Ministry has undergone lots of change in recent years. Some things are never going to change. Like helping people learn to love and live for God. That is at the heart and core of ministry.

But how that gets accomplished has changed. It used to be that a minister would simply be able to go to someone's home, knock on the door, be invited in and be able to talk to that person (or people) about the Lord. Nowadays, if you tried that, you are most likely a Jehovah's Witness or Mormon and you aren't received too kindly.

We live in the era of Facebook, Twitter and emails. Life seems more techno-centric than it was 30 years ago. People have come to rely on computers and mobile devices.

I have found that ministering in this era can be a challenge but you can still accomplish the same goal of helping people learn to love and live for God but you have to embrace new methods.

Using my account on Facebook I have been able to keep up with those that I minister to as well as encourage them in their walk with the Lord. On Facebook, I created a group on Facebook for our church members who are on Facebook to have another place of connection. Click HERE to see our church's Facebook Group Page.

From that group page, I have created special "events" that help promote and advertise various activities and sermon series we have at The Fort. I have also incorporated Twitter into this at another level of fostering more communication and connection with our church body online. We have a Twitter feed on the home page of our web site that we update to broadcast special announcements or updates.

All of these are tools. Some might argue that it contributes to the increasing isolationist direction of our culture, but I would say that we are building community on many levels. Not everyone is online. But many are.

We want to be a church that embraces all the methods we can to help people become a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. We want to help people get into the Word of God.

Recently a woman was publicly executed in North Korea. Her crime? Distributing Bibles. It is noteworthy that a book most Americans take for granted and rarely read was worthy of death in a far corner of the world.

Anything I can do to get people more invested in reading the Word of God I will do!