God blesses me inwardly to know that I have opportunity to communicate His truth to you though this website. We have never had an agenda and I think I can say that, from TT’s inception, we have committed to doing what was right before us during whatever season we were in. When we began the television broadcast in 2007, we honestly knew nothing about television. We had some cameras in our sanctuary and a computer and began to capture live video (not a great quality either, I might add). We would burn it to a CD with a short closing statement by me edited in and ship it off to the TV station. God blessed the day of small beginnings as our church began to grow from the twice-weekly broadcast. We were connecting with people whose churches had moved to a seeker-friendly model of ministry and left them starving for biblical exposition and spiritually substantial truth. Since those early days we have added this website which includes this devotional blog, a telephone prayer line on Sundays and Tuesdays and a webstore which keeps all my expository preaching on CD at a low cost. We have also been blessed to offer all the sermons for free in MP3 format so nobody has to pay a dime to benefit from God’s word. In allowing us to do this, God has saved many and established relationships that are far too numerous to count. Overseas missions projects, at-home humanitarian endeavors and smaller mercy missions have all been granted to us by the King…and this is some of why my heart is full.
In the next 30-45 days I will be spending much time in quiet meditation and physical relaxation. My family will enjoy a Summer vacation for our need to reconnect and enjoy some leisure together. At the end of those 2 weeks I will take a 5-day prayer retreat by myself in the mountains where I plan to read, fast, pray and finish a book I’ve been working on. We have in the works a project that appears to have the green light from God and this will be a potentially high-impact shift in how we attempt to reach a larger audience. Facebook is a medium I resisted for a few years because it seemed like a hub for triviality, vanity and, frankly, gossip. Once I began to see the impact Facebook had for mass dissemination of information, my views switched to how we might use it for Gospel saturation. With the addition of TT’s first full-time employee and technical director, Nick Bell, the pieces of the puzzle began to come together. The details should emerge in a few weeks but the bottom line is that we are working on the ability to broadcast live video of our Sunday services (possibly some lower-key Wednesday bible studies also) on a newly created Transforming Truth Facebook page. What makes this so potentially impacting is that this allows us to reach people all over the world as Facebook is an online, interconnected community of approximately one billion active users monthly. This is a staggering number and gives us the ability to utilize a grass roots campaign beginning in our own church family (our Jerusalem) and have them share the TT Facebook page with all of their FB friends (our Judea) and from there we can engage in spreading the word further as “shares”, “likes” and “recommendations” build upon each other (our uttermost parts of the earth). This will all be made available at no cost to those who desire to benefit from it – no subscriptions will be sold to access to watching the live services as they occur even though this is an accepted norm in other ministries. It is not that there is no cost on our end which is involved – it’s actually quite expensive. We sense that God is telling us to rely on Him to supply through the freewill offerings of those who see His hand in this, and for us not to presume to charge anyone to be able to participate. Honestly, the people I would most like to begin to watch are those who are not yet followers of Christ so the idea of charging a fee would, in my opinion, be a stumblingblock and impediment to the actual mission of advancing the Gospel. So we embrace the entirety of this new phase in the same manner as when we began with 3 cameras, a computer and and an opportunity in front of us.
God has graciously supplied the initial costs a few months ago through a substantial donation from a family whose lives have been changed by God via the TT ministry. For the next several weeks, Nick Bell and I will be praying, networking with the people who will help us launch and welcoming God to provide all the rest of what is needed. We are asking you to pray that this step of faith will continue to prove to be straight from the Lord as we believe it is today.
Our world has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. Christians must consider that there are new avenues opened to us that afford Gospel opportunities that were impossible in generations past. Without much effort at all we have been humbled at Transforming Truth to learn that we are reaching people all over the globe with just a handful of small commitments to sermon posting. I have included a list of most of those countries where we are reaching people with audio sermons below and it astounds me that, among the countries, we find China, Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, Madagascar, Malawi, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Kenya, Bahrain, Sri Lanka and others. This is the power of technology and remember…what we are communicating is God’s message of eternity which centers on His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. These people are hearing truth that, apart from technology, they may not otherwise be exposed to. Glory.
So pray for us in the next few months. As a matter of fact, pray boldly and regularly. Let us patiently wait to see what our God intends to accomplish through this new opportunity. Blessings to you!
-Jeff
Glad to see Facebook being used for good. I will absolutely be sharing your posts!