How big is your church? 50? 100? 5000? 20,000?
Regardless of your answer to that question, would you like to double your reach? Triple it? Imagine reaching one million people... How about a billion?
I pastor a small church of about 45 people on the coast of Maine. And yet, our congregation is doubled (or more!) each week by people who tune into our weekly sermon podcast. The reach of our ministry extends to Japan, China, Iran, Germany, South Africa and more. We estimate that we've had around 30,000 individual sermon downloads since April of 2006. (You can subscribe to this podcast on
iTunes or by
email.)
As of the writing of this article, the population of the world is estimated to be 6.6 billion people. In 2005, the the internet welcomed its one-billionth user, and the two-billionth user is expected to logon sometime during 2011. And yet, "most protestant churches in the USA average no more than 75 each week, with the largest percentage actually between 26 and 50." (Fast Facts, Holiness Today, September/October 2007, p. 32)
With internet usage growing so rapidly in the next 4 years, let me ask you this simple question: "What are you doing to spread the Gospel through the internet?"
Now is the perfect time to launch (or expand) your internet ministry. If your church isn't posting its sermons online, why not? If your pastor preaches from a manuscript or detailed outline, can you simply post the material? If not, is there someone in your church who can transcribe the messages for internet use? If you're already recording your sermons for internal distribution, why not encode those messages for podcast subscriptions?
Here at YourChurchWeb.net, we want to help you build your internet ministry. Take some time to look around and see the various products we offer--how can we help you bring the Gospel to more than a billion people?
