The Kaneshie Area Youth Ministry of The Church of Pentecost (COP), under the leadership of Pastor Daniel Okyei Boakye, on Saturday, February 17, 2015, organised a day’s seminar on “Social Media Evangelism” at the at Darkuman English Assembly church auditorium to equip youth workers in the area.
Giving a welcome address, Pastor Daniel Okyei Boakye noted that evangelism on Social Media has been necessitated by the fact that the youth spend most of their time on social networking platforms.
He also stressed that since some of these youngsters will never come to church for any programme, hence youth workers ought to take advantage of social media to reach out to them. Consequently, he advised the participants to take the seminar seriously so that they would be fully equipped to evangelise effectively online.
The main facilitator of the seminar, Elder Prince Asare, who is a Deputy Editor at the Publications Unit at the COP Headquarters, defined social media as “the type of media that is based on conversation and interaction with people online”.
Using Matthew 28:18-20 as his main text, he reminded participants that God has given them the Great Commission to reach others with the gospel and disciple them using all available resources which include Social Media.
He advised Christians to see Social Media as a mere recreational tool but also as a mission field where souls for the Lord. He noted that the deliberate (intentional) act of winning souls online is what is termed as Social Media Evangelism / Digital evangelism.
Elder Asare said that Social Media is now regarded as “The New Towns Square” where many people converge to have interactions on a regular basis. This is because statistics show that over 3, 000, 000 people are active online within every hour of the day.
According to him, Christians can also reach out to more people on social media with the gospel in a short as compared to open-air crusades, house-to-house evangelism or dawn broadcast activities.
Touching on how to package the gospel on social media, he suggested that prayers, sermon excerpts, testimonies, statistics, infographics, devotions, news, recipes, personality profiles, history and many others can be posted with the sole aim of reaching out to souls online.
Ending his presentation, Elder Prince Asare charged leaders who do not have official Social Media pages to create one and appoint “Social Media Evangelists” to take charge of them.
“Create official social media accounts for your respective districts and local assemblies. Appoint some youth members as ‘social media evangelists’ and put them in charge of these pages. Give them the needed training and resources to ensure that they are able to spread the Gospel and disciple the souls they win. It should not end there, we must also set targets for Social Media Evangelism and report on them,” he advised.
Elder Asare also took the opportunity to introduce participants to the various Social Media accounts of The Church of Pentecost. He admonished the leaders present to subscribe to the platforms and also urge their members to do same.
Report By: Gideon Osei Ansong, Kaneshie Area.
