In An Instavangelist Era, Can You Be The Light of God Through The Screen?

In An Instavangelist Era, Can You Be The Light of God Through The Screen?

Journal

I grew up in the era of televangelists like Rex Humbard and Oral Roberts. They were the pioneers of what was then the only streaming screen – the TV. Today we live in the era of Instavangelists. They are evangelists on Instagram and TikTok. Our screens have changed, but we’re still drawn to a spiritual force and the wonder of God through the lens. Unbelievers watch too. Sometimes with disdain and sarcasm, but sometimes they watch with curious interest.

God ultimately wants us to know Him personally. He wants our heart to know His heart, which sometimes means going through pain and suffering to hear His voice within us. In our mentally cluttered media culture, it’s when we take the time to search, go through suffering, and ultimately are forced to turn off our screens that God’s voice finally cuts through. It’s why Satan – the deceiver keeps our screens and the noise on 24/7.

Christian media leaders and communicators have learned much about communication since the early days of televangelists. I actually believe there is more honesty in today’s Instavangelist culture as they choose to share not just the joy and goodness of God, but also the reality that we live in a broken, difficult world. I’ve seen many Christian leaders publicly share what a life lived fully alongside Jesus looks like; it is a life of service, forgiveness, compassionate love, and joy in the middle of suffering and uncertainty.

Life changed during the pandemic.

 

Young people who have been raised without knowledge of God or the spiritual world, became curious as they were suddenly confronted with incredible fear and untimely death in the world around them. Many who had been led to deny the existence of God and placed their faith in science or the government to solve their problems instead found them untrustworthy. Many who had never paused long enough to consider praying or reading the Bible stopped as their worldview was shaken and shattered. They began to ask if God was real. Was there a higher power, and possibly a deeper meaning to existence? Was there some truth to what those instavangelists were saying?

Social media is designed to tout a “me culture.”

 

As we begin a new year, can we, who are confident in our faith through God’s proven provision, become more effective instavangelists? What if we, who “know the truth and how the truth has sets us free” (John 8:32), began to use our social media accounts more strategically to tell others that it’s not about “me,” but about the God who breathes within me? What if we shared with them the reason why our life has purpose and meaning? What if our personal “television studios” proclaimed God’s ability to overcome disruption, suffering, devastation, and death, and that life wasn’t about the “here and now” of our imploding world, but in the world to come when King Jesus returns?

Depression and suicide rates are soaring today, and gender identity dysphoria is rampant. TikTok, culture’s latest life-sucking platform, can only be watched for a short time before what we post is gone. Yet the average global TikTok user spends 3.5 hours daily watching videos that are largely mindless, meaningless, and will vanish. Could this continual use of vanishing videos be a subtle message to users of their life? That it’s a vapor and here and gone before ever being seen and known? Is the constant need to check these vanishing stories keeping us from seeing what is eternal – the everlasting, all-seeing God?

Will God’s voice be heard before it goes away on TikTok or Instagram stories?

 

The reality is that our life on earth truly is a vapor; we aren’t here long. But it is definitely not meaningless. Our Creator God sees and knows us. Hagar, a woman in the Old Testament, names God El-Roi, the God who sees (Genesis 16:13). What if lovers of God become Instavangelists or TikTokvangelists and began sharing this revelation of an ever-present, eternal God? That He is real and He transformed their life? What if believers posted how God was with them during disasters, health or financial crises, through grieving, and times of endless uncertainties? What if they shared a peace that was unnatural, and a calm beyond their understanding during those times? That they knew the “Who” that held their hand and holds their future? What if the followers of Jesus posted of God’s love, mercy, forgiveness, and hope? What if they invited their followers to watch an online church service or posted how a scripture verse challenged their thinking? Like this verse, “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 23:8)?  And… what would happen by chance, if in 2023, their scrolling eye stopped and instead of finding something silly and meaningless, they found freedom, truth, and peace everlasting?

What if… they found the Light of the World behind their screen?

Identity Disruption: How Media is Contributing To Our Confusion

Identity Disruption: How Media is Contributing To Our Confusion

Journal

At The Influence Lab, our focus is to help Christians use media more effectively to tell their stories so that others will know the most important story ever told – the story of Jesus. Our passion is to mentor media professionals and leaders to create excellent media projects, develop leadership skills, and alert them to insider tips and sometimes the pitfalls of media manipulation. As the Bible commands, we want Christians to “defend their faith” (I Peter 3:15). Having worked in Hollywood for many years, I know how media and entertainment affect our emotional connections and in turn affect our actions and why we must be vigilant to use media and entertainment to tell powerful stories and share the wisdom of God.

Big Tech are the creators of our present-day media platforms and tools and have set themselves up to be media gods and idols in our present-day culture. They, along with Hollywood, are experts in using their fashioned communication tools, skills and crafts to tell the stories they want to be told and followed. These stories are changing what we identify with and even affect our own identities.

What are those stories Big Tech is telling?  (more…)

An INNER VIEW with Darlene Zschech

An INNER VIEW with Darlene Zschech

Inner Views

Bio

Australian, Darlene Zschech, is a globally acclaimed composer, worship leader, pastor, author and speaker and is well known for her ministry work at Sydney’s Hillsong Church. However, she claims her biggest success is serving God and His people whom she loves with all her heart. Alongside her husband Mark, and with their daughters, son-in-laws and grandchildren, they lead Hope Unlimited Church (HopeUC) with locations in Australia, India and the U.S. Darlene is perhaps most well known for her worship song, Shout to the Lord, but she has composed numerous other worship songs including Kiss of Heaven, Change Your World, You Are Love, In Jesus Name and the album, Revealing Jesus, which she recorded with Grammy Award winner, Israel Houghton. In 2016 Darlene recorded a live HopeUC worship album, Here I Am, Send Me, where she collaborated with other top worship leaders. In 2018 she released, The Table, and in 2019, she recorded, I Speak Jesus, with Integrity Music writer, Dustin Smith.

Her passion is to train and encourage others in worship and in the Word of God and has penned six books which have been translated into 20 different languages, including The Art of Mentoring, Revealing Jesus (devotional), Worship Changes Everything, and The Golden Thread, as well as an online worship course, Your Ministry Mentor, designed to equip global worship leaders.

She and Mark have a passion to restore Hope globally but especially to Rwandans. Their ministry provided strategic hope and healing following the 1994 horrific genocide and has continued to expand into parts of Africa, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and India. Darlene says, “First and foremost I am a woman who simply and wholeheartedly loves Jesus Christ, and serves Him through loving my family, serving the Church, and speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves.”

 

Kathleen Cooke: We are all working through recovering from the global pandemic on many levels, but what is the single biggest thing that has God taught you during the challenges that COVID has brought?

Darlene Zschech: The big thing for me over the last 3 years is how God has shown me the importance of The Table. It’s the importance of the gather… that as we break bread together and see and hear each other that we make the time to celebrate Christ together in a way that is personal and intentional. And… that discipleship and authentic community will be what flows from lives that have the table at the Centre.

Kathleen: You have had great successes but lots of challenges too. When those out-of-the-blue challenges came your way, what did God teach you?

Darlene: FORGIVENESS… this has been a big one for me. When I was going through treatment for cancer, I had lots of time to listen to God speak in a new and often challenging way. I had to dig deep on my theology about healing and about God’s plans and purposes. One day, He spoke to me and asked me to trust Him with my heart in a new way. To do this, He asked me to forgive those I had held deep unforgiveness toward… which REALLY shocked me. I thought I was a very forgiving person. So… slowly but surely, the Holy Spirit gently led me through person by person what I needed to set free in my heart. This was a life changing few months for me. Not only do I believe He helped with the healing in my body, but He has literally brought me so much more freedom that I didn’t even know I needed. (more…)