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ORLANDO, July 22 /Christian Newswire:
Recently, a Pioneers team aired Mel Gibson’s Passion of
the Christ on national television in a Muslim-majority
country in Southeast Asia. After the showing, 65,000
people responded with text messages requesting more
information. Respondents were directed to a YouTube
video called The Secret Life, which stimulates viewers
to explore their religious beliefs.
Viewers of The Secret Life were encouraged to send text
messages requesting a copy of the Injil, the Muslim term
for the New Testament. Of the 6,500 Muslims who asked
for the New Testament, 85 made professions of faith. Of
these, 25 were not individuals, but small groups that
gathered to discuss the videos and the New Testament.
“Research has shown that mass media is poor at
persuading people to consider other religions, but it is
effective at identifying people who are in the searching
mode,” Pioneers missiologist Dwight McGuire explains.
“By switching our focus to looking for seekers, we often
had over 100,000 respondents, eventually leading to
dozens of discussion groups—precursors to cell
churches.”
Creative use of mass media, national television, videos,
text messaging, the Injil and small discussion groups
are an integral part of Pioneers’ passion to see
church-planting movements begin among the unreached.
Pioneers was founded in 1979 by Ted Fletcher, former
National Sales Manager for The Wall Street Journal. With
1,800 members serving on 188 teams in 84 countries,
Pioneers mobilizes teams to glorify God among unreached
peoples by initiating church-planting movements in
partnership with local churches.
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