Ethiopian Social Media Bible Teaching
The social media is the fastest tool of communication in human history. It has changed the way people interact so much: tweeting, blogging, texting, live chatting, posting on Facebook and other social networks, sharing their views and opinions with the world. They share their minds instantly.
I started teaching the Bible through social media, Like Facebook and Telegram since January 2018. Most of my students are living in the Central East countries. when I start, I was visiting an Orthodox chat group. we had an argument about different Doctrinal Issues. Then after, many orthodox religion followers started to ask me more questions about the doctrine that I believe. and I continued answering their question, finally some of them started to accept Christ and they asked me to teach them the word of God. When I start my own group, I had 5 students in the group. Currently I have 1242 Members including believers and unbelievers from different denomination like Jehovah witness, Mormons, Islam, Orthodox and Only Jesus. often, we have an argument about different Bible Issues and in addition when I teach the bible for the new Christians, On the way I am preaching the gospel for unbelievers.
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More peoples in Arab countries they don’t have bible to read as well as knowledge to read the bible. The only means for them to know the bible is Audio Bible.
Most of the Bibles in Ethiopian Language is changed to the teaching of Orthodox Religion. Because of this the Audio Bibles which is found on social medias are not genuine. In God’s help I started to record the Audio Bible to help them knowing the Word of God.
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The Main activities that I am doing in the social media ministry is
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Teaching the Word of God regularly every Friday (Friday is weekend in Arab countries)
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Counselling them about different issues
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Arguments on specific biblical issues.
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Recording Audio Bible and publishing.
Social Media and Evangelism
Social media gives you the opportunity to make new connections online. The world lies at your fingertips. You can reach out to a large number of users. Statistics show that the total number of Facebook users worldwide is 1.2 billion and that 98 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds use social media.1
Social media “provides a way for people to share ideas, content, thoughts, and relationships online. Social media differs from so called ‘mainstream media’ in that anyone can create, comment on, and add to social media content. It can take the form of text, audio, video, images, and communities.”2
It is “participatory online media where news, photos, videos, and podcasts are made public; typically accompanied with a voting process to signal items considered popular.”3
Here are some social media statistics:
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Three out of four people use social networks regularly.
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Social media has overtaken email as the number one activity on the Web.
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There are over 200 million blogs.
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Every day sees some 900,000 blog posts.
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Ninety-three percent of social media users believe companies should have a presence in social media.
The first years of the Internet revolution were all about getting computers connected to the World Wide Web. The following years have been all about getting people connected to one another.
Social media communication tools have profoundly changed our lives, especially how we interact with one another and the world around us. Here are the top areas in which it has affected our daily lives:
1. Source of information. Friends on social media are increasingly becoming people’s trusted sources of information, even more than search engines. Furthermore, by getting your news from social media, you know who is recommending it and can easily communicate with that person about it. News is more social than ever.
2. Launching a business. While business in the past was generally conducted with those in one’s immediate
environment, social media—everything from blogging to tweeting, to posting videos on YouTube—has opened new possibilities for both customers and clients. Who we do business with and how we promote that business has moved increasingly online, and for small businesses especially, social media has proved invaluable.
3. Connecting with people. Social media helps find and maintain both old and potentially new friendships.
4. Place for authenticity. The goal used to be to make sure that we always appeared to be in complete control; but this is shifting, in part, because of social media. The paradigm is now no longer to try to appear perfect but to be more transparent with your thoughts and feelings, to reveal your humanness.
5. Power to influence. Even if we have few followers on Twitter or friends on Facebook or subscribers to our blog, the average person’s influence increases as communication channels become more open and fluid. As the networks for sharing and amplifying information strengthen, so does the ability of each person to influence public opinion and policies. As a result, we feel much less like passive bystanders and much more like participants who have a voice in the events of our world.
“The Internet has brought media to a global audience. The Web has opened a tremendous opportunity to reach a great number of participants directly with targeted messages.”4
Benefits
Let me share some of the benefits of social networking:
1. Tolerance. Networks are good for handling diversity. Behind our screen we can be any color, any nationality, without the fear of not being accepted.
2. Friendship. Networks are about connections of nodes. I have a friend who knows a friend who could recommend you for his company. Usually it goes that way, for we get connected to each other very easily and there are no limitations or lack of trust.
3. Change. Networks are so versatile that everything can still operate effectively whether on a large scale or for smaller, close-knit groups.
4. Communal. Groups are created so that people join and feel welcome in a community.
5. Equal, small versus big. For example Amazon.com vs. Waterstones. The latter is probably the biggest and most well-known bookstore in the United Kingdom and Europe at large. At one stage, nobody thought anything could surpass its size and reputation; especially not Amazon.com, which started offline on a much smaller scale. Now Amazon has become a multinational sensation. With social networking, both types of businesses can be put on the same footing.
6. Fair. In previous years, the television producers and radio executives decided what featured in the media. However, there has now been a redistribution of power; not only does the average person sitting at home get to have a say in what they experience in the media, but they also have the chance to actually participate.
7. Open. Those who are ready for experimentation are able to do so freely. They can reach other users open to new things around the globe. This is how simple “home videos” end up having a few million viewers on sites such as YouTube.
8. Authentic. Everyone has his or her own identity; no two “profiles” or
blogs are ever exactly the same. People can express their individuality through personal touches, without the restrictions of conformity.
9. Global. There are no borders or obstacles in connecting.
10. Participator. Using their own online ID, everyone can participate in any discussion.
11. Seekers. The new rule of the information age: if you don’t, someone else will.