How the Lord Unexpectedly Led Us to Start a Media Ministry
How the Lord Unexpectedly Led Us to Start a Media Ministry for the Unreached
Excerpt from J. Christopher Evans’ new book So the World Will Know
Starting a media ministry for an unreached country wasn’t just outside my wheelhouse. It was laughably impossible for me. But God had other plans.
I was a very unlikely founder of a media ministry. I knew little about the country I’ll call “Khorastan” for security reasons. I knew even less about media ministry, using television and social media to evangelize those who have never heard the Good News. I was not very good at being part of an organization, much less leading one. I have never considered myself to be a leader. Not only that, I was already ten years into retirement. But I sensed the irresistible call of Christ to see the gospel advance among Khorastan’s unreached millions. Isn’t that just like the Lord? He can choose the most unlikely people to do his bidding. Sometimes he deliberately chooses the foolish things of this world so there is no room for boasting. And I was “Exhibit A”!
It was 2013, and I had the privilege of serving as head of the strategy committee of a denominational mission board in the US. It had sent over one hundred missionaries to Khorastan in the previous one hundred years. But now, the number of missionaries had dwindled down to two families, and the government wasn’t issuing new visas for missionaries.
Jesus makes and keeps this promise to his followers: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).
It was tempting just to take the path of least resistance: pack up and go home. But Khorastan had millions in unreached groups who had no access to the only way of salvation. It is a Muslim-majority country. The few who are Christians are among the most oppressed and persecuted believers in the world.
The task before our committee was to come up with a strategy for continuing to carry out Christ’s Great Commission in this nation in an era when we could no longer send conventional missionaries. We had a number of legacy missions—ministries that had developed over the past century. We had a hospital and schools, but nothing explicitly designed to make the gospel known in Khorastan, which has such a massive, desperate need. The problem was we wanted to do more than just provide excellent healthcare and education for a few. We wanted to make eternal life available to many.
While these fine ministries did excellent work, they were not specifically designed to carry out the Great Commission, let alone meet the demands of making Christ known in such a large country with such a large number of unreached people. What to do?
One day at a board meeting, one of our missionaries shared a video about what God was doing in Iran. I was amazed at how he was using a Christian satellite-television ministry for Iran, easily bypassing government censorship in order to support a powerful move of God in that country. Iran was showing the greatest rate of church growth in the world, about 17–19%, in spite of severe repression and persecution from the government. Why couldn’t God do the same in the Khorastan?
Instead of the government hindering church growth, God was actually using the very unpopular government in Iran to accelerate the growth of the church. When the government announced a crackdown on this media ministry, the response from the average Iranian on the street was, “If the government is against it, I’d better go check it out!” The government crackdowns backfired so spectacularly that it has been said that the Supreme Leader is worth ten Billy Grahams in terms of bringing people to Christ!
The government could ban missionaries, forbid church attendance, and outlaw conversion to Christ. But they were powerless to stop the move of Almighty God, the exploding house church movement, and the Christian satellite broadcasts that could easily bypass government censorship and control.
In relation to Khorastan, my thought was that we should shift from working directly to working indirectly—that we should mobilize the nationals to evangelize their own countrymen. I also thought we should transition from old-school methods, such as Bible correspondence schools, to harnessing the power of modern communications tools, such as television, the Internet, and social media.
My pastor read the strategy paper I wrote about mobilizing the Church in Khorastan, and responded by saying, “What we need is a game changer—something like a satellite television channel.”
After this, I began to meet with one of the founders of the Iranian media ministry to find out how this kind of ministry works and how they started it. He helped me understand how developing the vision and sharing it would draw people in. That, in turn, would bring in the necessary resources. This fit in with something I already understood about leadership. The essence of leadership is articulating a vision and seeing it realized. So, I began to realize that Christian leadership was about bringing people into Jesus’ vision and seeing it realized.
He also suggested I attend their annual partner’s fundraising and networking meeting in the Middle East in 2014. He connected me with the founder of the coalition-based media ministry for the Middle East and North Africa. These meetings were eye-opening.
At one partner’s meeting, a woman from Iran testified how her drug-addicted husband had abused her and forced her into prostitution. Understandably, she became so depressed she wanted to take her own life. On the day she had decided to commit suicide, she happened to catch a glimpse of one of this ministry’s programs on television. The message of the program—the new life and hope offered in Jesus Christ—captured her attention and led her to put her faith in Christ. Her life was transformed. She found safety and started a new life.
What I came to discover as I attended these meetings was that the power of the ministry wasn’t just the result of creating great television that could command a mass audience. Nor was it merely the impact of using powerful new media and technology. When I saw a Coptic Orthodox Archbishop celebrating communion with the Armenian Orthodox Archbishop of Tehran and an Anglican church leader, along with many others from a broad spectrum of the Church of Jesus Christ, I saw why the ministry was having such an impact. I began to understand that by operating as an interdenominational, international coalition, it was realizing Jesus’ vision for his Church in relation to bringing the gospel to the world. Just before his crucifixion, Jesus gathered his disciples to present his Last Discourse (John 13–17). Here Jesus outlines how he wants his Church to carry out the Great Commission—together as the Body of Christ. More about this later.
I began to realize God could do in Khorastan what he was doing throughout the Middle East through a coalition-based ministry. In this model, different Christian denominations put aside secondary differences out of their love for Christ to carry out the Great Commission together. I began sharing the vision for developing a coalition-based media ministry for Khorastan. I had no idea how it would happen, but I felt compelled to share the vision with the mission board, denomination leaders, friends, my home church, and anyone who would listen. In 2014, I presented the vision to a broad spectrum of national church leaders in Khorastan, who enthusiastically embraced the idea. We followed up that first consultation with a second one to agree on the values and terms of partnership for the ministry.
One day I received a prayer letter from a Muslim-background evangelist who was doing evangelism and discipleship from Norway as he had been forced out of Khorastan by death threats from radicals. He mentioned he needed a professional camera to produce his videos, and I owned two of the recently developed “mirrorless” professional cameras. Someone could easily film himself using one of these cameras controlled by an app on an iPad. It was perfect for his small one-man studio.
Another Muslim-background believer who was involved in evangelism, leadership training, and church planting from Europe came with me to meet this brother and take the camera to him.
On the Sunday we were there, an unusual thing happened. We went to his local Norwegian church to worship together, and they happened to have a visiting Pentecostal pastor preaching. After the worship time, he called me up for prayer and pronounced a word over me: “[This media effort] will gain momentum, the right leaders will come in, and it will be fruitful.”
And this is exactly what began to happen. The ministry has grown to include representatives of a number of branches of the Church, indigenous teams in Khorastan, teams in the UK and the US, and several offices and television studios in country. Gifted leaders, such as my pastor and a senior executive leader from SAT-7, the coalition-based media ministry for the Middle East, joined the effort. Other excellent leaders have joined the boards, the leadership team, and the staff. Millions of people who previously had no chance of ever hearing about the only way of salvation are now hearing about Jesus and the gospel through social media and satellite television.
They are beginning to believe, to follow Christ, and join underground churches. Honestly, I can only marvel that God can use even me in his mission. Believe me, you would marvel too if you knew the pitiful, ruined state I was in before Jesus Christ came into my life. You would also realize if God can use me, he can use anyone who is simply willing.
I believe he wants to use you and my aim is to show you fresh and significant ways he might use you in the greatest of all enterprises—the mission of God. Jesus makes and keeps this promise to his followers: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).
Interspersed in the argument for embracing Jesus’ vision for his mission are inspiring case studies of “tentmakers,” people who are using their vocations to advance God’s kingdom. After the conclusion, there are appendices with equipping resources for churches that want to become more missional and for tentmakers who may lack access to traditional resources such as seminaries.
Next: Prologue: The Jonah Paradigm
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