Digital Student Launch Initiative 2020
Imagine you are a part of a team that is trying to give every student on every college campus on earth a chance to at least know someone who truly follows Jesus. Now imagine that you can't do your job in person anymore. You can't meet face to face with your student leaders to pray, plan, or disciple them. You can't meet with potential key volunteers to lead movements on new campuses. And you can't meet with non-Christians to share the Gospel with.
This exercise of imagination probably wasn't a long stretch if your life has been affected and transformed by the pandemic that has been sweeping through our planet since late 2019.
As their work came to a halt last semester, staff all over the world had to return to the drawing board to re-think how to engage in ministry without being physically present with students on campuses. The clear answer was to use digital strategies to keep their work going.
This was a challenge on many levels. Many were skeptical it was possible. The first hurdle was the missionaries themselves, who were not equipped to do virtual ministry. Secondly, internet access is not a given to many students around the world who had to leave their campuses, many to small villages with limited ways to connect to the world wide web.
Through prayer, brainstorming, and much faith, students and staff came up with strategies. Staff was trained in the various new tools needed to do their job. Student leaders were trained too. Zoom became an important way of gathering and working together. One of the main components they needed a solution for was how to identify potential key volunteers so that the work of expansion could be accomplished.
In South Asia, several thousand contacts were identified through students' personal contacts, partner church pastors, social media, and Bible Quest - an online survey. One country in South Asia (names omitted for security reasons) reports that 182 students responded positively to the challenge to become key volunteers and help give leadership to movements in 106 new college campuses.
In a region of a different country in the same area of the world, they had over 1,300 people registered to the Bible quest. In October they held a 3-day virtual gathering of all the new potential key volunteers, and close to 1,500 people registered to participate. They were unable to account for the actual number of participants, as students would gather by two's or three's to attend it, but around 300-400 devices joined daily. In another region of this particular country, the missionaries hosted a virtual Summer camp for their student leaders. Through networking, they saw 85 potential key volunteers raised from 40 new campuses.
Many lessons were learned. Students feel comfortable and enjoy doing ministry online, despite the difficulties. Missionaries learned a new way of doing their work of reaching lost students and expanding the movements. They needed to be creative and open to learning how to use new tools. God is always at work, even in the midst of uncertainty. He is sovereign and knows exactly what needs to be done, even when there's an unknown path before us. Join us in praising Him for who He is and what's He's been doing!