Christian ministries using social media to connect to millions all over the world

Reuters

Social media can be used for a variety of reasons, and Christian ministries are using them to spread the Word of God.

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, for one, has over 2 million followers on Facebook and nearly 80,000 followers on Twitter, CBN News reports.

Tim Kenny, vice president of Media Services and Internet Evangelism for BGEA, believes that the use of social media is a wonderful way to reach out to people, especially those who could not even attend church.

"The notion of being able to connect with thousands, even millions, of people using just a computer or mobile phone should be irresistible to anyone with a story to tell," he says. "We happen to think we're called to tell the greatest story in human history—so it's a no-brainer that we need to be active in social media."

CBN TV programmes use both mobile and social media to create virtual communities that provide support, discipleship, and evangelism.

"As [Christians], we now have unprecedented opportunity to reach people we could never reach before," said Richard Helsby of CBN's Digital Media department.

With just a click of a button, Helsby said he can now share to someone from a different part of the globe the "most important" message of God's love.

On the other hand, CBN Social Media manager Juana Lopez said the response towards evangelism is so great that just last month, they received over 7,000 salvation responses.

"We're meeting the people where they're at and like broadcast or radio, it's another means for us to get the gospel of the Lord out there," said Lopez. "We're not preaching at them, we're acting as a friend to them on the other side of the computer."