We’re an Internet-Based Ministry
August 3, 2009
During our travels in the last three weeks–to Florida, Ontario, and New York–I had numerous opportunities to share with people the vision of Keep Believing Ministries. Along the way I answered quite a few questions about who we are and what we do. Over the weekend I realized that I need to start sharing those answers with a larger audience. So starting today and carrying on for the next few days, I’m going to share what we’re all about.
So let’s start with the most basic fact . . .
1. We’re an Internet-Based Ministry.
Everything we do starts on this website because we believe in the awesome power of the Internet to reach people around the world. Here’s an amazing statistic. Currently there are 1.6 billion Internet users worldwide. That’s a jump of 342% since the year 2000. But consider this. Since 2000 Internet usage in Africa has jumped by 1100% and in the Middle East by 1296%. According to an article released today, China’s Internet users now outnumber the US population.
The number of Internet users in China has exceeded the number of the population of the United States of America. The majority of China’s cities and towns are connected to the World Wide Web. Even 92.5 percent of Chinese villagers can enjoy the Internet at their homes via telephone lines.
Clearly the whole world is going digital. Already cell phones have reached the remotest parts of the earth. Truly we live in a “flat world” that our grandparents could scarcely have imagined.
Last week I told the folks at Word of Life that it’s not as if Keep Believing is a ministry that has a website. The website is our ministry. It’s the heart and soul of what we do because through the website we can reach the world.
Here are some stats about our website. Since March 2008 we have had . . .
507,000 visits from 215 countries with a total of 2,000,000 pageviews.
Here are the top ten countries in terms of visits to our website:
1. United States
2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. Philippines
5. Australia
6. South Africa
7. Singapore
8. Malaysia
9. India
10. China
These results excite me because they show a penetration via the Internet in some of the key Asian countries where the gospel is making large inroads.
Through the Internet we can touch regions of the world that greatly need the Good News of Jesus. We can use technology to assist pastors, missionaries, and Christian workers in every nation on earth. And we can do it for pennies on the dollar compared with other methods.
That’s why we’ve invested heavily–and continue to invest heavily–in developing our website. That’s also why we use Facebook and Twitter. And that’s why we do podcasting and that’s why we’ll soon be moving into video as well.
If God has placed these tools in our hands, should we not use them for the greatest cause on earth–spreading the Good News of Jesus?
Right now we don’t own any property and we haven’t built any buildings. Maybe we’ll do that in the future. We’re certainly not opposed to that. But if you want to understand us, don’t look for bricks and mortar. We’re not that kind of ministry. You can’t find us at a particular address.
We live on the Internet because that’s where 1.6 billion people live. And that number is growing every day.
So when you think of Keep Believing, take a look at your laptop computer. When you’re online, you’re in our neighborhood.