Hands Headlines

A few weeks ago we posted the scoop on Global Media Outreach – one of Campus Crusade’s Global Evangelistic Web Site Strategies.  Want to learn how easy it is to be involved in reaching out to people all over the globe through your home computer?  Volunteer with Global Media Outreach (GMO).  As the image above describe, almost 2 million people every day look for God by searching for Him on the Internet!  A large percentage of these are visiting sites such as Jesus2020.com, TrueLoveandGod.com and 4StepstoGod.mobi – these are just 3 of hundreds of web sites GMO operates.

See how people are coming to faith in real time.  This map is very cool to watch!

In 2009, Global Media Outreach:

• Presented the gospel 61,695,024 times
• Saw 10,502,641 people indicate a decision for Jesus
• GMO volunteers responded to 1,943,585 emails requesting follow up from 191 countries

For another view of internet evangelism in real time, check out another real time estimate of numbers of people coming to faith.  This one is not associated with Global Media Outreach:  http://www.internetevangelismday.com/worldpopulation.php

Everyone watches movies.  Our culture loves them.

More often than not, movies tell a story that has some idea that is related to God, spirituality or topic that Jesus talked about.

Why not go to the movies with some friends who don’t know God and then discuss it with them afterwards?  You’d need to be prepared to ask some good questions – which is always key in transitioning a conversation to the gospel.

Global Short Film Network is an entire ministry dedicated to leveraging short films – less than 20 minutes, usually lower budget films, not 2 hour blockbuster movies – to fuel gospel centered conversations.  Visit their web site here and click on “Training” to see how to get started.  You can actually watch their training videos to see examples of how to use the films.

You can even download films from their web site to your iPhone or laptop for easy sharing.  Many students now share the films on their phone with friends.

Want to watch one of the films featured on Global Short Film Network?  Visit their home page and click play!

http://GlobalMediaOutreach.com

Click the map below to see a live, real time geo corrdinated map of evangelistic web site visitors from around the world.  See who is searching for Jesus right now.  Amazing:

Are you looking for a way to make an eternal difference for Christ? Wondering how you can help tell the world about Jesus? Global Media Outreach has several inspiring and exciting opportunities and hands-on activities to help you pass on your spiritual gifts and talents while learning how to use technology to spread the gospel.

Global Media Outreach offers you many different ways to help spread the Gospel by using one of our online widgets, sending a gospel email, linking to a gospel website and more.

Find out how your church can begin its own online missions program. Or, if you are looking for a way to share your faith, they provide the training and a safe, online environment. Just a little time online each week and you can share Jesus with the world.

I have been volunteering for GMO for about 3 years – responding to about 3 emails a week.  The emails come from visitors to evangelistic web sites all over the world.  Here is what my GMO inbox looked like earlier this week – this is a screen shot from an actual message I received.  Results like this have been typical for me at least 2x per month.

I’m heading up to the global missions conference at Westside in Mableton this weekend.  Hope to see many of you there!

During and after the conference, I’ll be sharing my thoughts about topics raised and asking pertinent questions.  I’ll be doing this in a digitally social fashion.

There are several avenues available to enable this digitally social conversation.  Feel free to just “listen in” or reply with your comments, thoughts and questions.  Here’s how.  Choose any of the methods below that works best for you:

Mobile phone text messages:

I have set up a special phone number for this.  Just send me a text to (407) 278-8185.  Text something like “add me 2the conversation for this weekend’s conference.”  From there I will put your mobile number on my list to include in the conversation.  You will not receive unwanted texts from me or others.

Web:

www.HandsHeadlines.com – our family blog.  Post your comments and questions there, receive an email (optional) of all the responses and follow up comments.  Just click the link below the title of any post where it says “Comments and Reactions.”  Note that you may sign in with your Facebook, Twitter or Yahoo account to synchronize comments on both our blog and your Facebook wall, for example.

Facebook:

If you are not my friend on Facebook, you can find me at facebook.com/dhandman Every time I respond or comment in the ongoing conversation, I’ll update my status with the content.  From there you can comment, ask, or just say you “like this.”  It’s easy.

Twitter:

My account = @dhand  You do not have to sign up for Twitter to follow my posts and replies from others there.  Just go to http://twitter.com/dhand and read it all there.  However, if you want to “talk back” using Twitter, then you must have a Twitter account.  Twitter is also very good for text message response and delivery.  You can configure your Twitter account to work with your mobile phone texts.

RSS Feed:

“Listen Only” Point your web broswer to http://hellotxt.com/dhand and just read the scroll.  Click the RSS Feed Icon just below and to the right of “Lifestream” to see the RSS Feed.  From there you can subscribe to the RSS Feed as you normally do using Google Reader or any feed readers.

We’re pleased to introduce you to Together on Mission – otherwise known as TOM.  This is a Facebook Application which was the brainchild of staff and students at the University of Central Florida.

Basically the idea is to engage movement builders where they “live and breathe” on the internet. For many students, and now days just about anyone in the 70 and under crowd, that’s Facebook!

Together on Mission provides a central place for people of a local movement to share stories, resources, prayer requests and build momentum towards reaching peers with the love of Christ.  All information shared is kept private inside the movement – others on Facebook, whether friends or “strangers” are unable to view it.

Like all Facebook Applications, TOM is an optional added feature which Facebook users may find and choose to turn on or off – allowing the TOM app to interact with his or her profile information.  It’s called 3rd Party Software because it did not originate from either the user nor Facebook itself.  The software was developed by our teammates here at Headquarters and the information stored in TOM is actually stored safe and secure on our servers.

Go ahead Facebook users and addicts, give it a whirl!  This could be perfect for your student ministry, church group or even a neighborhood outreach.

HOW TO get started on TOM (PDF File).

TOM Fan Page on Facebook here.

Promo Video:

Following Jesus is a response to His lavish grace and love. It involves repentance, which is also a response to His great initiatives of kindness and love.

Often the closer I get to Jesus the more I see I need Him.  The more I see I’m so prone to sin.  I’m pondering and wanting to understand more of the stark contrast between wordly and godly sorrow.  Here’s the quote from a Bible commentary which really gripped me:

The sorrow of carnal men about worldly objects, loss of fortune, fame, or friends; which, being separated from the fear and love of God, and faith in his providence and mercy, frequently drinks up their spirits, breaks their proud, rebellious hearts, or drives them to lay desperate hands on themselves.

Btw, I was looking at 2 Corinth 7:10 on Blue Letter Bible.  this is where I found the commentary.

What’s of further interest is that BLB has a MOBILE VERSION – sweet on a cell phone browser.  Check it out here:  http://mobile.blb.org/

Newest Cisco Visual Networking Index Forecast Highlights Growth in Mobile Traffic -> News@Cisco

Cisco recently released a report which forecasts mobile internet data usage to reach 2 BILLION Gigabytes PER MONTH in the next 4 years. 

Staggering?  Translation:  That’s about half a billion DVDs worth of data transferred via cell phones and handheld devices every month.

Think about how easy you find the internet of today vs. the Internet of 7 years ago.  In a similar vien, the Internet is just gonna get easier – in many ways – on your cell phone, iPhone, etc.

So, the Lord may be giving us a real opportunity here.  This goes along with other interesting developments in the Internet world as noted earlier.  We should be looking for ways to tell our stories and listen to others’ stories on handhelds.  Do you have any thoughts?  How should we best take steps to do this?

Tags: internet, cell, technology, growth, web, mobile, iPhone

We use HelloTxt to publish our status updates simultaneously to LinkedIN, Twitter and Facebook.  Usually we update status sparingly and somewhat sporadically.  So if you’re concerned that you’ll be following our hourly postings of our thoughts on the weather or the stray cat next door, then no worries – we don’t do that.

Stay Updated on our Status via HelloTxt ::  http://hellotxt.com/user/dhand

Or subscribe to the RSS Feed here: http://hellotxt.com/user/dhand/feed

For more details on status updates and why we’re “doing the social network thing,” see our recent post Social Networking Reshapes World.

For more context, see our post regarding Digital Natives.

And perhaps you’re asking “C’mon, is the Internet really Everywhere?” Well, yes, pretty much.

So if you use any of these social networking sites, look me up:

Twitter:

Facebook- David & Shannon Fan Page:

Facebook – David’s Profile:
David Hand

LinkedIn:

I recently read this article and I really agree: “It’s not a matter of when or IF social networking will make a big difference, but to what extent!” – Ken Cochrum – VP for Global Campus, CCCI.

Campus Crusade leaders and any believer who wants to become more effective in communicating in the online world should be wrestling with this question also: “How am I going to change and adapt my communication and collaboration habits?”

If you’re still trying to get your brain around the whole Facebook and Twitter explosion, check out our post How to Follow Twitter Without Using Twitter.

Just a few factoids for you:

• US College students typically spend 3hrs per visit to Facebook (some would argue this is a very conservative estimate).
• FB is also becoming a preferred communication channel amongst students overseas, too:  Countries like India and Saudi Arabia have seen about a 300% increase in FB usage in the last year.

How to see what people are saying on Twitter without using Twitter:

1. Go to twitturly.com, search.twitter.com OR (my top pick) tweetgrid.com.  Now just type in a search term.  For example, want to see if any people have posted anything on Twitter regarding “home school” – just type it in and – Bingo!  See the results pop up in real time.  You’re seeing what people are posting on Twitter regarding this topic at this very second.
   
2. Subscribe to the RSS Feed of a particular Twitter user.  You can use online services such as Google Reader (which works with your Gmail acct) to do this or just subscribe to it using Internet Explorer or some other web browser.  I use Flock and love it!
   

Once you have subscribed to the RSS Feed, then you really don’t have to bother with Twitter.  Just follow the RSS updates.

More details . . .

Maybe you’re not ever going to jump on the Twitter Bandwagon. As for me, I’ve jumped on – I’m not addicted but I like it – and after a brief learning curve have found that Twitter actually has definitely improved my communication in the online world.

So, you may not even really know what Twitter is. Don’t feel bad.  It is newer than Facebook and it can be a little hard to understand.  Let me just say however, if you have a mobile phone which can send/receive text messages – better yet, if you have a mobile phone with web access – then Twitter will probably become much more powerful and useful to you!

The beauty of it is that a Twitter update – called a “tweet” – is a simple status update message posted by anyone with a Twitter account and it MUST be simple text; NO MORE than 140 characters.  Talk about getting to the point! Some people call it micro blogging.

See an excellent explanation of Twitter here on Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
According to them, in February 2009 Twitter had a monthly growth of 1382%, followed by Facebook with an increase of 228%

Here’s why VP of Global Campus says Twitter works for him:  http://www.onleadingwell.com/2009/07/10/why-twitter-works-for-me/

Anyway, big news media outlets such as FoxNews and CNN now post breaking news updates on their Twitter Feeds.  Ah, now there’s another term I’d like to zero in on:

Let’s say you don’t give a rip about Twitter but you’re interested in hearing the latest updates from FoxNews, ESPN, Apple Computers or even . . . David Hand!

All you have to do is go to Twitter, search for the person, company or service you’re interested in and then find their page.  On the page you should notice a little RSS Feed icon =  .  This is the key to retrieving the Twitter updates coming from this particular person or company.

Also, I haven’t tested it, but Tweetbeep.com has an email service especially for Twitter Feeds.  They can send you an email once an hour if there the feed has been updated.