Media to Disciple Making Movement Teams Respond to COVID-19

Nearly every country is consumed with new realities as borders close and lifestyles change. Headlines all over the globe are focused on one thing — a virus that is bringing economies and governments to their knees.

Kingdom.Training held a 60-minute Zoom call on March 19 with M2DMM practitioners to brainstorm and share ideas for how the church (even in some of the hardest places) can use media to meet the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of many struggling around them in a relevant way. 

Below you will find slides, notes, and resources gathered during this call. 

Case study from North Africa

The M2DMM team developed and is using organic Facebook posts:

• prayers for the country
  
• Scripture verses
  
• thanking medical personnel

The team developed a media library of content to reply to those who send private messages:

• links to download the Bible and an article describing how to study it
  
• links to articles on trusting God and addressing fear
  
• translated Zume.Vision’s (see below) article about how to do church at home https://zume.training/ar/how-to-have-church-at-home/

A group developed a coronavirus Chatbot flow and the team is experimenting with it.

Facebook ads

• current ads are taking about 28 hours to be approved
  
• media team ran a split A/B test with the following two articles:
  
  • How do Christians Respond to the Coronavirus?
    • The Plague of Cyprian was a pandemic that nearly destroyed the Roman Empire. What can we learn from those who have gone before us?
      
  • Does God Understand My Suffering?
    • If doctors are willing to risk their lives to help the sick, wouldn’t it make sense that a loving God would have come to the earth and understand our suffering?

Case study with traditional churches

Zúme Training, is an on-line and in-life learning experience designed for small groups who follow Jesus to learn how to obey His Great Commission and make disciples who multiply. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeking to equip Christians and churches whose normal patterns have been disrupted by the virus. In many places where the CPM/DMM approach has been resisted or ignored for various reasons, church leaders are now trying to find online solutions because buildings and programs are closed. It is a strategic time to train and activate a number of believers for the harvest.

We’re promoting tools and models of “how to do church at home” and seeking opportunities to coach willing churches in implementing a decentralized church model. Check out https://zume.training (available in 21 languages now) and https://zume.vision for more.

https://zume.vision/articles/how-to-have-church-at-home/

Insights from Jon Ralls

Check out episode 40: COVID-19 and the Christian Media Marketing Response of Jon’s podcast to hear what he shared during the call. It is available on Spotify and iTunes.

Ideas shared on the Kingdom.Training Zoom call:

• modeling DBS (Discovery Bible Study) on Facebook Live and/or training to help churches transition to a DBS type approach using studies from https://studies.discoverapp.org
  • three new series have been added: Stories of Hope, Signs in John and For Such a Time in English to the site – but these have not been translated into other languages yet
    
• three ideas for a strongly Catholic/post-Christian culture:
  • The doors of the church are closed, but God is still near. There are still ways to hear from God and talk with him right in your own home. If you want to find out how, contact us and we’d be happy to share with you how we have learned to have a direct relationship with Him.
  • Typically in unhealthy family relationships people escape via drugs, alcohol, work, and other stuff. So an idea could be to do an ad focusing on marriage relationships and how the Bible/Jesus offers hope for a stronger marriage, and include some practical tips as well as invite to contact on the landing page.
  • Run an ad for parent-child relationships. Most parents often don’t spend much time with their children, and now they’re spending a lot of time with them. We can offer them how the Gospel can help them be better parents with practical tips and an invitation to contact.
    
• We are working with some of our local believers to get sound bites of them praying over their country or giving words of hope– we hope to put these sound bites behind video footage and use them as Facebook posts and ads.
  
• Launching prayer and “Listening” services where people can initiate by message or by booking an “appointment” slot on Facebook
  
• I have heard of artists, entertainers, musicians, educators and others sharing their paid content (or a portion of it) for free online. How can this idea be leveraged for M2DMM? What ideas do you have? One idea that comes to mind: Is there a singer or entertainer who is a believer that may be popular in country who can share their content for your context?
  
• We brainstormed doing more ads/posts going to a Bible download since people are sitting in their homes.
   
• Our current ad is: What can you do to not be bored at home? We think it is a wonderful opportunity to read the Bible. Image is a dog laying on the floor looking completely devoid of energy. Landing page has (1) a link to go to our page where they can download the Bible or read online and (2) an embedded video of the Jesus Film.

Relevant Scripture Ideas

• Ruth — The book starts with a famine, then death and then poverty, but ends with redemption and the  birth of Obed who would be an ancestor to Jesus. Obed would never have been born if it weren’t for the famine, the death and the poverty. This book shows how God often takes tragedy and turns it into something beautiful. There are lots of stories like this in the Bible, the greatest of which is Jesus’ death and resurrection.
  
• Mark 4 and the storm. This story could be used for the lost to show them that Jesus is able to calm the storms. He has power over nature, even COVID-19.
  
• Jonah and his response to the sailors who were fearing for their lives and trying to do anything to be saved is a story that could be used for believers. This story points to a motivation to not be like Jonah, as he slept, indifferent to the cries of the sailors.
  
• 2 Samuel 24 – the threshing floor outside the city in the plague
  
• “Perfect love casts out fear.” 1 John 4:18 
  
• “… He delivered me from all my fears.” Psalm 34 
  
• “The heavens and the earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Matthew 24:35 
  
• “Be strong and courageous.” Joshua 1:9 
  
• Jehoshaphat’s prayer is very encouraging for this time, “neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee”… “O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” 2 Chronicles 20:12

Resources

• Google Slides presentation from the webinar
  
• https://unsplash.com/ has good, free photos for COVID-19
  
• https://www.videoblocks.com/ has good stock footage for COVID-19
  
• https://disciple.tools/