Two weeks ago, I posted the question, how are we going to disciple all the people who are coming to our online church services. How are we going to get them to engage with the Gospel when many of them have shown no interest in attending our churches live?  As shutdowns end, this question is becoming more and more urgent as our window of opportunity may be closing.

As of the point at which I write this, I have gotten no responses.

I don’t know if that is because people aren’t reading the blog, don’t want to respond, or don’t know how to respond. But whatever the reason, I need to offer my own suggestions for what we should be doing.

1. Do not stop what you are doing online. Continue to stream your services or do whatever you are doing to provide online content.
2. Encourage your viewers to plug into a local church when the shutdown ends. If they are not in your area, offer to help them find a good church near them if you have the resources to do so. Keep in mind, your goal should be to build the Kingdom, not just your own church.
3. Offer resources to those who are interested or spiritually open but not ready to make a commitment. This could be a book, a downloadable resource or study, or any number of other things to begin the disciple making process with them. If you don’t have something that you can send them, Discovery Groups with appropriate Scripture Sets are a good option. You can find the outline for Discovery Groups here. A wide range of Scripture Sets and other DMM resources can be found here. The core of the Discovery Group is the Discovery Bible Study (DBS). An explanation of the process and why it works can be found here. For present purposes, we can simply note that it has several advantages, not the least of which is that it does not require a teacher; it is designed to be self-directed, and so people who are spiritually open can do it themselves and come to know and trust in Jesus.
4. Encourage those who contact you for materials to invite others who are open or interested in joining them in the Discovery Group or study. Explain that while they can go through the material themselves, they will get more out of it if they do it with others.
5. Bathe everything in prayer, prayer, and more prayer.

I am currently working on a downloadable DBS booklet with the Scripture Sets currently used by New Harvest Global Ministries in Africa. These have been very effective at bringing people to faith from a wide range of backgrounds. I will post a blog announcement when it is done.

These are simple, common sense steps that we can take, but we need to be intentional about it. If we do, if we take advantage of the opportunity God has given us, we may well see a great advance of the Kingdom here. If not, we may find ourselves in the place of the servant who buried his talent rather than investing it for his lord’s profit.