NZ Update -- 6 September 2024
Fiji: Our members in Fiji have just enjoyed their Annual Celebration, which concluded on Wednesday. I’m attaching Dennis’ report on this splendid reunion.
Masterton: This weekend our Masterton members are enjoying a Retreat, led by Dr Eugene Guzon. We were very pleased to have Eugene give us the sermon at last Sunday’s national Zoom service. He will be staying in NZ until the end of September, including a visit to our Filipino members in Christchurch. Here is a banner spotted today in the Masterton Copthorne Hotel.
Living Today: It's great to have our newly revamped Inside Life website back online. From time to time we have been promoting Inside Life by way of advertisements on Facebook.
In August we placed an advertisement for issue 39, “Is the Bible True?”, costing $120. The ad reached over 100,000 Facebook users. Of these, over 3,500 clicked on the link to view the magazine, at a cost of only 3 cents per link click. It is noteworthy however that the positive responses were overwhelmingly from the Pacific Islands. Of the 3,500 who clicked the link, around 350 were from NZ. The others were largely from Fiji and Vanuatu.
Several people made comments and got involved in a discussion of the truth of the Bible. Unfortunately, a number of the comments (all from NZ) were anti-Christian, but that is a reflection on the society we live in. I was able to respond to some of the comments and carry on a dialogue with some readers.
Quite a few comments reflected strong belief in the Bible -- these were almost all from the Pacific Islands. In previous advertising, I have found that people in the Islands are ten times more likely than Kiwis to view God and the Bible positively and to respond to an advertisement.
I am a firm believer that one of the most effective ways of preaching the gospel in today's society is to do it online. If people these days are wanting answers about God and the Bible (let alone any subject at all!), they are very likely to google it, and if they are looking for a church to attend, the chances are very high that they will first check out the church's website to get an idea of what it is like before they take the potentially embarrassing step of walking inside the doors.
So it is very important that we have an attractive, appealing and up to date website. We very much appreciate Lianne's work on both the GCI NZ and the Inside Life websites. They are like the “shop door” of the church in today’s world.
Recently I wrote an article on my trip earlier in the year to Ephesus. This has been published in the Blog section of the Inside Life website. Entitled “History Comes Alive in Ancient Ephesus”, it can be viewed at this link: https://www.insidelife.org.nz/post/history-comes-alive-in-ancient-ephesus.
The board decided earlier in the year that in the meantime, it is best to add articles online rather than to print physical copies of the magazine. This certainly saves a lot of money. Putting an article online is free of charge, and people’s attention can be drawn to it by inexpensive advertisements via social media. So this is a cost effective strategy of bringing the message to many people.
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