Contact: Matt Green,
Pioneers, 407-382-6000
ORLANDO, July 22 /
Christian Newswire/ -- Recently, a Pioneers team aired Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ on national television in a Muslim-majority country in Southeast Asia. After the showing, 65,000 people responded with text messages requesting more information. Respondents were directed to a YouTube video called The Secret Life, which stimulates viewers to explore their religious beliefs.
Viewers of The Secret Life were encouraged to send text messages requesting a copy of the Injil, the Muslim term for the New Testament. Of the 6,500 Muslims who asked for the New Testament, 85 made professions of faith. Of these, 25 were not individuals, but small groups that gathered to discuss the videos and the New Testament.
"Research has shown that mass media is poor at persuading people to consider other religions, but it is effective at identifying people who are in the searching mode," Pioneers missiologist Dwight McGuire explains. "By switching our focus to looking for seekers, we often had over 100,000 respondents, eventually leading to dozens of discussion groups--precursors to cell churches."
Creative use of mass media, national television, videos, text messaging, the Injil and small discussion groups are an integral part of Pioneers' passion to see church-planting movements begin among the unreached.
Pioneers was founded in 1979 by Ted Fletcher, former National Sales Manager for The Wall Street Journal. With 1,800 members serving on 188 teams in 84 countries, Pioneers mobilizes teams to glorify God among unreached peoples by initiating church-planting movements in partnership with local churches.
