Baseball and soccer are different sports. Although they have common characteristics—both include running—they are also different. No one plays soccer with baseball equipment. No one plays baseball under soccer rules. When presuppositions are different, approaches become different.
Traditional evangelistic meetings have a common presupposition that all participants are in the same space. Although we do not always recognize that, the length and flowchart of a program are prepared on that presupposition.
The characteristics of online evangelistic meetings are based on a different presupposition from that of traditional evangelistic meetings. Despite that, many churches forget that the presupposition should be different. In this way, they use the same methodology as that of the traditional one. However, we’ve often seen that the methodology does not work on online platforms such as YouTube.
If an online meeting is prepared for church members, there may be no problem. However, if the online meeting is for evangelism, we need to ask God for new wisdom.
Online evangelistic meetings are not a substitute of traditional meetings. They are not just a delivery of traditional meetings through YouTube. They need a different methodology with different presuppositions.
The Kagoshima Seventh-day Adventist Church challenged the traditional characteristics when it conducted online meetings in October 2020. It was an attempt to redesign meetings for online evangelism.
Members who led out shared and discussed ideas since no one person had a right solution. Then they undertook the task considering the following four points:
1. To devise a plan for a long series of meetings (20 consecutive times).
2. To make the length of the program shorter than traditional meetings (30 minutes that includes sermon, special music, and an invitation to the Bible correspondence course).
3. To improve the quality of frames, by shooting multi-angle in a home-like setting.
4. To set up the church’s YouTube channel.
By working cooperatively with many people, the first online evangelistic meetings in our church ended with many blessings. At the same time, there were many areas to change. So here I make a report about some of them.
The Number of Views of Content
Regarding online evangelistic meetings, we were first curious about the number of views of the content. The accumulated number of views was 24,000 times (1,200 times per sermon which did not include advertisements).
This does not mean that 1,200 people participated in each meeting. For adequate inventory to make changes, we have to pay attention to other aspects besides just the number of views.
Unique Viewers: 11,000 people (550 people per sermon)
A “unique viewer” means a user who watched the content. By comparing it with the number of views, we can know that the same user watched the content more than once.
New Viewers: 9,500 people (475 people per sermon)
A “new viewer” means a user who visited the Kagoshima church YouTube channel for the first time during the period of the meetings. This number was the highest in the history of our church! This is because church members put a strong effort into promoting the church’s YouTube channel. But I believe there is a need to make the length and atmosphere of the content more appealing. For this purpose, we need a good team that can honestly review content and redesign the meetings.
Viewer Demographics
One of the points that we should note is viewer demographics. How these demographics change is important to objectively assess online meetings. The breakdown before the meetings seems to reflect to some degree the actual participants of the meetings.
User Retention Rate
The number of users to watch the entire content was small. It is valid to investigate user retention rates in order to know users’ responses to the content and its timing.
The most valuable method to increase user retention rate is to watch the content with others. We are taught it is important to not only say “Please watch!” but also say “Let’s watch!”
User Finishing Point from Our Site
We recognized that more than half of viewers finished watching our channel in 10 to 30 seconds. Users who continued watching for one minute tended to stay on our channel; yet, at the point when special music started, the finishing rate increased. Although special music has been considered indispensable in traditional evangelistic meetings, in our online meetings the effect was the opposite.
Average Viewing Time and Average Viewership
YouTube users tend to consider that content with a fifteen minute length video is long. Although I do not oppose a long program, there seems to be value if we try a shorter version. I think that we need ways to set our meetings to the YouTube system, not to set YouTube to the traditional model.
Response
1. People who made a decision for baptism: 8 people.
These people are seekers whom church members have already contacted. Although our online meetings might be a cue of decision, the meetings were not the final decision. About half of these people live far away from our church.
2. Applicants of Bible correspondence course: 12 people.
More than half of these people are those whom church members took the opportunity afforded by these meetings to invite for the Bible correspondence course. Content on the Internet did not work as a substitute for human interaction. Believers worked consistently by using our online meetings.
Every method of evangelism needs associates. I believe that the first step of evangelism is to continue building a team in which members pray together and gather wisdom. Online evangelistic meetings also have this presupposition. Considering the fact that in online meetings each member works separately, I am convinced that mutual support of associates is absolutely necessary. We should achieve our best as a team and ask for faith that trusts in the Holy Spirit.
The effort for the online evangelistic meetings in Kagoshima church has only just begun. Thinking of the salvation of 1.6 million people in Kagoshima prefecture, I can never say that we have been completely successful. Yet, I am feeling great pleasure because God led the first significant step. We trust the work that our Lord will accomplish through our church. Maranatha!
News article by Haruto Kameyama, Pastor at Kagoshima church