Project: Making Disciples of Unreached People Through Digital Evangelism
The digital evangelism ministry of Indopartners primarily focuses on three areas (sowing, reaping, and equipping). Below is a glimpse of the impact the Bolick Foundation made last year. The majority of the funding from The Bolick Foundation went towards outreach efforts, specifically promoting evangelistic videos to the unreached Muslims of Indonesia.
Sowing:
Church-planting movements begin with a broad sowing of gospel seeds. Sharing the gospel widely is essential in Indonesia because not only have most people never heard the good news, they have heard lies about Jesus and the Bible their whole lives. In 2023, Indopartners shared the gospel over 45 million times through evangelistic articles and videos posted online! Muslims engaged with gospel-centered content for over 700,000 hours, which is the equivalent of 80 years! Indopartners also produced over 100 new evangelistic articles and 28 videos. We launched a new digital ministry sowing gospel seeds in the central and eastern parts of Indonesia, which means we are now touching nearly the entire country with the gospel. What’s really exciting is how God will use these seeds to bring many more people to faith in the coming years.
Reaping:
In 2023, over 120,000 Indonesians sent our Indonesian staff personal messages. As a result, 1,200 Muslims expressed a desire to learn more about Jesus, and 714 of them agreed to study about Jesus in person. Indopartners was blessed to be able to see Muslims genuinely put their faith in Jesus and be baptized. It is difficult to know the entire impact The Bolick Foundation made because many people are still studying the Bible with a Christian worker, and often times people visit our websites without ever contacting us directly. We “happen” to hear stories where Indonesians studied our website for years and came to faith, but they never spoke with our staff.
Here are three stories of the people we do know about.
Fika – Fika was frequently bothered by a voice, which she believed to be the devil. She tried praying to Allah, but the voice remained. She didn’t know what else to do, so she asked our Indonesian staff how Christians deal with this situation. The staff shared about how Jesus has power over Satan and proved it many times on this earth. He also has the power to forgive us of our sins. Fika wanted to learn more about Him, so we connected her with a Christian worker who met with her and shared the gospel. Fika became a believer and was baptized. She is now being discipled!
Fadli – Fadli is a teacher who enjoys listening to religious teachings and debates. He had heard that Christians believe Jesus died on the cross to forgive sins, but that was very different from what he was taught growing up. Our staff shared that this is what the Bible teaches and explained about the need for sacrifice for sins in the Old Testament. Fadli wanted to know more and met with a Christian. About six months later he put his faith in Christ and is being discipled.
Sami – Sami was looking for peace and acceptance in relationships. She had been married 8 times and was considering marrying again. She felt rejected, alone, and desperate for help. She contacted us not knowing where else to turn. Our staff shared about how Jesus brings true peace and also how He promises eternal life for those who believe in Him. This touched Sami, and she decided to meet with a Christian to hear more. Several months later, she decided to follow Christ and is receiving discipleship!
These are just a few of the stories of lives who have been changed because of The Bolick Foundation!
Equipping:
The third area of focus is equipping Christians for evangelism to their Muslim neighbors. This is exciting because The Bolick Foundation multiplied outreach efforts in Indonesia. Indopartners’ evangelistic content was used by many Christian workers all over Indonesia to learn how to witness to their Muslim friends, family, and neighbors. And it helped strengthen the faith of Christians throughout Indonesia who are being evangelized by Muslims. In 2023, Indopartners launched a new digital ministry aimed at both sharing the gospel with Muslims as well as discipling Christians in eastern and central Indonesia. People from a Christian background who want to be discipled may join our online discipleship community or be connected with a trained Christian near them.
Challenges:
We faced several challenges this past year, but we praise God that none of them significantly hindered the work. The first challenge was with discipling Muslims online. We have attempted several different strategies but have found it challenging to disciple Muslims online. Therefore, we are mostly focused on evangelizing Muslims and discipling Christians digitally. Another challenge is that digital advertising is becoming more difficult with stricter laws due to privacy concerns. This has hindered some of our ads from running. A final challenge was in working with some of the Christian field workers to make sure they were following up with all of the contacts from our ministry. That seems to be resolved at this time.
Thank you again for your partnership in reaching the unreached people of Indonesia for Christ! Indopartners Agency is a faithful partner of The Bolick Foundation.