If you haven’t been on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook or most any other social media recently then you may have missed the new trend of video sharing. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry. YouTube alone has more than 1 billion unique users who visit the site each month and over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month. Those users upload 100 hours of video each MINUTE! Vote: Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

This week we are reading chapter 29 of the Story. The text is covering Paul’s missionary journeys throughout the Roman Empire. What we don’t see in the text but what we do know about the culture of the time leads us to believe that Paul made use of the technological innovations of his time to transmit the Good News around the empire. Paul used the Roman Roads, troops, the universal Greek language, sail boats, etc. to transport him and his message of Christ as far as he could. He also made use of letters when he himself could not be present. It is clear in this reading that Paul saw fit to use whatever communication devices he could to communicate the Good News of Christ. And the word spread.

Today we Christians can access many different avenues of communication as we seek to fulfill the great commission. However, it is the plethora of choices that often paralyze us from actually doing the job. We often get hung up on the “correct” way or the “most efficient” way or even the most “effective” form of communication and can fail to actually be efficient, effective or correct. As a community of faith and as followers of Christ who have been handed a mission, whether we like it or not, or think it is a good thing or bad thing, we have to communicate the Good News to people where they are. They may not necessarily be where we want them to be. They may not be in a community that we understand or agree with, but it’s our responsibility to communicate the love of Christ.

So the next time you are on social media, remember that you are engaging a community and you are engaging that community as a representative of Christ. Be thoughtful and creative but most importantly show love. Social media is full of anger, hate, and persecution; bring something new, bring love. Hopefully the Word will spread.