Facebook and the Unreached
Ever wonder if you could use Facebook to help bring the Gospel to unreached people groups? Laura Krokos recently discovered a great way to do this. Joshua Project recently tried out Laura's idea. Here is what we did:
- Pray and ask God to lead you through this whole process.
- Pick an unreached people group you want to reach by searching the Joshua Project website. [We chose the Kazakh of Kazakhstan.]
- Find an evangelistic website or tool in their language. You can do this couple different ways:
- On a people group profile click on the name of the offical (primary) language. Click on the "Resources" tab to see which tools are available in that language.
[We chose the JESUS film in Kazakh.]
- Alternatively, search online for evangelistic websites in that language. Be sure to choose a site with enough information to allow them to continue to discover about Jesus if they are interested. Choose a site that clearly shares the Gospel and offers discipleship material if they do surrender their life to Jesus.
- Go to www.facebook.com/adsmanager/creation to begin creating an ad.
- When Facebook asks for the URL for your ad, use the link you discovered from step 3 above. [We used the online Kazakh JESUS film: www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/kazakh.html]
- Upload an Image. Pick an eye-catching photo that invites the user to click on your ad. [We chose an image that was interesting and that related loosely to the resource.]
- Choose a title and description for your ad. [We chose "Watch Jesus in Kazakh" as our title and "A film about truth, hope and real love in the Kazakh language." as our description.]
- Customize the ad in order to reach the audience you intend.
- Choose a location for the people group. [We chose all of Kazakhstan based on the demographics of that country. It may not be possible to choose a specific city center where the people group is located.]
- Choose other demographic information for the people group. [We chose an audience of 18 and older.]
- Add search words that will make the ad appear on people's Facebook page. [We chose #Astana, #Spirituality, #God, #Kazakhs, #Hope, #Prayer, #Truth, #Kazakhstan or #Jesus]
- Give the campaign a name that will help you identify it. [We chose "Facebook Ad - Kazakh".]
- Pick your campaign budget. What is the final cost you are willing to pay? [We chose to cap our campaign budget at $25 and to let it run for one month.]
- Follow your campaign's progress. Once you create the ad, a progress report will show up on your general Facebook page. [We had 58 clicks on the link to the JESUS film in Kazakh.]
- If Facebook asks whether you want the ad to post in a newsfeed also, decline to post it in the newsfeed.
It might be helpful to let people know on Facebook what you did and ask them to be praying for the people the ad is going to get in front of. Feel free to share this so we can reach more unreached people with the gospel.
Special thanks goes to Laura Krokos for this idea. Visit her page to read her experience.
Adapted from missionalwomen.com with permission.