Igniting passion for your vision in your donors.

BY MARY HUTCHINSON

After my sad experience of writing to a few dozen broadcast ministries and asking for information about receiving Christ as my Savior last fall, I decided to take an e-approach to the same study.

Every day, more of your viewers are opting to go online to give, ask for prayer, and order products.  I wanted to know in general how well ministries are using the web and email to do “one-on-one” ministry with people seeking
the Lord.

This time I selected eighteen broadcast ministries — some small, some large, some evangelical, some charismatic.  Many were in the first test, but most were not.

I spent no more than five minutes on each site with the goal of either
quickly finding the Bible-based answer I sought or a place to ask the
question directly.

When I did ask the question, I was sure to give my name and address so that if the ministry chose to follow up by mail, they could.

Here is what happened:

75% of the ministries had nothing
on their landing pages about salvation.

Overall, I was only able to find a salvation message on the ministry
websites about 37.5% of the time.  This ranged from a button that took me
to a well-done video (Bill Winston and John Hagee are two very good ones) or a message that was well-written and easy to find (Joyce Meyer’s and
Ken Copeland’s were excellent).

For the rest of my test sample, I asked my question either as a comment or prayer request (depending on the options).

Within 24 hours, two of the ministries had a pastor from the church try
to make direct contact with me via email.  The common element of these
was that they were broadcast ministries growing out of quickly expanding mega-churches (Kerry Shook and Ronnie Floyd).  Clearly, these folks
valued the inquiry and were quick to respond.

Two months later, I have not heard from more than half of the rest of the ministries I sent my question to…not one word.  The salt in the wound is
that 30% simply put me on their mailing list.

It was also interesting to note that a few of the “older generation” ministries responded by mailing well-written books on the subject of salvation.

Here is the bottom line: Churches who use television and web as ministry need to understand that a one-way communication is often used by the Holy Spirit to quicken someone to ask Jesus into his or her heart.

But these people need the next step too!  These new believers — or even people just looking to know more about salvation — need to know what to
do with their newfound faith, and there is no one they trust more than the minister who was just touching their hearts through television.

I am well aware of the sheer volume of letters, emails, and prayer requests that are generated by an anointed ministry of God.  Each one of those represents a soul, a real person with real hurts, needs and desires.

If we ignore their efforts to reach out to us, sadly, they will stop reaching out.

#

If you would like to know if your ministry was included in either test and how your organization responded, email me at mary@getinspireddirect.com.  I will not make public the names of any organizations that did badly, but will privately to help correct any issues.

TV Ministries and E-salvation