2 Ways to Identify People Who are Ready for Online Discipleship

Over the years, there have always been a lot of misconceptions about Online Ministry. And it has been those misconceptions that have caused many Church leaders to not do online ministry. Thankfully, over the COVID pandemic, a lot of those misconceptions have been thwarted and Churches over all the world have embraced ministry online as a powerful tool to help reach people for Christ.

However, one question that still gets asked is centered around online discipleship. More particularly, one question I work through in my ministry online is how do you identify those people online who are ready to be discipled and take that next step in their faith. As I have wrestled with this, I have identified 2 specific ways to  identify people who are ready to take a next step and pursue online discipleship.

• Online service attenders who are always responding in your services Chat. They are asking questions or reaffirming Chat Hosts or points made throughout the message. If they continue to respond this way over the course of a few weeks consistently, they may be ready pursue some online discipleship possibilities.
• People in your Online Bible Studies who are always commenting and share in those groups. When they do that consistently and maybe even over the course of a few different groups, they may be ready to take that next step in online discipleship.

When people respond this way, we call the “runners”. They are running towards Christ and we want to run with the runners. They are really active and involved and are showing signs they want to grow in their faith. Once you’ve identified them, ask them to participate in an Online discipleship group. They may not be “ready” or “equipped” (I’ve heard both those excuses) but that’s ok. Create a Digital Missionary or Discipleship Group where you can go over the basics with them and train them up to be digital disciples. No matter what that next step looks like for you and your ministry, the important part is that you identify the runners who are ready to take that next step.

While we have learned so much about how you can do online discipleship and ministry over the past few months, online ministry is still new and developing. The great news that we are seeing is that online discipleship can happen. By identifying the runners in your Online services Chat Room and Online Bible studies, you can know those who are interested and excited about taking that next step of faith. Thus providing you with great opportunities to develop online disciples who are growing in their faith and using digital missionary tools to share more about Jesus to those around them which is always a win for you and others. It is exciting to see people online take those next steps of faith in discipleship and I am excited to see where it goes from here.

What do you think?  How are you identifying the runners who want to take the next step in online discipleship?  Share below or on social media using #ymsidekick when you share.

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