My dad happens to be a great farmer in the little village we stay. Every morning and evening I see people rushing to our small cattle shade to get milk. Within thirty minutes, the seventy liters produce have disappeared in thin air. I know you think that we are the only farmers around the village. This is not true it would be hard for you to walk around this village and you find no cow. The secret is in the product that is produced. Dad does all it takes to make sure that his cows feed very well. He drives miles and miles to get the best grass for his animals.
Have you thought of why a person would be glued to his television set watching American idols or America has got a talent? Why would one flip into channels after realizing that next program is ministry by pastor so and so? It will only be by lack that a youth would keep his eye open when dad is watching a preaching. In a survey carried out in the central part of Uganda by United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 2008 UBC had 32% viewership, WBS 32%, Top television 16%, NTV 14%, and MNET 18%.[1] Out of all these, Top Television happens to be the only Christian found station. The question would stand why this percentage? By the way the highest percentages of Ugandans are Christians.
The secret again is very simple the nature of our program. Often few of our programs in Africa are appealing in that they would capture the attention of our listenership, Viewership or those that visit our sites. This is brought about by some factors. I would high light out a few. The way we package our programs to make them appealing to our audience. I have taken time to explore the way non Christian work on any program there to produce. They get the best cameras, write out a nice script, get the characters that will bring out what they want e.t.c. So it takes a lot of money and time. How much does your church put in to air that program it is running? You know Paul makes a prayer for the people of Ephesus that they may discover the incredible power that God has given the believers Eph: 1:19. Media happens to be one way believers can show this great power. Whatever we air out or post on the net should bring out this power of God. Sub stand work destroys our name and that one of our master. God has given us all this so that he reveals his wisdom to mankind “God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” Eph: 3:10 (NLT)
God has gifted us different “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.” Eph: 4: 11-12(NLT). Recently I was reading the history of electronic evangelism and I found out that, one of whys it had a good take off was the coming of evangelical revivalist who are Charismatic and powerful orators like Billy Graham, Dwight L. Moody e.t.c. Good orators retain audience and are able to win many to Christ. Before one thinks of running program it would be good to see if you are that kind of preacher or presenter who can’t retain your audience for more than 15 minutes without moving. One of the reasons why people would reject our programs is because they send them to bed.
In Africa one of the reasons why we have struggled so much in retaining our audiences is because we think everyone is an orator. Training in Bible schools and seminaries would have been a remedy to our problem. However few schools would have a course unit on the use of media for evangelism.
In conclusion we can only make an impact if we package very well what we are giving to our audience. The world is busy producing so the people would easily choose what is best for them.