Currently, everyone will have such consensus that there is less and less Christian information on the Internet in China. It is not known since when WeChat official accounts related to Christianity were permanently shut down. Popular Christian websites have stopped updates for good... From audio to video materials, from pastors' sermons to self-media content, it is as if the Internet is busy deleting Christian content at the moment, and the deletion and weakening are constant.
I am a Christian self-media person, and I have been doing online self-media gospel work for nearly four years. At the same time, I am also a Christian who benefited from self-media because when I first started using smartphones, I could access all kinds of Christian information through the Internet, which helped me much. Of course, there is chaos in this process, and there are many kinds of contents under the guise of Christianity. However, although the chaos on the Internet is obvious, the orthodox gospel work has also been spread using the Internet.
In the past two years, however, it was found that the strength and space of the Christian network in the media were gradually weakened and deleted. Although Christians who have the burden to do networking are still looking for various ways to find a breakthrough, they all have to admit that it is difficult to break through the barriers set on the Internet.
In the past two days, I have been thinking again and again about this issue; as the space for Christian self-media keeps getting smaller, there are fewer and fewer people who do Christian self-media, what impact will it have?
I think the first thing is that the habit of living by faith will change. The existence of virtual Christianity from the media cannot fundamentally change the essence of human life, but it can make people cultivate a kind of belief life, such as reading a spiritual article when taking a bus, listening to a sermon when walking, watching a short Christian video when getting bored, etc.; it can fill the Christian life so as to more closely link life and belief.
However, when Christianity disappears from the media, people's habit of holding mobile phones will not be reduced. Yet, because there is no Christian information to fill in their leisure time, people will naturally choose other things, such as entertainment, news, online games, and so on so as to kill time.
The world is amazing. When users open video apps, they take no mental precaution against all those stupid, mindless, and false pieces of information, but they are hostile to the belief content that leads people to the right path. Naturally, when Christians are attracted by these forms of entertainment, they lose their spiritual influence and gradually become friends with the secular world.
Secondly, when Christian self-media people disappear, believers in need will be left unattended to. We admit that offline physical churches are still functioning, but physical churches have limitations and are bound by time and space, so physical churches often fail to take care of people who are in remote or sparse areas. The Net ministry just makes up for this deficiency. At the same time, offline churches cannot achieve one-on-one continuous follow-up and systematic training, but those can be carried out over the Net, which is its (the Net’s) advantage.
Of course, the disappearance of Christian media people will also affect the spread of the gospel. In today's Internet age, the speed and scope of Internet transmission are obvious to all. Just like some mature Christian WeChat official accounts, every post will be read by hundreds of thousands of people, so the scale of gospel transmission is huge. From a large base, some people will get help. When such media disappears, it may also affect the way the gospel is spread on the Internet.
But when I think about it carefully, I firmly believe that God is in power in the human world. He is the God of yesterday, today, and forever, so I firmly believe that He will be kind to His own work.
In the past, it was said that "the Bible should be put in the museum". However, as time goes by, the Bible is still around the people of God. Christians are not reduced by persecution and suffering. On the contrary, the fire of the gospel is burning more and more vigorously in the great persecution. Therefore, although dangers and challenges seem terrible in themselves, behind them are God's full presence.
In fact, since the beginning of this year, more and more churches have incorporated the network ministry into the overall ministry development strategy. After that, they have seen more stringent monitoring on the network, which makes us think that this is a test in itself. Some people will give up God's trust because of difficulties while others will remain faithful despite the difficulties. This is actually also a testing process.
Since the apostles' time, nothing has been easy because the invisible is full of spiritual battles, but no one can stop God's will. The development of the gospel is accompanied by the blood of martyrs. Although I do not know whether today's self-media work should be accompanied by the price of blood, it may be a good thing if it is God's will.
Despite the difficulties, there are still countless brothers and sisters struggling in the battle because we have never forgotten that "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
- Translated by Charlie Li
