Until All Have Heard
Until All Have Heard
The Digital Lost and Found (Ep. 303)
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Everyone searches for the “Lost & Found” when something valuable is missing. In the digital age, where does the next generation turn when they realize they are lost in the dark currents of the modern era? In this episode Ed and Wayne talk about the way FEBC social media broadcasts acts as the new place to go when people are searching for answers to serious life questions, and spiritual issues. Ed give us a firsthand report about a recent Next-Generation conference where young FEBC staff members learn the best practices for new digital tools while staying anchored to the message of salvation in Jesus…Until All Have Heard
This is until all have heard from the Far East Broadcasting Company. I'm Wayne Shepherd sitting here with Ed Cannon, president of FEBC. And the last time I saw you in person, we were completing a conference, but you were on your way already to Kazakhstan immediately afterwards.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's right, Wayne. We had a conference in Kazakhstan, which was essentially pulling together our younger broadcasters who are using Instagram, TikTok, Facebook Live, Snapchat, and some others that I can't even. Say what? It's all the social media broadcasts. And their target is the next generation. And as we are evolving in sense from primarily a shortwave ministry to a much more online, cell phone-based, web-based, social media-based broadcasting, we have to be intentional about making that change. We can't just let it happen. And I think as we sat down and thought strategically, how do we implement this change? Let's get those people in all the different countries of FEBC who are using these new tools, bring them together and let them share with one another what's working, what's not working, why does this work, why doesn't that work, and encourage people to be nimble and agile about letting go of those things from the past that aren't working well and adopting these new broadcast techniques for the purposes of being more successful about what we're trying to do.
SPEAKER_01Well, as you led the conference, uh you gave a devotional, which I'm going to ask you to summarize for us here today in just a few moments. But also you were telling me the story as an example of these young people who are sharing on social media and all the associated uh digital things that go with it, but this 17-year-old young woman from Ukraine. Can you summarize that story real quickly?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's very moving. Um she was there at the conference, um she's only about five foot tall, so it it appeared to me that you know she was a child, but she was seventeen, and she went through a very moving experience. She lives in Kiev, and um, you know, family loss, um the difficulties of war, uh people that were close to her that had been killed or disappeared, and struggling uh with a mother who was not living a good life. So she was so depressed and discouraged she started harming herself, thoughts of suicide, uh deep, deep, deep depression. And uh she reached out to some FABC counselors who were online, she sent messages to our Facebook page, and after a long period of time, deeply connected with some young people from FEBC, which is part of the next gen philosophy. It's not good enough just to send a text, but you have to become friends. Right. That's what all this social media stuff is about. So she did, and the counselors worked very diligently with her, patiently, in a loving way, communicating the truth of the gospel, which she understands. And after this conversion of hers, where she came to be a believer in Christ, she's doing podcasts um there in Ukraine, targeting young teenagers just like herself, who've been through difficult times because of the war, and and her message to them is how foolish it is that you think hurting yourself can help yourself. Why in the world would you think that inducing pain in your own body or even committing suicide can help anything? Now I know those are difficult conversations, and there's a lot of people way more intelligent than I am that have studied this their whole life, but this young girl is an eyewitness testimony to how the gospel can bring you out of those situations.
SPEAKER_01So giving her voice through FEBC, that that's remarkable. I love that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and she has tens of thousands of followers now. And and basically her message is don't believe the lie that you're hearing from the world, that you're worthless, that you're meaningless, that you need to hurt yourself, or that you can somehow solve your problems by committing suicide. And I I just marveled at this philosophy that here's a young girl who's been through and without any training. She she's not a trained broadcaster. She's not a trained theologian. But because of her experience in life, she's telling you it worked for me, so it can work for you too.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell That's such a great story. And you multiply that over and over again around the world. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00And there's dozens of stories about different topics. One of the young guys there was bringing an imam into his broadcast to do an interview together, and they were fighting with each other, and then they became friends, and they just said, well, we might disagree, but we don't have to hate each other. And that's really a progressive step.
SPEAKER_01Step in the right direction. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, anyway, you asked me to talk about my devotion stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'd love to hear what you shared with the with those in attendance.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, we opened the conference and we always start with a devotion, and I tried to bring a devotion that might have some relevance to why we were there. And I picked um the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus. Now don't say it's just because I'm short winged, but I picked the story because I wasn't going there. Because I think it's a great story. It's in Luke 19. And uh Jesus was on his way, actually, um, to Jerusalem with the eventual crucifixion. So it was one of the last chapters of Jesus' um ministry before he goes to the triumphal entry, which is still in this chapter, actually. But he's pass passing through Jericho, and I talked a lot about Jericho. There was a significant reason I think that this took place there. It was a merchant city, lots of passerbys, lots of influential people there in Jericho. And one of them was Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. That's really all we know about him. He was a chief tax collector, so a tax collector among tax collectors, so very prominent, probably very hated by the Jewish people. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01likes very well, yeah. Didn't have a lot of Facebook friends, did he?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell Right. And of course, very, very rich, so that kind of adds to the disdain that people might have for him. Um but the other thing we know about him is it says, and he was seeking to see who Jesus was. He was seeking to see who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_01Which is why he climbed the tree.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus, Jr. Which is well, he climbed the tree to see Jesus, but also he climbed the tree because the crowd was taller than he was. And we pointed out you know the meaning of this simple little phrase, he couldn't see Jesus because of the crowd. And so are there other crowds that are keeping people from seeing Jesus? Could it be our behavior as Christians that people might see as like, well, I don't I don't really want to get to know this Jesus because here's someone that professes to be a Christ follower, and yet they're not living a life that I th I see as is Christian in any way. Um they're speaking down to me, uh they're criticizing me. Could the crowd be your commitment to wealth or money? Could it be he couldn't see Jesus because of his wealth, uh not just because he was short and there was a crowd? Are these struggles in life that keep us from seeing Jesus? Could it be addiction to uh a hobby or a bad habit? And and these things all could be represented as the crowd that keep people from seeing Jesus. So I challenge the young people to think about what are the crowds in life? What are the things that perhaps your broadcast might be standing in front of a short person, not allowing them to see really who Jesus was. What's crowding Jesus in? Which was his question. Yeah. And Zacchaeus had to overcome those crowds on his own because of his desire by climbing up into the tree. And you probably all know the story, so Zacchaeus climbed up in the tree and Jesus immediately knew him. Zacchaeus, he knew him by name. Come down. This is not an accident. This is part of Jesus' planned intentional ministry. If I can reach this person who you all think is the lowest of the lowest of the low, rich, arrogant tax collector, that's who I'm coming to seek. And when I give him my message, which he obviously did, what did Zacchaeus do? He instantly said, Lord, I'm gonna give half my goods to the poor. And if I've defrauded anyone, I'll restore it fourfold. So the fact that this rich tax collector has done the exact opposite, multiplied by fourfold, is evidence that Jesus' message can save anyone. He can transfers anyone's life. And then the story kind of drops off, and Jesus goes on to the triumphal entry. But I love the last line in this story. It's chapter 19, verse 10. For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. That's why Jesus came. He's seeking and saving the lost, even the most lost of the lost, Zacchaeus, someone who the society hates and disdains, someone who lives a life completely opposite that which we profess as Christianity. But Jesus came for that lost man. He didn't come to feed the hungry or to make life comfortable for the poor or to heal the sick. He did those things so that people would know He who he was. And my challenge to those young people, using social media and cell phone apps to profess the truth of Christ to the world, is that Jesus came to seek and save the lost. And we too must use these modern tools to seek and save the lost. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01That's what impresses me so much is that their world today is so much aimed at social media and technology as as opposed to, you know, shortwave radio kind of things. And yet you are reminding them of the core principles of FEBC that don't change regardless of the toolbox, right? It it's it's all the same. It needs to remain as it always has been.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. At the end of my presentation, I used a little radio quip that Wayne, you and I have chuckled about for years, and that's within the radio world, um broadcasters all say content is king, which means, yeah, it's it's not about the platform, it's about what you say on the radio. But at FEBC, we've adopted a kind of a version of that that says content is king when the king is the content. And I reminded these young people of that. And then, you know, don't just use tr social media tricks to hook people.
SPEAKER_01Don't get caught up with a tool.
SPEAKER_00Don't get caught up with a tool and don't get caught up with things that don't mean anything. We don't care how many followers you as a broadcaster have. We care how many people are following Jesus Christ. And don't ever mistake the main thing. That's the main thing, and we want to keep the main thing the main thing. We want people to follow Jesus, not to follow you on Facebook. Sure, the more followers you have, the more we're listening, and that's a good indicator. But if you don't have the content with Christ in it, you're not going to accomplish our goal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well said. Are you do you see evidence that the message is getting across to these young broadcasters part of FEBC? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_00Wayne, I was so impressed with the response of these young people. You know, you you kind of look down at this generation and think, well, they're not work har hard workers or you know, maybe they just want a soft life and work from home in their vagina. They were so impressive. I mean, so many working so hard, trying so hard to learn from each other. And at the end of the day, when we'd have a prayer session, listening to the prayers of those young people that are praying for lost listeners, people that they haven't sought, young people who are living in darkness and have not yet seen the light, I was so encouraged. So I'll ask you today, who are listening to this program, pray for these young people. Um, pray that God would fill their hearts with the right message so that in these little 30-second clips that they're putting out on Facebook Live or YouTube, that they can reach the hearts of the people with the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01That's a great report from the next gen conference that took place in Kazakhstan. It just happened to be a great place to get everybody from all these many countries where FABC is involved together in one place at one time. So thanks for being willing to uh tackle that assignment.
SPEAKER_00No, thank you, Wayne.
SPEAKER_01All right, that's uh Ed's report this week on Until All Have Heard, sort of the inside story of what God is doing through the Far East Broadcasting Company. If you'd like to learn more, our website, of course, is the starting point. And if we can answer any questions, be sure to get in touch with us. And maybe you have a suggestion of what you'd like to hear us talk about here. You can always reach us through our website, febc.org. All right, that's our time for this week. I'm Wayne Shepard with producer Joe Carlson. Thank you for listening to Until All Have Heard.