What if God was the conversation of your city?
That’s what happened last Summer in Chemnitz, Germany (where 240,000 people live, but only 1% Christian)
14 local churches large and small joined hands in this former communist East German town for a city-wide campaign to intentionally make Jesus the ‘talk of the town’ through a series of events that involved service projects, performances, flash mobs, street parties, distribution of materials etc.
Before these core events took place, billboards, banners, posters were put up all over town. They asked thought-provoking questions like ‘Do you know me?’ ‘Do you hear me?’ ‘Do you see me?’, which began to stir up a lot of curiosity and awareness of something happening.
Then in the final 3 weeks, about 500 christians flooded the streets to make a public profession of their faith (through varies activities in the city). As they interacted with the locals they handed out cards that point them to the KnowingGod website made specially for them.
Needless to say, God blessed this show of unity, plus they met one of their key objectives of encouraging the church to engage in evangelism and the personal confession of their faith.
Here are some other interesting results:
• Chemnitz christians learned to share their faith, many for the very first time!
• 5000 clicks on their city-customized KnowingGod site
• 220 prayers on the website
• 76 made decisions for Jesus either at the events or via Gottkennen.de and were followed up
• 4 Alpha courses started
• Participating churches decided to have frequent evangelistic street activities together.
• Chemnitz churches commit to undertake another major city campaign for 2013
The campaign may be over but the website continues… as a useful platform for Chemnitz Christians to point to in their spiritual conversations
If you interested to find out more about this strategy contact Gerhard from our CCC German team at: gerhard.spanka@campus-d.de
What digital strategies have you tried or used to make an impact in your city?