I recently spent a few days in Nairobi and learned how Christians are using twitter for ministry. I recorded the story of Chris Mukuria and how he led someone to Jesus while tweeting during a Sunday Service. As I was working on this story, someone told me about #TeamWorshipWednsday and I got so excited. While I was in Kenya I saw #TeamWorshipWednesday trending on Twitter and I praise God for it. My guest today is Mjete Tim, who is behind the Twitter #TeamWorshipWednesday team in Kenya.
Q: What is #TeamWorshipWednesday?
A: TeamWorshipWednesday is an E-church (Internet Church). It is a movement, which works in partnership with a local radio station in Kenya called HopeFM. Most of the members of this E-church are HopeFM listeners and we have a big proportion of people looking for inspiration on twitter.
Q: How and why did you start the twitter #TeamWorshipWednesday?
A: “Well I inspire, I do motivational talks. I preach. And everyone thinks I should be a pastor. Then it hit me that I’m good on Twitter and that it could be my platform, my pulpit, to reach out to my followers or congregation. That’s how the Twitter E-Church came to be.”
The E-Church is in operation for nearly three years, but the twitter handle @TeamworshipWed was created mid 2014 for effective communication. Our agenda was to dilute the negativity posted on the social media and point people to Jesus, who is the answer to all our deep questions. Overcoming negativity with positive inspirations and God’s word is my passion. We wanted to create a positive name (hashtag) for each day of the week listed below.
#MiracleMonday
M = Monday – Miracle
What a better way to start a week with expectation. A child of God should look at Monday asa miracle from God.
#WordedTuesday
T = Tuesday – Throwback changed to #WordedTuesday
We look back at where we have come from. The hashtag ThrowbackTuesday is popular but instead of throwback, we changed it into Worded. On Tuesday we share scriptures we are meditatingupon and are ministering to our souls. Tuesdays is all about the Word of God.
#TeamWorshipWednesday
This day is just about Worship. The day itself is WorshipWednesday, we added the word team intentionally to bring out the sense of partnership and build one main brand, which will identify us easily.
#ImelaThursday
“Imela”, which means “thank you” is in Igbo (pronounced ee-bo), a Nigerian language word. The day itself is ThanksgivingThursday but I changed it to ImelaThursday
This day is just about saying “thank you” to God. We testify of His goodness, holiness and love! He is the reason we have twitter in our generation.
#FreedomFriday
Freedom is God’s gift. We declare freedom in our lives, education, marriages, relationships, careers, e.t.c We end our week (week days) by declaring freedom
#BibleTrivia
Every once in a while on Friday afternoons we do Bible Trivia. We post a set of questions from the Bible with rules on how to answer them for the E-Church members and everyone else on twitter. Here we look to sharpen our knowledge of the Bible.
Q: How do you Mobilize people to join the E-church?
A: Four ways:
- Through Goodwill ambassadors. We have people who support this ministry, they create awareness of the existence of the E-Church
- Hope FM radio invites listeners to join #TeamWorshipWednesday
- Whenever we trend, people always join in and in the process we grab the opportunity to explain who we are and what we do
- We are a church, and like any other Bible believing church we are all about winning souls. We have altar calls and we lead people to Christ.Some members of the E-church testify that their lives have changed when they joined the church. Their knowledge of the word of God has increased and fellowship has been created. People have made new friends because of the E-church
Q: Your Future Plans?
A: We intend to take #Teamworshipwednesday to other nations in Africa and outside Africa. We want to hit the trends for Jesus all across the continent.
We intend to hold worship concerts in different cities of Africa, say Nairobi chapter, Kampala chapter, Lagos chapter, Addis chapter e.t.c and invite great ministers of God in the process. This will be nights / afternoons of nothing but hearts poured out in worship.
We intend to use this platform to empower God’s children as well as initiate charity organization to make a difference through this E-Church
Question from Mjete Tim : Is there a way we can link up and help launch a similar church in your country? And what do you think we can do differently?
Reach Mjete Tim @MjeteTim and @TeamWorshipWed
What day is today? Choose one of the hash tag above and tweet for Jesus and join the movement now.
It’s all about Jesus!