It doesn’t take much to make a difference. Even the smallest effort on your part can have a profound impact if used by God. Remember that this is the God who fed five thousand men with five loaves of bread and two fish. If you take an action with faith, with God’s blessing there is no limit to what you can accomplish.
Using a Muslim celebration to lead people to Jesus
Afrim saw that firsthand when he witnessed how far his $20 could go. Afrim wanted to use a major Muslim celebration to reach the lost and teach them about Jesus. October 4-7 was Kurban Bajrami (also called Eid al-Adha, which means “Festival of the Sacrifice”), a major holiday in Albania and across the Muslim world that celebrates Abraham’s obedience to God and willingness to sacrifice Isaac before God intervened to save him. Because this story is in both the Bible and the Quran, Afrim wanted to use interest in the story to lead people to Jesus.
Afrim was using the Albanian version of EveryStudent.com (studentishqiptar.com) to promote a book by Ylli Doci called Quengji i Kurbanit (The Lamb of Corban). Because interest in the story of Abraham and Isaac was high, Afrim was looking for a way of interacting with those who are searching for information on the celebration and its biblical origin. He spent $20 on a Facebook ad (pictured to the left) that directed traffic to the EveryStudent article. If he could get people to read the article, he could start them on a path that God could use to make his Son known.
God at work
The ad ran for 4 days and during that time, the website traffic went from averaging 1,500 unique visitors daily to 5,000 visitors. The Facebook page received 60 comments and 30 shares during that period. On the EveryStudent webpage, 12 people indicated that they accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and 10 people requested a copy of the full book, which was then sent to them.
The full effect of the campaign can’t be accurately measured, of course, as not everyone who prayed to receive Christ would have indicated so on the website, and not everyone will make that decision right away. For those who do become followers of Jesus, there’s no telling how great of an influence they can be among their family and friends in an area where Jesus is not well known. This is just another example of God doing amazing things once his follower simply took a small step of faith. In this case, that step was creating a Facebook ad and spending $20 on the campaign.
Is there an upcoming national or cultural event that you can leverage to bring people to Christ?
What small step is God calling you to take? If you don’t know the answer, pray that God will reveal it to you.