Hope Channel South Pacific is making their Bible study resources more accessible by uploading them to online platforms and social media—and it’s gaining momentum.
“We haven’t even officially launched the site yet, and thousands of people are stumbling across the link by accident!” said Hope Channel (South Pacific) director Pastor Wayne Boehm.
With more than 3000 “accidental” downloads in the past 12 months, Pastor Boehm is excited for the ripple effect the official launch will have across the South Pacific.
“A year ago we made the decision to change things here at the [Hope Channel] Discovery Centre. We needed to make it publicly available and more accessible.”
The intention of shifting resources into the online space is to empower and equip church members, pastors and evangelists.
“We want to make it bigger than just us,” said Pastor Boehm. “People can download, share and use our resources in their discipleship toolkits. They’re designed so that you can use them to study with people yourself.”
To improve content engagement, many old and outdated courses have been given a facelift by in-house graphic designer Emily Savage.
“I’ve really enjoyed bringing such an important part of evangelism into a contemporary space and making it more accessible to everyone,” Miss Savage said.
The online space has the added benefit of reducing time and postage costs. With more than 3800 Bible studies received from students through the mail in 2018 and more than double that amount sent across Australia, the Discovery team are excited to move away from “snail mail” and onto the online platform.
“It will save us a lot of money on postage, because we pay for all the Bible studies our students send back to us too,” said Discovery coordinator Sharon Martin. “We can put that money into other ministries and creating new resources.”
So far, downloads have been primarily originating from Australia, followed by the United States, Papua New Guinea, Zambia, Zimbabwe, New Zealand and Great Britain.
“It’s going international, which is exciting. We can only do so much here [at the Discovery Centre], so this platform will expand the reach of the gospel. There are so many untouched parts of Australia, and the world,” said Pastor Boehm.
The official launch will occur in early 2020. In the interim, you can download all of Hope Channel’s resources at hopechannel.com/downloads.
