GYC 2017: Arise

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Stealing Lucifer's Playground

Dee Casper

1. Snapchat, Selfies, and Salvation

This message was presented at the GYC 2017 conference, Arise, in Phoenix, Arizona.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

All right, so I was this close to saying good morning and happy Sabbath everyone, and today's actually only Thursday, so forgive me for that.

So my name is Dee Casper, I work for Unseen Media Group and this particular seminar is entitled Snapchat Selfies and Salvation.

But the overarching theme is stealing Lucifer's playground.

We're basically going to deal with the topic of digital media, how Satan seems to be using digital media in a wonderful way to win souls for his kingdom.

We would like to find ways to use social media to reach souls for God's kingdom.

So everything we'll be covering in this session, the next session, both of mine will be dealing with specifically the topic of social media, how to use it as an individual responsibly and evangelistically.

The third session is going to be done by Jamie Jean Schneider from the North American Division.

Literally 1 of the best resources we have in the Seventh-day Adventist Church today.

And she's gonna be covering how to run a campaign.

Everything from boosting posts to targeting ads, everything you'll need to know from the back end to make your post effective as an organization.

And then my friend Jasper Ivan Atariega over here on the side of the room is going to be doing 2 sessions on the topic of video, how to create visual content to gain people's attention and to win their souls for Christ.

So that's kind of the direction that we're going in our 5 sessions together.

There's going to be 4 today and 1 tomorrow.

So what I'd like to do is begin with a word of prayer.

I'm just going to kneel, invite you guys to bow your heads, and then we'll start.

Oh, Father, I thank you for this privilege to come into your presence, and I just ask now that you would bless us, that you would speak to us, that this content would be relevant, that it would be done in a timely fashion.

And I pray that we would be convicted by what we hear and that we would want to be even closer to you and use this for you more and more.

And we ask this now in Christ Jesus' name.

So I first want to start with just kind of a biblical framework of why social media matters when it comes to the gospel with kind of a parallel found in Acts chapter 19.

Did you know that the Apostle Paul actually got the gospel to go viral 2, 000 years ago?

So in Acts chapter 19, I'm just gonna kind of overview for time's sake, but this is found in Acts chapter 19.

Paul was preaching in a place called Ephesus.

So the book of Ephesians was written to people at the Church of Ephesus.

The Apostle John died in Ephesus, I believe.

So Paul is preaching the gospel in the synagogue for 3 months, reasoning with the Jews.

They start kind of pushing back against what he's sharing.

And he says, fine, I'm going somewhere else.

He leaves the synagogue, and he goes and rents a place called the School of Tyrannus.

And the School of Tyrannus was basically, actually I'll go ahead and skip to there.

They didn't have chalkboards and ceiling fans, but I'm assuming the School of Tyrannus was something kind of like this, right, kind of an academic environment.

You got Saul there or Paul and he's telling the story of Jesus, Jesus Christ in the gospel.

But the school of Tyrannus was basically, well let me continue with this first.

I'll read the narrative and then I'll come back to what the school of Tyrannus was.

He preaches in the school of Tyrannus for 2 straight years, the text says in Acts chapter 19 and verse 10, and it says that so all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.

This is the Asian province, Roman province of Asia.

But how is it that this guy, being in the school of Tyrannus in Ephesus, somehow has the entire province of Asia hear the gospel and he never leaves.

Someone came, they heard Paul share, they went home and told people what they heard.

Someone else came, they went home and told people what they heard.

In our today's nomenclature, they hit like and share on their profile, and people around them came to know the thing that was appealing to them.

Very similar idea to what happened to the school of Tyrannus.

And in 2 short years, the gospel is preached all over Asia while the guy stays in 1 place.

Social media has that potential to do something just like this.

So this was a facility in Ephesus where in the heat of the day it was too hot to work outside and it was used for kind of the upper echelon in society.

They were the ones using the school of Tyrannus first thing in the morning.

But after they finished, the place was just vacant.

And so people during the heat of the day would come here and just hang out and they wanted to hear new ideas and they were killing time.

Basically It was a place to kill time and hear new ideas.

And lots of people would gather around, very much like the Areopagus.

Paul recognized this and so he rinsed the place and decides to share the gospel with these people because they're open to new ideas.

And Social media is very much that, right?

It's a place where people go to kill time and hear new ideas.

And they did it after work and after school.

That's basically the times whenever they did this.

And that's what we do, but let's just be honest.

We're looking at this stuff when we're in school and at work too, aren't we?

Is social media really that profitable for the gospel?

The world population right now, according to Mr.

And 91% of retail brands use 2 or more social media accounts.

By the way, all these slides are going to be available on the GYC website and in the app.

We're working on getting those for you guys too so you can see them again afterwards.

So, internet users have an average of 5.54 social media channels.

How many people have 5 social media channels at least?

So you got Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube.

Does anyone here actually use Google Plus?

2. How to Start a Viral Infection

So This second session that we're going to be covering is called, How to Start a Viral Infection.

And we're just going to deal with some practical principles and how to do social media, some best practices from people that we've been working with, people who are doing it well.

I can't cover everything, but I am going to give you some people to watch, people to actually see what they're doing, how they're doing social media in an attractive way, and I hope it can be helpful, and some other basic principles.

So I'm going to begin with a word of prayer, and then we'll start.

I just invite you to bow your heads, I'll kneel.

God in heaven, again, thank you for this privilege to have this time this morning.

And I just pray that your presence would be among us, that you would speak clearly, and that we would know your will with crystal clarity on how to go forward, at least some basic principles.

We love you and we thank you and we ask that you would speak now in Jesus name.

So how do we engage in social media in a safe, responsible, and evangelistic way?

Well, for 1, use social media as a means of building friendships and relationships with people without gaining a fondness for the things that ensnare them.

That's part of our end goal, our objective.

Who is it that you're wanting to reach, right?

Because you can't do everything for everybody.

So who is it that you're wanting to reach in social media, in your sphere of influence?

What is it that gets their gears turning?

Find out what is it that makes their gears turn?

Go to their Instagram, go to their Twitter, find out what is it they're interested in.

Are there things that we have a common interest in or that I could in a principled way address, right?

Those are things you need to look into, kind of see what they're into.

When posting, think about what you're saying and how the people who follow you or are friends with you would respond.

A lot of times we post just out of selfishness, a random synapse fires and, oh, I should show someone this or I should say this or I just watched the news and I'm frustrated about this, I'm going to say something.

Or I just read someone else's post about something, and I'm frustrated, I'm going to say this.

The problem is we don't always think about the audience that will see what we say in that moment.

And if we did, I bet you we would tithe some of our comments, for 1.

For 2, we would probably say what we are gonna say more tactfully.

And 3, we'd try to find non-Aventist lingo ways to communicate stuff to people who follow us that aren't Aventist.

So this is just a screenshot from my Facebook page.

When you go to post something, there's this little thing here that says Public and Globe, if that's what your default setting is.

But there's a setting here that says friends except.

What I recommend that you do is go through your Facebook feed and find the non-Aventist people in your feed who won't understand or may be inflamed by the stuff that you're posting as an Adventist to Adventists.

And it saves the names of these people, it just keeps them.

It's just when you do it once, you can add people when you get new friends.

If you realize it didn't go over well if you're posting only white quotes or something else.

This should be winsome and tactful by the way, the only White quotes you're using.

But anyway, with that being said, you can actually choose this setting.

So whenever you're getting ready to post, you type your stuff up here, you pick your fancy background here, you tell people it makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside here, and then you say, I don't want non-Aventist friends ABC, and D to see this.

And when you click it, when it posts, they never see that that's on your wall.

So if you're trying to post stuff that's just in-house discussions that's overly Aventist, that's 1 way that you can work around that.

You still have a friendship with the other people if they haven't unfollowed you already, and you'll never know, unfortunately.

It's nice that they don't know that you stopped following them, but it's not nice when you don't know that they stop following you.

So anyway, it's a great feature, it's helpful.

I'm not fully sure on how you do this in the other platforms, but my friend Jamie, I'm sure would, and she's doing the next seminar after lunch.

The most viral content on social media, nearly all of it, is not filmed with the most super-duper 4K camera ever made by mortals.

Charlie bit my finger was filmed on a cell phone and had an absurd amount of views, right?

Those cute cat videos and videos of nothing but husky dogs doing funny things.

I've never watched, but I've heard about them.

If people like what you're saying or what you're doing, it covers a multitude of sins visually.

Now, I'm not recommending that you commit a lot of sins visually, but the content can make up for a lot.

If you're sharing stuff that resonates with people, that kind of scratches where they're itching, it can help, okay?

Use what gear you have, and I'm going to stop there because my friend Jasper is going to pick up on that later today, and I don't want to steal his thunder.

Don't feel you have to have 10, 000 things before you do something.

Use what you got and let Jesus provide more later, okay?

Casey Neistat is a, he's like the golden boy of YouTube.

He's a vlogger, he does like these cinematic vlogs and stuff, he has a ton of followers, like millions.

Millions and millions and millions of views.

But he said the best advice he ever got was from Roman Atwood, another famous YouTuber, and it was just keep uploading.

Instead of trying to meticulously lay out every single detail of everything before you do anything, just keep throwing stuff against the wall and see if it sticks, right?

Because something may seem like a good idea to you, but the people you're trying to reach, they're just not buying it.

Jamie Domm

3. #DigitalEvangelism for Dummies

Well, for those who just joined us and so forth, This is the third seminar in stealing Lucifer's playground Jamie's seminar title.

I'm gonna have to look at the book Jamie Just tell them what your seminars called It's digital evangelism for dummies Okay, but we don't think you're dummies.

We think you're full of potential and ripe for the picking.

So yeah, Jamie is graciously joining us from afar.

She couldn't be here in person, but she took the time to ensure that you guys have access to some great resources.

So Jamie, the time is yours, and then I'll kind of facilitate once we have the Q&A at the end but we'll be able to see all of her slides and everything else on the screen here.

We can and can I pray for you before we start?

God in heaven, thank you for the privilege to have technology to make this a reality.

And I just pray that you would bless us with fruitful information and something that can ensure that our church has an even greater relevancy and what I believe is a new 1040 window for this movement.

I'm going to preface this with, I'm actually, as soon as this presentation is over, I'm sending it to Dee so that it can be downloadable, hopefully, on the app, but ultimately, audio-verse.

I will say that nothing I do is rocket science.

It's just a matter of doing it and trying and seeing what works and seeing what sticks.

Like I said before, for those of you who were here for the initial conversation, social media is about connecting with others and relationship is key.

I'm going to share some practical tips for effectively reaching your audience, maximizing your engagement, placing ads, which a lot of you probably haven't seen before, and engaging in what I like to call member care, which is really the meat and potatoes of what we're trying to do.

More in-depth coverage of all of these topics can actually be found on my website, which is sdadata.org.

You'll see it in the bottom corner of the presentation as we go throughout this.

So social media is a vital tool for accomplishing the mission of the church in the 21st century.

My purpose is to empower and equip you for using technology to effectively communicate your message and meet the needs of your member and community.

I feel that we each have an obligation to be social media ambassadors for Christ within our sphere of digital influence.

In other words, I'm trying to create digital disciples.

If you're wondering who I am, I've been working in the field of digital strategies for over 10 years and I'm actually part of a new department at the North American Division, which is social media and big data And our goal is to use technology to connect members and mission.

So about 50% of my job is to serve as an in house consultant working on various campaigns and with different ministries.

And the other half of my job is to provide resources and training so that others like you can implement similar social media strategies.

So global social media usage is on the rise.

And this year, 33% of the world's population will be on social media.

This is a huge opportunity for the gospel.

And I believe, I truly believe that the next great awakening will be a digital 1.

We have the ability to preach the gospel to millions of people.

But we need every single 1 of you to commit to being a digital disciple.

We can amplify the 3 Angels message online with a loud voice.

But as Dee talked about earlier, we're distracted and we're using it for the wrong things.

There's a great need for training and resources related to digital communications.

And I think for a lot of people, they've even been hesitant to use social media, to use digital communications.

Some people were hesitant to use radio and TV in, you know, time past.

There hasn't been a lot of training within the Adventist community.

We as a church, you know, in my home, we have dropped the ball in this area, which is why my department was even created.

As I said before, I want to empower, equip, and even inspire you to effectively use social media to accomplish your goals and our shared mission.

Because ultimately, we're all on the same team and I don't know about you, but things are getting rough on this planet, so I'd like to go home pretty soon.

We're going to cover a lot of practical information.

This presentation should be made available to you, but you can always reach out to me on social media with your email address, and I'll also email it to you if you can't get it another way.

I'm also, I'm very active on my own social media channels during work week.

I do separate work and life balance, but if you connect with me on Facebook or Twitter, I will respond to you and I will answer your questions or send you other resources.

Also, our website has a ton of resources, all free.

So let's highlight some tips related to managing work accounts and campaigns before we even get into running a campaign.

So this is very foundational, basic stuff.

But I've noticed that if these points are not hit, some people can find themselves getting into trouble later down the line with just technical issues.

So as I said before, I really believe in work-life balance because you don't want to work so hard for the church that your spiritual life suffers and social media is addictive.

I actually have 2 separate Facebook accounts for example, 1 is a work account, 1 is a personal account, and I keep them very separate.

Facebook pages should have more than 1 admin on the page to prevent lockout.

So whether you're a small local ministry, whether you work for a church, You should have more than 1 admin person because, you know, God forbid something happens to that person, everyone's blocked from the page.

Like all you have are editors and no 1 can make any important changes to the page.

Never connect your work profiles or your private email addresses or even a personal work email address to things like Twitter or Instagram if it's for a brand or an organization.

If you're your own personal online personality or ministry that's different But if you're working for an organization or a ministry, you shouldn't have it tied to personal accounts.

What I recommend is that you create a dedicated social media address for your organization and grant multiple people access.

Or if you work for a youth ministry, you create a gmail address for that youth ministry and you connect your social media channels to that address.

But just make sure it's an inbox that people, more than 1 person has access to.

Again, This is just to protect you in case something happens to someone or, you know, and this happens even in the church where someone is dismissed or they leave and you're unhappy and then suddenly nobody has access to all your brand accounts.

It's just a way to put in some protective measures.

And then what I do is I then connect accounts like Twitter and Instagram and Hootsuite to those social media addresses.

Again, on our website, there are more guidelines and helpful tips there.

We actually recently published and approved the NAD social media guidelines.

This is a working document that I will update as technologies change, as needs change.

So let's talk a little bit about how to avoid trouble when it comes to copyright laws, because I want you to safely proceed with a strategy of your own.

There's more information, of course, on the website.

So the thing I want you to remember is just because it is on the internet, it is not necessarily in the public domain.

Just because, you know, just similar to if it's on the internet, it doesn't mean it's true.

It is generally okay to share items that are on social media.

That is the purpose, of course, of social media.

Series

Stealing Lucifer's Playground

4. Stealing Lucifer’s Playground- Part 1

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Ignite Your Local Church for Mission

Q and A and Final Charge

1h

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Most Important Book Outside of the Bible - A Deeper Look at The Great Controversy

03-Adventism’s Prophetic Message in the Great Controversy

1h

GYC 2013 Seminar: Making Friends for Eternity

01-Making Friends for Eternity, Part 1

1h

Knees, Keys, and Please!

5. Victory in the Final Conflict

1h 4m

The Power of God's Word

6. Power in Personal Bible Study

1h

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Neophyte and the Great Controversy

01-The Mystery

40m

Distinct Advent Message- A1

A Moment or A Millenium?

2h

Restored Purity

Restoring Purity: Q&A

1h 2m

Breakouts

God’s Call to the Jungle

1h 2m

The How and Why of God's Sanctioned Fasts

02 Count the Ways

55m

Distinct Advent Message- A2

A Vision of God: Who is God, Really?

1h 56m

Reach the World Next Door

2. Four Steps to Help the Three Angels Jet

1h

Sound Doctrine