At 4pm on Sunday 20th September 2015, after 11 months of research, planning and implementation, we launched Everyday Church Online. This was the start of a journey that only God has the map for and one that we are still in the infancy of travelling. So, four years later we are still amazed every single week as many new testimonies are received, lives impacted, new places reached, and systems developed.
Since our launch the Online Church Services have received 4,700 prayer requests and seen 3,300 commitments made, of which 500 have supplied their details for us to disciple them. Our local community is potentially 4.3 billion people and over 900k individuals have visited our venue, the majority for a few seconds, others for longer, but seeds have been sown, as all of them are now aware of our Online Church.
People have joined us from every country in the world except for North Korea. They are from many different backgrounds and circumstances from which we have established three different groups.
1. Seekers – that are discovering church for the first time, often from other religions.
2. Congregation – this is our core congregation of around 1,200.
3. Pastors/Leaders – we support and supply resources to over 70 leaders.
We also know that behind each number is a name and a story. Joseph lives in Tanzania and we have helped source a laptop for him. Now more of his community can join the Online Church Services. He is also converting our resources into Swahili. Obaino lives in Mexico and made a commitment through Facebook Messenger with one of the Online Team members. Abubakar a Muslim from Pakistan contacted us wanting to become a Christian. Datta joins us from tribal area villages in India where he is sharing the Gospel.
Pastor Eric from Uganda created leaflets from our sermon notes and distributed them to students and a report from a teacher said “Yesterday I went to school and I actually cried, I found over 500 students gathered praying in school hall for the first time and revival in school administration. I am a born again Christian and a teacher. In the hall only 2 students had Bibles and the leaders copying scriptures on blackboards.”
Looking ahead we are focusing on growing our Online Life Groups. We need to raise up more leaders from other countries and continue developing the many different options for people to connect and do life together. This will also mean increasing our digital presence through new developments to help resource and equip everyday discipleship in the UK and across the globe.
If you want more information about Everyday Church Online or would like to get involved with the Online Team then email: online@everyday.org.uk