Stop Scrolling! How TikTok and YouTube Are Transforming Modern Evangelism! | Brian Barcelona

0:00 It was a way that we got the attention of people. You're sitting there video after video after video after video. All of a sudden you're come across a video that just says, you know, hey, we should stop scrolling. Why? Because we wanted the attention and that individual to hear the message that we were going to convey and communicate. You know, Brian, in 2020, the world changed quite a bit with the coronavirus causing lockdowns. And everybody was driven to school on Zoom or what other teleconferencing thing. But these things became way more popular for everybody. And, you know, social media sites like Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and YouTube became became huge.

0:41 And I remember TikTok really, really was taking over. But I see those social medias as a tool and it can be used. And we see so much bad on these. But God has given you strategies and tactics to be able to not just use this, but to be able to train people how to use these tools for the kingdom of God. Let's talk about that a little bit, because this is something that really excites me just to see how you're able to share the gospel through these devices. Yeah, I think before we jump to what happened, it's important to get a good theology around digital. You have really you have two camps nowadays.

1:23 You have people that say it's demonic and stay off of it. And then you have people that say God uses it. And I would just pose this question. Do you acknowledge those watching? Do you acknowledge that a computer screen, a phone screen or technology in general can cause bondage to pornography, can cause bullying and someone can kill themselves or can cause many other issues? Everyone would agree. Yes. So if you acknowledge the demonic and the darkness, then you also must acknowledge that God is able to use those same platforms as well. What the enemy meant for evil, God always uses for good. So if God can, if the devil could bring an addiction through a phone, why couldn't God bring freedom through a video?

2:07 Amen. If a kid can be bullied, cyber bullied so bad that they take their own life at nine years old, why can a nine year old encounter the Holy Spirit by watching the video? I think the other proper way to see digital is very simple. You look at the book of Acts and you have the apostles and there's two stories in the book of Acts that have always stuck out to me. One is they're walking and their shadow is healing the sick. This is my shadow. This is an extension of who I am. There's no power in the phone itself. There was no power in the shadow. It was what the shadow was displayed. What about the scripture where the handkerchief, it would pray for the handkerchief.

2:48 The handkerchief is your comment section. It's your ability to have this extension of who you are. And the Holy Spirit moves through that. I mean, we've seen over the course of those years, I remember there was one point we were putting out almost 4500 videos a month with a team of 25 to 30. We were seeing kids get baptized over Zoom. Wow. I remember this one kid didn't have a bathtub to baptize. He grabbed a bucket of water and dumped it on himself. And we got so many comments like that's not biblical. He didn't have full submersion. Anyone that would say that to me, you've only had Western Christianity. Because what do you do if you're in the Middle East and you're in a persecuted nation, you don't have the luxury of having a nice fancy baptism tank at a Sunday morning service.

3:34 And my question to that individual was what do you do if you're in the Middle East? And my question to that individual was, well, is your faith in the amount of water or in the act of obedience that this kid is taking to try to obey the scriptures as much as possible? I mean, there was a point where we were reaching five million plus five to seven million a month. Videos and content. We grew very quickly across all of our platforms and our team to almost 11 million followers. We opened up a text number over 18,000 kids text in, whether it's for fasting, salvation, prayer. We launched an app. I don't, I haven't checked the analytics, but last time I checked months ago, 14,000 downloads of kids all over the world.

4:18 And that app is now used to train how to start in, in, uh, on in-person Jesus clubs. And so we've seen the power of digital. We've seen the power of, of the Lord coming in in that way. Does it replace an in-person interaction? Of course not. Uh, but it's definitely a way that kids were connecting with God. And I don't think it's going to go away. Amen. So you just mentioned about these things. Uh, how can people follow you? How can people find you on these different platforms? Uh, they could type in my name, Brian Barcelona. Other accounts I would encourage you to follow is one voice student missions. Uh, let me check this out. The Jesus clubs, a gen Z for Jesus is another thing that we do.

5:01 Um, yeah, I know, uh, gen Z for Jesus is, is big. Um, and I'd like to talk about that specifically because we're gen Z is really affected by social media. Um, and the first time that I heard about you, you were actually coming to my church to do a training on how to use social media effectively for the kingdom of God. What are some, what are like three tips that you can, uh, you can get for us right now, uh, to help us be able to craft some of these things, to help people reach the lost through their social media. The easiest thing I would say is download our app, the Jesus clubs.

5:41 And I have an entire training that I break down everything you need to do to post and to start digitally. But I think just on a personal level, it's understanding that you have a message. If you're a believer, um, you don't need to be invited to a church to preach that message. You know, this is a pulpit today. Uh, the phone has become a pulpit. Share these short messages on your heart. They don't have to be these elaborate things. Share what God's placed you on your heart. Prayer videos go a long way. And I would just encourage you to not make your social media about what you ate that day or a picture of your dog. I mean, that's, that's amazing, but that's probably not going to change a life.

6:24 Nobody cares that you ate lasagna last night at five 30. But you might put a video up just saying, Hey, today I just felt there might be someone who's battling, you know, is their life valuable? You know, let me tell you my story for, for, for a minute. You just never know what that could do for somebody. You never know. Someone praises prayer. God, if you're real, send me a video, you know, so I'd encourage you in those small ways just to be active. Yeah. And the social media is the modern day marketplace. I mean, we know that, uh, you know, the disciples, they went into the markets and they, they went out where people were to preach the gospel and that's what we're supposed to do now.

7:05 And this is the marketplace that goes with you and people, uh, I don't know how many times I've been in places where a decade or two ago, I mean, people would just kind of stand quietly, but now everybody's looking down at their phones and they're scrolling through something. Um, but if you can be Jesus is hands and feet through this, you know, through these mediums and that's a, that's a huge benefit. And you're, you're encouraging people to stop scrolling. Um, tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, that term came in 2020. It was a way that we got the attention of people is, you know, how many, I mean, you've probably done it, John, I've done it a million times. You're sitting there video after video, after video, after video, you know, and all of a sudden you're, you come across a video that just says, you know, Hey, we said, stop scrolling. Why? Because we wanted the attention and that individual to hear the message that we were going to convey and communicate.

8:04 I mean, we have videos we would say, I mean, it was as bold as we would say, stop scrolling. Don't watch pornography. And we would say some of you right now, you were thinking, I'm going to go watch a pornography video. Hey, God has a plan and a purpose on your life. And so those, those sort of videos really captured the attention of young people and really helped and really helped set them free. Wow. So what are some of these other topics that, that are really resonating with the younger generation right now? Uh, because I know you recently spoke, uh, on, uh, or a message that has been kind of resonating recently is about praise and, and having a, the culture of praise.

8:46 Um, let's, let's talk about that. And maybe some other themes that people need to be aware of for this Gen Z. Yeah, I, man, I don't know if it's so much, uh, I kind of my style of preaching that I've had for 14 years is I preach whatever I'm going through in a season. So I typically will have a message sometimes for two or three years. I'll punch a message and then God will do something different and I'll preach a message that's relevant to my own life. I have felt that the key in this hour is praise. I mean, when you look at the body of Christ as a whole, all that's taking place around the world, um, you know, there are, there are seven Hebrew words of praise, which I won't break down now.

9:35 Uh, one of the ones I will say is a word called Tehila. We've all heard that verse, God inhabits in the praises of his people. And when you hear that verse, you're like, okay, God inhabits in a church service or a Sunday morning service. That word praise in the Hebrew is Tehila and Tehila is a Hebrew word of praise, which means a new song or an unrehearsed song. We would coin that as spontaneous. And what I've communicated with people is Bethel did not create spontaneous worship. God did in the Old Testament. Uh, and there is a song that John could sing because of what John's gone through in his hard time of life that I can't sing for John.

10:16 And so I think this message of praise is about engaging every believer, no matter where they fall in the spectrum of their maturity in their faith. Uh, there's another Hebrew word for praise called Todah. And Todah is a Hebrew word of praise, which means that you praise God for things you have not received yet. Why is that valuable? That gives you permission to praise God, even if you're still addicted, even if you're still full of shame, even if you're still going through struggles. Todah gives you the ability to join everyone else in that moment of praise. Although God, I, God, I'm believing for breakthrough. Maybe you're believing for breakthrough and freedom in your life.

10:56 So God gives you that ability to praise God, even though you have not seen it yet. Wow. Wow. That is, that is powerful. And there's seven different words for praise. And I actually learned those years ago from a Carmen song. And so those that resonates with me quite a bit, but that Todah is a, is a praise that I want to ask you to lead us in a prayer about, because there's so many people that are believing for their kids or their grandkids or their friends. And they just feel like that they're in the prodigal state and they're not going to come back and they feel like I can't even praise God because of where this is. Could you just speak to that and just, and pray and minister on those lines?

11:41 I want to encourage those that are watching in this, that praise, there is a, there is a fragrance of praise that you could only give God on this side of eternity, that you will never be able to give him on the other side of eternity. Let me break this down real quick. The praise that I'm talking about is this. Angels praise God. Yes. Day and night, not in day, they praise God, but an angel has never known sin. We as human beings have known sin. We've known struggle. We've known temptation. So when we praise God, there is a different fragrance of praise that we can give him that not even an angel can.

12:25 How many times have you praised God and you didn't feel like it? You're exhausted, you're worried, you press past your flesh and you give God a sacrifice of praise. Also, tears, for those of you that are criers, tears is something you could only give God on this side of eternity because in heaven he wipes away every tear. So there is a beauty in a human being praising God in its brokenness, in its frailty, in our frailty, in our humanity. It's so beautiful to God. It's like when my kids willfully give me something that they know they're not, you know, that they want to give or they know they're not supposed to.

13:11 Maybe they say, Dad, I know I'm supposed to eat this candy here. It's obedience. Or my daughter who makes a total mess with her glitter and her gloom all over her room. And she comes and presents me with this tiny little furball thing that she glued on. And it's just, it's messy and it's broken, but it's from her heart. My God, that moves me more than her spending thousands of dollars on something. And I think you got to see praise like that. Todah is that it's where you come and you say, God, I am so broken. You know, I think in light of everything happening in the body of Christ right now, we must remember that David was a broken man.

13:53 We would not disagree with his brokenness. Yet God took his life and wrote history with it. I mean, from his broken line came Jesus. David did probably some horrendous things that if they were done today, he would never be allowed to preach again in our Westernized culture. Yet we still read the book of Psalms. And David's life was poured out. I'm reading Psalms right now. He pours out. I mean, I was reading a scripture today. I think it's a seven line lines, like, how long will you let my soul counsel me? That's so deep. Your soul is your mind, will and emotions. David did not want his emotions to counsel him. He wanted the counsel of God.

14:34 But David recognized his brokenness. And from that place, he gave thanks and he praised. And that's what I would encourage those watching that your brokenness does not disqualify you. And my prayer for the body of Christ today is that we would, we are being tested right now, more than ever in cancel culture. We are being tested of will we live what we've preached for years? Because I think we accept the fact that there's, there's sin that God forgives prior to the cross. But do you also know that in your brokenness as you're walking things as a believer, he also is near and he also draws close to you? And you may look at your family and you may feel so much brokenness and shame, but men, those are the greatest prayers that you'll pray.

15:18 Remember in heaven, the 24 elders, they cast down their crowns. Why? Because in heaven, you give God your success. When on the earth, you give him, on the earth, you give him your mess in heaven. You give him your success. You can't give God your mess when you're in heaven anymore, but you can do that here on the earth. Amen. Amen. Brian, would you just pray for those that are watching? Absolutely. Jesus, thank you for everybody watching and listening. Lord, I pray their hearts would be massively encouraged God, that they would, they would just plant firmly in you Lord. And I bless them right now. Lord, I just bless their God ordained call. And I pray God that although this may be a dark night for them, God, joy comes in the morning.

16:00 Your mercies are new every single morning. We bless them in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. If you want to make a difference online with younger people, I would recommend it. Get the Jesus clubs app that Brian talked about. And he's got a course on there that's going to help you be a digital discipler because Brian is a digital evangelist. He's a digital apostle really, because he's training and equipping and helping people that reach out to you. The next generation reach people through these tools and using them for the kingdom of God. Brian, it's great to have you here on Charisma to be able to connect with you. Thank you. Hear what God is doing through you, brother. God bless you. Thank you so much. Bless you.