Dear Friends,

I wonder where Paul would be preaching the good news if he lived today.

There are some places where believers feel particularly at home. We enjoy being around people who think like we do, in places that are known and comfortable, like our church buildings. Of course, it is best to be far away from sin and evil.

So, when Paul visited Athens, why did he not just stay in the familiar synagogue? Why did he go to the marketplace, where all the sinners gathered, and then to Mars hill, which was full of pagan philosophers? He purposefully went where people gathered, despite the ungodly influences there, so that the good news of Jesus would be heard in the messy marketplace of ideas.

Social media is today’s “Mars Hill.” Over 90% of young people in Central and Eastern Europe own smartphones, and they spend over two hours a day on a collection of social media platforms. And who are the most trusted public figures for young Europeans?  YouTubers and TikTok influencers.

That is why, for the second year in a row, Josiah Venture gathered a group of young Christian influencers for a “Digital Missions Summit” at our training center in the Czech Republic. Last year, I wrote about a young 15-year-old Serbian boy named Alex who experienced a radical conversion to Christ and then began sharing about it on TikTok. He recorded his first video on a broken Android phone propped up with an orange on a table in his room. Soon, his raw honesty drew a following.

One of our Josiah Venture Serbian staff began to disciple him and gathered resources to buy him a phone that really worked. Alex’s message became more pointed, unapologetically proclaiming Jesus as the only way and boldly sharing the truths of the Bible. Now, he is 17-years-old and has a following of 60,000 in a country with less than 9000 evangelical believers. Often his short videos draw over 300,000 views!

At the Digital Missions Summit, we talked about how to share a clear gospel message on social media. We also taught on how to bridge from the digital to physical world, and the importance of connecting people to a local body of believers.

When Alex began his TikTok preaching, there were only 15 older people attending his small Baptist church. Now, the church has doubled in size to 30. Often on weekends he travels to other towns and sets up a table to give out free Bibles and talk to anyone who wants to meet him in person. People stop him on the streets to ask him questions about God.  

Alex is not even out of high school, yet he is being used by God to reach hundreds of thousands of Serbians with the good news.  

Thank you for helping us equip a new generation of evangelists for today’s public square.