Church, one number from our survey stopped me cold, and it’s not the one I expected.
When we split the Fall Town Hall answers between people in North America and everyone else, almost everything changed. Who you talk to. What you need. What you risk. How American we sound.
Except one thing.
About two-thirds of you are discipling someone who didn’t know Jesus, and that’s true in North America and everywhere else.
Who answered
38 of you dropped a pin in North America. 23 of you dropped one somewhere else: Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and South America.
And the two groups aren’t the same kind of people. Outside North America, about seven in ten of you call yourselves digital missionaries. In North America it’s more than a third. The rest of North America is church staff, hybrid staff and people who didn’t fit any box we offered.
So these are two very different groups, in very different places, doing very different jobs.
Same fruit
Ask either group how many people they’ve discipled in the last six months who didn’t already know Jesus, and you get almost the same answer: about two-thirds have discipled at least one.
Different countries. Different platforms. Different risks. Different budgets. Same fruit.
That’s the gospel doing what it has always done. It doesn’t need a building, a particular platform or a particular culture. It needs someone willing to walk with one person. A discipler in Lagos and a discipler in Kansas City are doing the same work, on different screens, in different languages, for the same reason.
There’s one difference worth celebrating. Outside North America, a quarter of you are discipling six or more people. Maybe that’s the reach of a YouTube channel or a WhatsApp group that crosses a region.
Different soil
Around that shared fruit, almost everything else is different.
Who you talk to when it gets hard. In North America, the most common answer was a peer, and the second was nobody, more than a third. Outside North America, the most common answer was a spouse, half of you, and one in four has a mentor. If isolation is the problem, it’s a bigger problem in the region with the most church staff.
What you need. In North America the top three were a team, funding and a mentor. Outside North America it was funding first, and then tools, which more than half of you asked for. Same mission, different gaps.
What you risk. In North America the most common risk was spiritual and personal strain. Outside North America, nearly half of you named persecution and physical safety. In one place the risk is burning out. In the other, it can be losing your freedom.
How American we sound. About three in four of you outside North America said what we teach is sometimes or absolutely shaped by American assumptions. Fewer than half in North America said the same. We hear you, and the North Americans who said “sometimes” are right too.
Where you serve. Outside North America, YouTube led. In North America, Discord and Zoom did. “Other” was huge in both, because ministry is scattered across platforms we didn’t even list.
What this changes
For North American digital ministers: you’re not short on fruit. You’re short on people beside you. Find a peer, find a mentor, and stop carrying it alone. A One-to-One is a good place to start (conversations are recorded): https://listen.thechurch.digital/
For digital missionaries everywhere else: you’re bearing fruit under far more risk, with fewer resources. We need to learn from you, resource you with tools and training, and pray for you specifically.
For all of us: the fruit is the same. That means the discipleship on the digital edge we’re building has to work in both kinds of soil, or it isn’t working.
What we’re doing next
Next week, I’m writing about each part of this survey, one a day, starting Monday with the discipling result. And Scattered, a study through 1 Peter for the whole digital church, on every continent, at your own pace, starts October 13, and the daily devotional begins October 19. Peter wrote it to believers scattered across five provinces. It’s written for both kinds of soil: https://thechurch.digital/scattered/signup/
All the results are here: https://thechurch.digital/townhall/results/
