“What if we could reach the entire world?!”

    What a great question. Let’s ask it and see if God doesn’t have an answer for us. This e-mail from an Hawaiian teenager, sent to the staff of Heartlight, is a great place to begin:

We are three 19 year old native Hawaiians... We found your “Today’s Verse” and started reading the Bible. We realized that we needed to be baptized, so we took turns baptizing each other in the Pacific Ocean. I guess that makes us a church. Thank you!

    Everyone involved with Heartlight loves to hear these kind of life-changing stories. Anyone with a passion for Jesus and a love for people does!

    “What if we could reach the entire world?!”

    Imagine being able to do ministry online through Heartlight as a resource. Some folks have taken that as their calling on the Heartlight Message Boards with great results:

I am just rejoicing... a gal from the Heartlight message board is going to be baptized!!! God led her to Heartlight a few years ago. She always says Heartlight is her church family... last night she went to church — God spoke to her there and the Spirit began working on her heart. She decided she needed fellowship with other Christians. Praise Him!!!!! After the service she went and told a friend she needed to be baptized... She posted her decision on the prayer requests board, then I invited her to chat. We talked about the entire deal and prayed. How cool to have Heartlight Chat right there to minister to her!!!

    Now you know why many of us believe Heartlight can be a key tool to touch the world for Jesus!

    “What if we could reach the entire world?!”

    Let’s don’t let age or disability rule our anyone. The web lets us cross those barriers with grace. Let me share another couple of examples:

I have been receiving heartglight devotionals for some time. I really love them! I am visually impaired and use the computer with a screen reader. The material reads just great! Heartlight Magazine is accessable as well.
God bless all of you and you work.

I teach fifth grade... this past week we had to have our Chapel for our students in our classrooms... I receive the daily Heartlight emails — they lift up my morning as I get ready for the students to arrive! So, as I tried to decide on material to use in my mini-chapels, one of your articles arrived — it was so perfect that I went back into the archives to find other articles that could have meaning for my young fifth-graders. So, for the entire week, we read through them — they proved to be some of the best discussion-starters I’ve used, and my students just LOVED the clear illustrations you include with each article. Especially, I saw the “Blind Spot of our Joy” really touch their hearts as some of our students who were “on the fringes” were suddenly being invited to sit with others at lunch and during recess.

    To me, those are truly touching examples of God’s grace being shared through the web by Heartlight.

    “What if we could reach the entire world?!”

    Just as you’re reading this now, who knows how many other people are? Of the hundreds of thousands of folks seeing Heartlight each month, how many of them are like the Hawaiian teens, or the lady on the Heartlight Boards, or person with blindness using a reader for their computer to access spiritual content, or kids in the classroom being touched and changed by a truth they’ve found for themselves on the web?

    “What if we could reach the entire world?!”

    I’m confident there is not another tool available to churches with the worldwide impact of Heartlight.

    The Altamesa Church of Christ, where I preach in Fort Worth, Texas has become a supporting partner with Heartlight. Our financial support helps Heartlight provide access 24 hours a day to spiritual stories written by a variety of gifted men and women... Real life examples of who God is and what he wants for all people, everywhere...An astounding Bible resource library. When we began our association we reminded the church here how Heartlight is a blessing for us and also for people all over the world! We found ourselves saying...

    “We can reach the entire world!”

    Through our financial support of Heartlight we have our own version of SearchGod’sWord, the web’s premiere and most comprehensive Bible search and study tool. SearchGod’sWord has commentaries, original language resources, an incredibly fast Bible search engine, multiple translations, and more. And it’s ready for anyone, anywhere with internet access! As a supporting partner of Heartlight, our version of SearchGod’sWord is set up to work with our own church website. So when someone visits our church website they can immediately access SearchGod’sWord too!

    “We can reach the entire world!”

I’m confident there is not another tool available to churches with the worldwide impact of Heartlight.

    Since you’re online at this moment you know that available to you right now (just on the front page of Heartlight) are the articles, the search engine, the verse of the day, spiritual cards to e-mail to friends, or even people who aren’t friends yet! There’s a link to fast and pray for the President, another to receive a fresh spiritual encouragement on your PC desktop each morning, suggestions for Christian books, a place to post messages to people...

    “We can reach the entire world!”

    As an occasional contributor for Heartlight I can tell you this: Each time I write an article for Heartlight I get e-mails from people all around the world who have been encouraged. Many ask permission to post the article on their own website, or print it in their weekly church bulletin. Once I was asked if it could be used at a men’s business meeting. Of course you know what I said! And it’s because Phil Ware once asked me, “What if we could reach the entire world?!”

    “What if we can?!”

    God has an answer for us. Like that Bible verse says, “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus...” That’s the answer, as far as Heartlight is concerned. It’s one of those things that people are doing that, done in the name of the Lord, happens to reach the entire world.

    Join us in supporting Heartlight. Make it a part of your personal giving or join with your church just as we have done here at Altamesa and make Heartlight a part of your monthly giving for missions. You’ll be making an incredible blessing available to people and you get to be blessed by it, too!

 

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© 2002, Danny Sims. Used by permission.

Title: "What If We Can?!"
Author: Danny Sims
Publication Date: August 23, 2002