If we try and reach everyone, we may struggle to reach anyone. We hear more from Sats Solanki, aka the ‘Digital Rabbi’.

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It’s amazing to think that there are 8 billion people on this planet. That’s a lot of people to reach and it takes a big vision to do so.

There’s something about large numbers that always excites us. Particularly when it comes to bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ. But are we actually proposing that on an individual or even local level, we are supposed to reach everyone?

It’s a huge challenge to reach an entire city, let alone a whole nation or the world at large.

What did Jesus do anyways?

Let’s take Jesus as our example (it seems like a good place to start). He enters into human history at a very specific time in order to reach a very specific people.

The heart of Jesus is of course for all people but interestingly enough his practical, tangible mission was focused on a small subset; the people of Israel. And on an even more granular level, he spent most of his time with 12 young, male Jews.

Of course Jesus spent time with and impacted many others but suffice to say he absolutely had a focus to his ministry.

And out of this seed of focus came a worldwide impact. Today we live in the fruit of this.

Trying to reach everyone means reaching no one at all

It’s interesting that our approach to social media as churches tends to be somewhat different to that of Jesus. We create content to appeal to as many people as possible. We want to reach everyone. We don’t want anyone to feel excluded so we communicate as broadly as possible.

And we water down our message. Not just theologically at times but also generally. We speak to the clouds and crowds instead of to the individual’s heart. And that’s why the people we desperately want to connect with don’t seem to connect at all.

Paradoxically trying to reach everyone will always end up in reaching no one. General and generic is not good. The more narrow and focused a message, the more likely it is to connect to a specific person.

We need confidence to embrace our unique calling as community

It takes some time and resource to explore and become self-aware as leaders and as a community. Once we become comfortable with the gifting and calling of our local church, we will get courage to emphasise our unique qualities which will in turn lead to a very different sort of content creation.

From topics around mental health, loneliness, practical wisdom and insight on daily life to a higher sense of creative and artistic expression, we have a tremendous opportunity to reach our world and communicate to the people God has specifically called us to.

Perhaps then we find ourselves a little closer to fulfilling the mission of Jesus to reach the whole world. And how do we reach 8 billion people? One person at a time.