Jesus Film Media
For the longest time, since the day the Lord Jesus Christ ascended into the Heavens, Christians all over the world have made efforts to obey his command of spreading the news of his revival to the ends of the earth. These works continue today in churches everywhere and in various ways. However, several ministries have developed newer ways of spreading the Gospel than simply reading off of a small booklet.
Jesus Film Media, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) developed an application that could be downloaded onto a smartphone and used to stir up conversations between the evangelist and a potential new believer. This new Jesus Film Media App features a set of short videos as well as the entire Jesus film which Cru has used on mission trips all over the world.
One very popular short film the application features is called “The Prize”. This particular video features some short testimonies given by Christian soccer players who played in past FIFA World Cup Tournaments about how faith in Christ had helped them overcome the pressure they feel when they play in the most popular sporting event in the world. The players that testified included the Brazilian star Kaka.
The traditional way of introducing a non -believer to Christ so far was to approach someone with a track or a booklet and reading it to them. This method has been extremely effective for a long time, and still is in overseas mission fields where media and other forms of knowledge are inaccessible. However, recently in the U.S. and other more developed countries, evangelists and Christian leaders realized that simply showing and reading a booklet was not enough to bring people to Christ, for the average busy college student who was asked for 5 minutes of their time to listen to a Christian read a booklet is typically unwilling to listen through the whole message.
In order to address this newly arisen challenge, Cru and other ministries around the world worked on more effective and fresh methods to spread the Gospel. One result of their efforts was something called “Solarium”. Solarium is a set of photographs and a list of questions which evangelists would use to share about their lives with potential new believers and is currently still used by Cru members. The Jesus Film Media App is already being used by churches and ministries to bring people back to Christ. The Mongolian Campus Crusade for Christ is already training their student leaders to use this application in their domestic mission trips.
The Jesus Film Media ministry was first started when the leaders of Cru wanted to develop a docudrama featuring the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. The fruit of their work is the Jesus film which was released in 1979. So far, there have been over 6,000 viewings worldwide and the film has been translated in to over 1,000 languages. The new application will include the feature film in all languages along with other films such as “Magdalena”, “The Jesus Story for Children” other short videos to start spiritual conversation.
In Korea, KCCC also developed a digital application called “Sand Art P4U” (“Plan For You”), which is a digital summary of Cru’s evangelist track, the 4 Spiritual Laws with a voiced narration and imagery created by sand art. This application can also be played in different languages as well as English, Korean, Chinese, Thai and Russian.
The Jesus Film Media and Sand Art P4U can all be found on the Apple App Store and Google Play for evangelists all over the world with smartphones to access.
