Socially Connected in Brazil
By Samuel Milanez
Locked at home recently, the Brazilian population was looking for ways to entertain themselves and found the answer on social media. But how much really useful stuff do we have on social media today? We had a choice to accept the little we had, or to provide something useful ourselves. We understand that technology is not an enemy of faith; although it can be a distraction. There is no doubt that it is also an excellent tool for the propagation of the Word of God, especially in the current moment in which we live.
The usefulness of these digital tools became very important for us who serve at SLM Brazil. One of the activities that brought SLM Brazil students closer together was the live broadcasts made on YouTube and Facebook presenting each of the lessons of the course, “The Life of Christ.” There were some positive results of this activity. The first was that several people who still did not know our material now had access to it. The second was that some people who had studied with us in the past thought that we were no longer working, but then came back to us to request courses for their families and churches. Finally, we had explanations about each lesson available on social media, which was very important. Now, when the student has doubts, he can access and watch the presentation of the lesson. Remarkably, several people started asking us if we had all the courses available in videos on social networks.
In response to these requests, we decided that for the following seven weeks we would present a lesson a week from the seven lessons in the TMC1 series —“A Place Called Heaven.” In the eighth week, we did a daily broadcast on Facebook and YouTube presenting two lessons from the TMC2 series—“The Life of Christ.” Some videos had more than 1,000 viewers! Since then we have started using Instagram as well.
For the future, we will continue to do what has already worked, and continue to improve ourselves in the use of these online tools so that we can reach more people with quality content.
