“May you have a blessed day, and may our Mother Virgin Mary bless you abundantly and keep you safe through the day.”
I wince as I read this morning’s greeting sent by one of our friends on social media.
As my computer screen displays the home page of the main platform we use for outreach on social media, I see what our friends are sharing. I am greeted with images of saints and prayers to the Virgin Mary. Scrolling down, I find quotes from the church fathers, posts with stories of saint’s virtues and miracles they have performed, video clips of liturgies, pilgrimages and icon or relic veneration, posts denouncing all churches outside Orthodoxy as heresy and deception . . .
In moments like these, I not only wince but feel like I am cast into a digital iconostasis (a screen or wall covered in icons or religious paintings separating the nave of the church from the sanctuary). Yet, I was not cast into it, I remind myself. I asked the Lord to be walked into it as I prayed that He would lead me to the people He sent us to serve. I asked to be led there so that people stuck there may be shown a way out of fear and darkness by God’s grace.
All this started as browsing through our social media friends list one day. I realized that just a little bit over half of the social media contacts came from a Greek Orthodox background (the rest were from the various non-orthodox Christian denominations).
Lord, what should I do to share the gospel on social media with Greek Orthodox people? I kept wondering. I prayed, analyzed statistics, and classified themes of the posts shared by our friends with a Greek Orthodox background. After several months of work, I could see that behind various images and posts, two main themes were always present: (1) an appeal for help and mercy in times of trouble and (2) hope that the community would live and act in a Christ-like manner. Seeing this inner need of the people, I decided to focus exclusively on creating social media content that portrays God as our merciful Father and calls believers to be like Him in everyday situations.
Weeks went by. Months passed. Some new friends joined social media, many from an Orthodox background. A few more interactions, but nothing majorly different.
Then something happened. Some people started sharing what I posted. Their friends responded and looked us up, and over the last couple of months, dozens of people have been sending friend requests daily. The number of our contacts on social media has nearly tripled. Most importantly, nearly all of them come from the Greek Orthodox people group.
There is much to rejoice about over the growing audience. They are all people who long to know God and to draw near to Him. They are people who linger in the real or digital iconostasis because they long for God. They don’t know that icon veneration shackles them from walking with God.
Please pray with me that our Greek Orthodox friends on social media would respond to the call of Jesus to leave the iconostasis and follow Him. Pray they may be filled with the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so they may truly know our Heavenly Father and stop calling on other gods. Pray that the eyes of their hearts may be enlightened so they may know the hope to which He has called them (adjusted from Ephesians 1:17-18, the prayer of apostle Paul for the believers in ancient Ephesus).
