Stories & News

HOPE in Isolated Places

Posted: 2019-03-26

Missionary with Solar Panesl Many unreached people groups live in very isolated areas where there is little or no adequate electricity or access to the Internet. If they are going to be reached, someone has to go. And when that someone brings The HOPE on a solar-powered video projection system that fits into a backpack, the whole village shows up to watch it! So it goes, again and again. Unreached people experience The HOPE. For many, it is their first time to see a movie and to hear the Gospel. Some (often many) come to Christ. A Bible study is started with a missionary pastor returning on a regular basis to lead it. Eventually, a village pastor is raised up and a Church is planted! For a related story, see "The First Believers in Their Village."

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The Help Reach Them Campaign

Posted: 2017-12-14

God desires to populate heaven with people from every tongue, tribe, and nation. But so many are still unreached! In fact, missiologists tell us that, of the world’s approximately 16,500 “ethne” (the Biblical word for nations), around 7,000 have yet to be reached with the Gospel!

The HOPE was designed to overcome 4 obstacles to reaching unreached people groups (nations) with the Gospel. Recently, we created a 3.5 min. video explaining how and why. Never before have we stopped our work on The HOPE to create a media piece about The HOPE. But it was time!

God, through His people, is using The HOPE to reach the nations. But with some help, we could do so much more! This video is part of a larger, Help Reach Them, campaign. To seize the opportunities before us, we are in need of key personnel, donors, intercessors, community networkers, social media advocates, ministry partners, and more! Please visit our “Get Involved” page at www.HelpReachThem.com to watch our new video and learn about all the ways you could get involved to reach the nations! And please, feel free to share this video with as many people as possible. That is one way you can Help Reach Them!

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A New Internet Strategy for Reaching the World

Posted: 2017-12-14

www.TheHOPEProject.com is our website for streaming The HOPE and providing our companion Study Guide. Eventually, we expect to be streaming all of the 65+ languages of The HOPE on this website. Hundreds of people from around the world visit this site daily. If someone indicates a decision to follow Christ, they can connect to an online missionary with one of our ministry partners. Since its inception, we’ve viewed the Internet as one of the main venues where our ministry happens . . . but no longer!

For much of the world, particularly where most of the unreached people groups live, video streaming is just not possible. The Internet pipeline is too slow, or non-existent. In these regions, someone wanting The HOPE needs to be able to download it, even if it takes all night because of slow Internet. And the download file needs to be small enough to work on a mobile phone. The current data shows that the majority of people in the world now access the Internet on their mobile devices.

To meet the need, we’ve invested a lot of time, energy and resource into updating www.HOPEPartnering.com, our web portal “For All Things Related to Partnering in The HOPE.” Historically, this was the place where people learned how to partner in creating translations of The HOPE. It is now a part of the main Mars Hill website, and moving forward, it will be our main portal for delivering The HOPE. We even foresee a time when downloads will replace DVDs. Check out the section of this website that shows all The HOPE languages - www.TheHOPELanguages.com. It is really amazing to see what God has done through our partners worldwide.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this new development is the way it has returned us to our roots. We’ve always believed that the highest use of media for ministry is as a tool in the hands of a Christian working to reach another person (or people) for Christ. Until now, we’ve viewed the Internet as one of our primary venues for ministry. We now view it more as our primary means for delivering The HOPE to those doing the ministry. Our goal is to provide The HOPE to the “boots-on-the-ground” Christian workers around the world whenever, wherever and however they need it!

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Telegram App Safely Carries Gospel to the Middle East

Posted: 2017-11-30

Every month, SAT-7 Media broadcasts The Farsi, Arabic, and Turkish HOPE across the Arab speaking world via satellite TV. In the Persian Gulf and parts of North Africa, SAT-7 uses the Telegram App as their primary audience relation tool to engage with millions of Muslim viewers. Because users on Telegram are not able to see or interact with other users, the app is a safe and secure way for seekers to reach out with questions about programing they have seen. SAT-7 recently approached Mars Hill requesting clips of The HOPE to use for a daily bible study in the app. This project, coming soon, will share The HOPE with as many as 80,000 people who currently follow the SAT-7 Channel via Telegram.

Would you like to get involved? We often post about upcoming broadcasts on our HOPE Facebook and Instagram. Keep an eye out to join with us in prayer.

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Texas Church Taps Into the Nations using HOPE ESL

Posted: 2017-11-30

Hill Country Bible Church (Austin, Texas) recently completed another year of ESL (English as a Second Language) outreach using The HOPE. In addition to her own ESL curriculum, the director of the Conversational English Outreach at HCBC put together a basic Bible study using The HOPE script and observational questions from the movie. The steady pace and simple story-telling style of the movie make it a natural for oral learners. The program has had students from S. Korea, Indonesia, Bulgaria and Vietnam just to name a few. Many times their students come from Buddhist or atheistic backgrounds and The HOPE is their first introduction to the Bible. The resulting conversations are theologically rich as students lay hold of English through the story of the Bible. HCBC's HOPE Bible Study Guide for ESL students will be available soon on our HOPE Store. For more questions about using The HOPE in ESL contact us at hopeinfo@mars-hill.org

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