The DVD Project

A little over a year ago, I was talking to David Velasquez (the other member of our team) and we were discussing plans for the ministry and how to effectively reach the people with the Gospel. I expressed to him my belief that Spain has not been seeded like other countries. For years there has been “pockets” with the Gospel message, but a constant seeding of the Gospel year after year has seemingly eluded Spain. In our discussion, David mentioned being in a mission’s conference and hearing the preacher talk about going door to door and leaving a bag full of goodies on each door handle. Inside the bag was information about the church and a cassette tape containing a clear message on Salvation. The preacher mentioned that the next Sunday, 40 new visitors showed up. As we went back and forth, based on this idea, the DVD project was born. Shortly after our conversion, we set the wheels in motion. We came up with a script, bought the equipment, recorded the video, and there began our DVD project. It has taken some time to get everything set up, duplicate the DVD’s and strategically plan out our attack, but with the Lord’s help, we have been able to get the Gospel DVD into 22,543 homes. So what does this mean? We calculate that on average, there are 3 people per household. That means that we have given 67,629 people the chance to hear a clear presentation of the Gospel. Why is this exciting? If a person on average talks to 2 people per day 7 days a weeks, 365 days a year about the Lord, in a span of 50 years, that person would have talked to 36,500 people. That is great. With this DVD project we have been able to give almost double that number of people a chance to hear the Gospel in less then 3 months.

So is the DVD project working?

That is a question I get a lot. What results have we seen from it. Actually, our primary goal for this project was not to fill our church, although, we hope people come because of a result of it. Our primary goal for this project was to give everyone in our city a chance to hear a clear presentation of the Gospel. You ask, “Isn’t that what church and the preaching is for?” We would love it if in 30 or 40 years of ministry, every single person in the city walked through the door of the church to hear a Gospel message, but ask any pastor or missionary and you will see that it just doesn’t happen. As a matter of fact, the number of people from your city that will visit the church will be a very low percentage. Understanding this, we decided to take the message of the Gospel to them. By placing it in their mailbox, every home and the people in it, will have a chance to hear a Gospel message on DVD even if they never grace the doors of the church. So, yes, it is working because we are fulfilling the purpose that we set out to do. At the end of the DVD, there is a website that they are directed to so they can learn more about the Bible. We have averaged 400 to 500 hits per month on the website. The message is being heard.
We have been able to get the DVD to half of the homes in our city. Lord, willing, we will finish the other half very soon. We don’t plan on stopping there. Part of having a good harvest is continuing to seed and seed. Our plan is to continue getting the Gospel to our city, not just by way of DVD, but in many different ways. We want to thank every individual and every church that has given towards this project. Rest assured that every dime went to the cost of producing this DVD.

THE CHURCH

We are not “officially” a church yet, however we have been holding Bible studies. A lot of work has gone in to readying the building and preparing and doing the DVD project. However, the Lord has been so good as over the past 6 weeks, we have had visitors every week. Stefan walked by the building and saw our “Escaparate” (window with information) and was interested and came in for the service. That was 7 weeks ago and he has been back every Sunday except for one. He has heard the message of the Gospel many times and my father-in-law and I have had good conversations with him about Salvation. Please pray that the Lord would work in his heart. Last week we had 5 visitors with a total of 12 people. We are very excited about what the Lord is doing and is going to do here in Spain.