Hey there, podcast listeners! In this episode, we're diving into the inspiring story of Jean Marcel, a pastor who felt called to online ministry and digital missionary work, despite struggling with ADHD and the difficulties posed by the pandemic. We'll follow Jean's journey as he navigated the challenges of not being able to visit people in person, and instead used social media to connect and insert himself into people's lives. Along the way, he faced obstacles and setbacks, but persevered through his passion and dedication. By the end of it all, Jean found himself blessed and fulfilled in ways he never could have imagined. So if you're looking for a story of perseverance, adaptation, and inspiration, this episode is definitely for you!
Jean Marcel's Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pr_jean_bible
to get the free training, send me an email at hello@digitalmissionspodcast.com
[00:00:00] Justin: It has never been easier to reach millions with the gospel, and in this podcast I wanna give you the tools that you need to do this. My name is Justin Khoe, and you're listening to the Digital Missions podcast.
[00:00:12] Yo Justin here with the Digital Missions Podcast, and I'm on a mission to help pastors like you reach your first million people with the gospel through social media. It's the entire heart behind this podcast. And listen, when I say 1 million, I actually mean it. It's not hyperbole, it's not an exaggeration.
[00:00:29] I [00:00:30] actually believe that you can be used by God to reach millions of people with the good news. Now, today's episode tells the story of a pastor who not too long ago, was in your shoes. He was feeling the pull towards online ministry, hearing the testimony of his peers, finding success online, and believing that God was inviting him to give it a shot.
[00:00:48] So if you've been playing in the sandbox of social media ministry for a few years now, but feeling stuck and frustrated, know that you are in the right place. This story is meant to encourage you to keep your [00:01:00] hand on that plow and to give you some of the insights that made the difference for Pastor Jean.
[00:01:04] Last thing before we dive into this story, if you stick around to the end of our podcast today, I'll be giving away the same training program that Pastor John received that has helped him reach millions through his TikTok ministry, as well as baptizing several people as a result. If that's something that you would like, it would be my honor to send it to you for free.
[00:01:22] That being said, our story for today picks up during the pandemic. That time when it became clear that we as a church have some growing to do. [00:01:30] This is the Digital Missions podcast.
[00:01:31] Jean: It's more like a blessing than anything else. It's like the crazy part about working in small church districts.
[00:01:37] You It's bare bones. You usually have to like buildit up all up yourself and everything else. Anyway, COVID hits and I'm like, Hallelujah, dude. , everything gets approved. Everything moves through, like every board, everything . I'm like, okay, cool. Like we built the little studio. We had all sorts of things going on.
[00:01:58] My bread and butter. [00:02:00] For pastoring those 16 years that church pastoring was always visiting people visiting. So I'm like, how can I get into people's houses? I gotta still stream myself. So I started just doing these little devotional walkthroughs, some of the difficult parts of the Bible, I'm streaming to church pages personal page profile linking to other places, but, I'm not getting much drag. But what it did create for me was a habit of just writing these little [00:02:30] scripts and just going through the Bible and just getting to my, into my place of Hey, I'm putting the Bible into my own words.
[00:02:37] Those videos were like 10 to 15 minutes long. They were catered to the already church crowd and everything else. Did that for a while. For a long while actually, , and it was every day except Sabbath, along with writing sermons in both languages for a good year I was doing both of those 10, 15 minute scripts in both Spanish and English.[00:03:00]
[00:03:00] Justin: Now, I don't know if you've caught that or not, but this is what he's saying. In the span of about two years, pastor Jean created over 1000 videos on Facebook, which is absolutely ridiculous. Later in the episode, he'll confess that it's probably not wise to go this hard, to which I would definitely agree, but I wanted to highlight this part of the story because it really matters.
[00:03:20] His videos were only being seen by a hundred to 200 people every day, which on the grand scale of things really isn't that bad. When you think about it, the average church in America is around this [00:03:30] size, and we put dozens of hours into making sure those programs run smoothly. So why wouldn't it be worth it online as well?
[00:03:37] Now that being said, pastor Jean did want more and who can blame him? 100 to 200 views is awesome, but let's be honest, not quite what we're hoping for. The good news is that in his re. His dedication and his A D H D. All of this would come in handy. This energy when redirected towards the right platforms, when equipped with the right strategies would in fact bear fruit.
[00:03:59] Here's what he did [00:04:00] next.
[00:04:00] Jean: In my head it was like, oh, Instagram's where it's at. Which it can be, maybe we'll talk about that a little bit later. , but for some reason, yeah, I did about three months of the same. every day I'm posting and I'm doing the whole book of acts, and they're like, and I'm calling it the Bible in three minutes or less.
[00:04:21] I finished the book of Acts and for some reason I was just like, Hey let's take it down to one minute. Let's, til too [00:04:30] long, people aren't grabbing onto this. I'm still getting, way more views that I was getting on Facebook, way more views that I was getting on Instagram. So I was happy, but I knew that wasn't, it wasn't reaching a ton of people and I wasn't really affecting my neighborhoods my communities that were attached to my churches.
[00:04:45] I decided one day I just showed up to church, one of my churches. I had my ring light with me and I was just like, why not? Let's take it down to one minute. And I said, I'm gonna go through the Bible chronologically in one minute or less in my head, I'm like, [00:05:00] but not in the way that you think, I'm gonna go through it.
[00:05:02] The great controversy styles, I just, that, starting from that, like the prequels to Genesis, right? within the Bible and I was out on family Day with my family. Family day was Thursday. I shot it on a, wednesday. I've uploaded it, and not thinking much of it. It was the worst planned video out of any of the videos I had ever done.
[00:05:22] Just off the cuff on a whim, there was some components that I wanted to hit, but I didn't write anything down and I'm on my family day. [00:05:30] And my wife starts getting mad at me because she sees me checking my phone a little too often. On family day, I'm supposed to just leave the phone down, focus on the family, but I'm seeing that red 99 plus thing on my TikTok and I'm like, what is happening?
[00:05:46] What is going on? I don't know how it happened. I don't know if I can adequately explain or give pointers on how algorithms work on TikTok, but for some reason, that was the breakout one. And and people just I'm [00:06:00] on it. I'm in for the ride. And people just of stayed on and I kept doing that until I had a change of job.
[00:06:07] So yeah, millions of views later, I was like, wow, okay. This is really cool. And not just millions of views later Bible studies, legit bible studies on some really core issue. And in even we can talk about three baptisms as a result
[00:06:23] Justin: now things are getting good. Three baptisms from online content almost sounds too good to be true, especially when [00:06:30] you realize he didn't have to spend the extravagant amount of money we often spend to do evangelism.
[00:06:35] But I'm gonna ask you to hold onto that storyline for just a second. Put it on a shelf in the back of your mind, and don't worry, we'll be talking about how Pastor Jean was able to go from TikTok video to baptisms in a local church. But there's something more important than that story. More important that is if you want to see baptisms as a result of your online ministry.
[00:06:55] Also, because there were some key insights that led to the eventual key [00:07:00] outcomes, and these are worth rehearsing if you are wanting to see similar results.
[00:07:04] Jean: Part of my pastoral philosophy, because I don't, maybe there's some ministry minded people here listening or will be listening, but if you allow it to ministry just gives you a ton of L's, like
[00:07:17] And so if you focus on the, yeah, I'm serious. , just taking L's left and right. People don't pan out. They don't react like you think. Like it does span out like later 10, like I've had those situations like 10 years later. Pastor [00:07:30] Jean, you said this and I, to me that was an L in my head. And so having those years in under my belt, I was like
[00:07:37] no. Everything you do that touches the word of God and the word of God getting out. Is a W man. Like every time you don't know how. So I approached it from the perspective. I gotta get to my members. I can't leave them. I know what's gonna, I know where they're at. I know what happens if you don't have the consistency of, like connecting with God, somebody's bringing the word, somebody's doing a Bible study, [00:08:00] somebody's doing a symposium.
[00:08:00] Something like that where, like we have to do that. And I'll add this, I'll add this. I don't know if this is gonna be everybody's experience, but never before in my life has my devotional life been this good, ever. Ever. I know it's mixed into this production thing, but like I'm spending time in the word I'm like , I'm taking stuff out.
[00:08:19] I'm like, oh, how can I make this, how can I say this in a way that people will hear it? And in that I'm praying, right? I'm asking God for help. I'm doing all these other things. And that's of how it was. [00:08:30] So ADHD for me was like just. I was, I had already had a routine, so which is already a huge win for an ADHD person, right?
[00:08:39] I have a consistent routine that I'm able to stick to. It's being rewarded chemically, spiritually and emotionally, right? And and then as a result, I'm like, all right, we gotta have the balance of those things. And now we gotta look for goals that are based on people. Like where are the people connecting with this?
[00:08:58] Who, what was, [00:09:00] how is this translated? And so I made that. I made that switch really fast. I was like this is not about the numbers. This is not about the followers. This is not about all those other things. This is about that small, tiny fraction of people who will actually take it to the next level, right?
[00:09:17] And so I hyper-focused on that. And so once that happened, I was able to like mentally, Get out of that space where it's about Jean, where it's about success, where it's about, numbers and all those other things which are [00:09:30] required if you want to you actually want to do what Christ asked you to do.
[00:09:34] How do you have that reach? You gotta get out there. How do you get out there? You gotta have volume of content, , you have to look at trans, you gotta look at hashtags, you gotta, all those other things. But once I was able to make that, that logical, rational, spiritual and emotional leap of separating self from,
[00:09:50] from what I've been called to do and just like really look at it as a calling then it was, it was, it really took off and it was very consistent and I had consistent following all these other things [00:10:00] that you're looking for. So it's really time management that guided it in that direction.
[00:10:03] It was a pragmatic thing. It wasn't necessarily, it was intentional, but like more pragmatic than intentional. , right? I don't know if you catch what I'm saying. So all of this thing is just happening organically because I was like, I'm trying to balance time and at the same time I'm like, is this really still keeping it local?
[00:10:21] Is this having results? And we had those conversations. You and I, right? Was where I was like obsessed with that, I want this to translate to local growth at my [00:10:30] church, my district, my kind of thing. That's, that was my job description. And I wasn't looking to go in, online ministry full on and everything like that.
[00:10:38] Although those thoughts did cross my head a couple times. I was like, oh what would it be like, what would it look like? So yeah, it's just, to me, I just saw it as a supplement to what I was doing. And not only that, but it's to me is something where I was able to. , not just talk the talk, but walk the walk, right?
[00:10:54] If I'm telling people like, we can't go knocking on doors, hey, let's get [00:11:00] out there this way. And so at the end of the day, your pastor is doing this. I believe some of you guys can do this in your own way. There's different ways that you can do it. So I, for me, it was like, it was the opportunity to be able to have a resume to say to my church members or to the other ministry people that I was, working with to say, Hey, look.
[00:11:16] We can do something about this. We can really get out there and and reach out to
[00:11:22] people.
[00:11:23] Justin: One of the weirdest things I hear from pastors in our coaching sessions is that the reason why they don't want to create content is cuz they don't want it to [00:11:30] be about them. Which, on the surface I do get it, is a noble impulse.
[00:11:34] It's just backwards. Yes, you're gonna make videos featuring yourself, but that doesn't necessarily make it egotistical or selfish. After all, you stand on a stage in front of a crowd every single week, and if there's a way to navigate that without it going to your head, well then, who's to say that the internet is any different?
[00:11:51] Because what you are doing is you're recognizing it as a calling to serve people online. This is what I talk about as being a digital [00:12:00] and machinery. It's not self-serving far from it. The reason why we show up online isn't for fame or vanity, but for the simple purpose of sharing the good news with people wherever they are.
[00:12:11] So when I heard Pastor Jean talk about what he's doing online as a calling, to me it just makes sense and I'm not at all surprise. That when he made this mental shift, that things started to work out. Why? Because one of the only metric that matters is faithfulness to the call, People respond better. And in Pastor John's case, one of the [00:12:30] ways that people responded was with baptism.
[00:12:32] So yeah. On TikTok first one, like the first baptism. Was crazy guy. Totally out of the demographic. I was like, why am I talking to this dude? This dude is like 30 years older than I am. What are you doing on TikTok? But this man was searching, man. He had a crazy situation with all sorts of complications in his life, but he's just he just ran across I'm just covering the Sabbath and Genesis two and he is just like completely [00:13:00] dialed into that.
[00:13:00] And we were able to go on a three and a half week journey through the Bible, separately, of course, dms and stuff like that. It was beautiful. I looked up the pastor that was near him, they happened to have an evangelistic series going on. This guy is like searching. He's got concordances open, all sorts of things.
[00:13:17] This guy's ripe, shows up the guy like, wow, I don't know if you guys have been to Evangelism recently, but it's a struggle. Pastors is not what it used to be, and so his pastor's just ecstatic, and they happen to be there in [00:13:30] the same place. They end up coming together.
[00:13:32] He starts attending. The week after we started meeting, he started attending the church and a attending the meetings and then Fast forward a few months later, we have a pastoral convention. I run into this pastor in the hallway and he tells me the whole story of how he's still there, still attending, still strong in his ways and still trying to follow up with him to try to help him with all of the other things.
[00:13:55] And so that was so encouraging. This guy up in New York got him connected to a [00:14:00] pastor and got him connected to a church during one of my controversial TikTok's. Had really amazing responses from people that like decided to come back to church for them. It was like hope that there was Christians attached to God's love and to, to living out God's love.
[00:14:17] And so that was really encouraging to have these people just say, I'm crying right now. I can't believe, I had never looked at it that way, that God loves us in that way. And, just it's, it's the fuel to the fire to any minister, you just hearing that people are [00:14:30] actually having changes and making changes in their life. Or deciding to give something another chance that, might have been ruined by somebody else. I'm getting texts, I'm getting emails, I'm getting messages on Facebook. The demographics that are messaging me are not from my generation , but.
[00:14:45] That's where I was, that's where I was brought to do, and that's who I was pastoring at the time. And yeah, like those first three months just putting stuff out there on the book of Acts of the Bible in three minutes or less I'm a, it was rough. I was like, oh man, I'm, am I connecting with the right people?
[00:14:59] Like [00:15:00] some of the comments that were coming in, it was just people trying to. About the accuracy of some of the things that I was saying or how I was like rewriting the Bible or something like that. There's some good conversations, but it wasn't until I took it down to the minute that people just really started to respond quite well, and lot of conversations
[00:15:20] As
[00:15:21] someone who puts himself out there multiple times a day, this is one of the realities of online ministry.
[00:15:25] People troll. People misunderstand. There's often arguing and less productive [00:15:30] conversations taking place. Now, incidentally, that's true of church ministry too. One pastor, I heard, put it this way, sheep bite, and yet I still think it's worth leaning into. Why? Because there's another crowd, the wall that's absolutely searching with their entire heart, and the beautiful thing is that God is faithful.
[00:15:47] Now, it doesn't matter if it's through a sermon or passing out a pamphlet or through a video on the internet, God's word never returns void. Towards the end of our time together, I asked Pastor Jean what his advice for you would be. [00:16:00] Someone who's feeling the tug and the invitation from the Holy Spirit to jump into the wild world of online ministry.
[00:16:06] What words of wisdom could he offer to someone who wants to see God work through their online ministry?
[00:16:12] Jean: You gotta be consistent. . Yeah. Gotta, you see that? Gotta be consistent. That's some resignation. . Cuz it's some people are just gonna be like, there's going to be a part of it where you're like, it feels like a job and like you wanna enjoy what you're doing.
[00:16:26] And sometimes it's just gonna feel like that job, but it pays off. [00:16:30] And case in point, my wife. She was just like posting pun nothing. And then all of a sudden, boom, one day you get it, and then you can build off of that. You gotta post you gotta post and you gotta post often.
[00:16:44] And I wouldn't I wouldn't be as crazy as I am, so not everybody has. Not everybody has to talk for that long. You don't have to do it for very long. In fact, my wife's viral post is like eight, 10 seconds long, I think . And it's crazy like that. And it's generated a [00:17:00] lot of extra stuff for her.
[00:17:01] And I think it's gonna continue working. And my other one was, like my big one was like improvised. So just post just make sure that you put in some time. You can edit things, you can do a little bit of light editing on TikTok. I think TikTok is great because you can edit things a little bit more.
[00:17:15] I try to dedicate no more than half an hour. To the script writing and I dedicate a little bit more to editing it. Like once I read it, I reread it to myself. And then once I'm done recording, which can take as little [00:17:30] as two minutes. If I get it in one take or as long as 15 minutes.
[00:17:34] Cuz I'm like, ah, plane. Okay, we're here. I live right next to an. Oh my goodness. The first time I went to a film it was like, . So that was like very upsetting cuz , like I have this really good take and anyway they can take that. And then the editing process, because I put in all the texts.
[00:17:48] I like, what mine has is I put in the text with everything. I want people my goal is for people to go back to the Bible and be like, cause I, I put in a really crazy spin. A lot of times it's It's stuff that's corroborating the spirit of prophecy, but from the [00:18:00] Bible. And so people are like, what?
[00:18:01] That's in the Bible. And so I want them to go. And a lot of the conversations have started like that. And so that's the process I upload and then I set it and forget it. And I'll check it sporadically the next day to see if there's messages or whatever. And that's the only thing I really focus on.
[00:18:18] Cause like I said, I have a full-time. and I know how much time I actually have to do what I need to do. And not only do I have a full-time job, I'm very intentional about spending time with my family. I don't think there is any [00:18:30] shortcuts for mission or evangelism. I, you knows James too. Faith without works is debt.
[00:18:36] Like I, I don't know, like my faith, I gotta live it out. If you actually end up doing ministry in a church, as a. It's hard work. It's crazy hard work, and but what I've decided in my ministry I love what I do. So loving what you do matters.
[00:18:53] And and with this stuff, I think what does take it over the edge is it God loves what you do as well. [00:19:00] He really does. Like you love what God loves, you love reaching out. To me that's, , that's the basis for Matthew 25. What does God want you to find? You doing enough oil, using your talents and caring for the least of these.
[00:19:15] And the least of these right now happen to be on TikTok, just like scrolling, trying to numb out their brain with dopamine, right? Because life is depressing and hard, and be the light in the middle of the darkness, so to me that, that's always in my head, right? [00:19:30] James two isn't about salvation.
[00:19:31] James two is. living out what God has asked us to do because we love what God loves. That's the fuel to my fire. If you actually have a following, you have no idea wh what kind of responsibility God has laid on your lap. I don't care if all of your videos are about Clash Royal, like or video games or Fortnite or whatever, It's it's possible. I think it is possible. It's amazing the opportunities we have to get inside doors that would've [00:20:00] never opened. They would've never opened. You could have knocked, like they're in apartment buildings, they're in trains, they're outdoors, they're in toilets. People are hearing the gospel while they're going through TikTok on their toilet.
[00:20:16] I love it. I just, That's one of the things that drives me over that edge. I am preaching to somebody on the toilet right now. I'm Let's go
[00:20:28] Justin: If you've made it this far into the podcast, [00:20:30] I have a special gift for you. It's a four-part series of training videos for anyone who wants to take their social media ministry game to the next level. It is the same training that Pastor Jean went through right before his rise to fame on TikTok, and the good news is that this training comes to you for free courtesy of our partners of the podcast.
[00:20:47] Adventist Learning community to have the course sent to you free of charge, simply send us an email requesting it at hello@digitalmissionspodcast.com. The email will be in the show notes. And last but not least, if you've [00:21:00] enjoyed this show, do us a favor, leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast because it's gonna help more passers like you find the show and it does show our sponsors that this episode was a blessing to you.
[00:21:10] If you have any questions or you'd like to reach me personally, you can email me at. At Justin ku.com. Thanks so much for the time, and we'll see you in our next episode.