Keeping Up with the Times – Indonesia General Assembly’s Latest Literary Ministry Developments

Hallelujah! We thank God for giving the Indonesia General Assembly’s Literary Ministry Department the opportunity to participate in different areas of work to further spread the gospel of Christ.

In terms of our publications, we continue to publish spiritual cultivation book series based on different Scriptures as well as sermons from the e-Library, which have been provided by various general assemblies. We have also translated various book series published by the Taiwan General Assembly’s Department of Literary Ministry. The books we have published so far are:

(1) Translations of Manna Magazine and Holy Spirit Monthly articles.

(2) Spiritual cultivation series such as Proverbs, Joshua, Ecclesiastes, Matthew, John, and James, which were written by local preachers and authors.

(3) Translations of Chinese and English books published by the United States General Assembly and the Taiwan General Assembly, such as “The Seven Churches in the Book of Revelation”, “Everflowing Stream Through the Heart”, and “The Book of Revelation” by Elder Xihai Xie. Also included are publications based on sermons from preachers around the world, such as “Moses’s Wishes and Prayers” and “Mary in the Gospels”.

To promote the evangelical work, we also reprinted 2,000 copies of the Ten Basic Beliefs pamphlets and 2,400 copies of the Holy Spirit booklet. These materials were distributed and used by churches and Canaan schools to introduce our basic beliefs to non-believing students and their parents during sermons, hymnal services, and annual student spiritual convocations.

As for social media, we have diversified our content focus across YouTube, Podcasts, Instagram, and TikTok. Fresh content in the form of short videos, reels, etc. keeps attracting more subscribers. At the same time, the number of visitors, engagement, and views by believers and non-believers has also increased. Now believers can share these tools and use them for pastoral and evangelical work. 

We offer a rich variety of content on social media, including short gospel talks, spiritual cultivation exercises, simple apologetics, quizzes, children choir recordings, adult choir recordings, and testimonies shared by local preachers, religious education teachers, full-time literary ministry workers, and preachers from various general assemblies. Some of the content titles are: “What Is the Meaning of the Sabbath?”, “Trust in God’s Plan”, “The Holy Spirit Is the Answer”, “Keep Reading the Bible”, “The Greatest Doctor Ever”, “God Saved and Chose me”, “2023 World Delegates Conference”, “Evergreen Fellowship Evangelism”, “His Promises Never Fail”, “My Tumor Will Not Hold Me Back”, “God’s Amazing Works”, “Online Lending from a Biblical Perspective”, “Why Must Babies Be Baptized?”, “He Saved Me Underwater”, and “The Growth Process of God’s Children”.

In order to strengthen the Literary Ministry Department’s work on social media content, the Indonesia General Assembly is building a studio on the third-floor of the GA’s office. We also held a one-and-a-half-day writing fellowship and workshop with about 40 participants. During the workshop, we trained writers and radio hosts to produce spiritual cultivation content. Writers learned to analyze a sentence in-depth to provide a complete life application to the readers’ daily lives; radio hosts learned how to focus on good intonation and rhythm to make better recordings.

The Indonesia General Assembly’s Literary Ministry Department has synchronized the GA’s daily Bible reading plan with the Literary Ministry Department’s publication of devotional materials. This allows  believers to not only follow the latest Bible reading schedule but also access relevant text and audio content for their devotional use.

May God continue to guide the holy work of the Indonesia General Assembly.