Project: Digital Discipleship

Anne Bosarge Headshot

Leader: Anne Bosarge 

Website: digitaldiscipleship.online

Purpose

We are reigniting a passion for discipleship across the globe.

Project Categories

  • Innovative Approaches to Church Planting: Micro Models and Expressions

  • Innovative Approaches to Church Planting: Methods and Models for Mobilizing Everyday Missionaries
  • Innovative Approaches to Church Planting: Other

Big Idea and Overview

For far too long, the church has been Sunday-centric in its mission, making disciples with a static strategy of gathering at a specific time in a specific place to grow in faith. With the busy pace of life today, that strategy is no longer effective as the church’s sole disciple-making method. In Digital Discipleship, we are using digital platforms to help people who are hungry for more than just a once-a-week faith find community and learn how to be disciples that make disciples. We have two main groups on Facebook and WhatsApp. Becoming More, started in March 2020 is an online ministry for 1.4K women providing daily discipleship and seasonal in-person and online zoom groups. The Chapel Online, started in April 2021, is a community of over 3.9K people from 50 different countries engaging people in daily discipleship posts and videos, weekly worship experiences, live prayer, and a growing number of localized geographic groups engaging on WhatsApp and in-person. In addition to daily discipleship, we have an organization called Victory Children’s Outreach that began in August of 2022, which started out of a desire for the community to begin to meet real needs of the children of people we were connecting with globally. This outreach provides a hands-on opportunity for people around the globe to put their discipleship into action and meet the needs of vulnerable children with school sponsorship and family support in Jinja, Uganda. While Becoming More and The Chapel Online are focused on the internal transformation of discipleship, Victory Outreach gives people an opportunity to put that into action through outreach and service. We desire for people to be holistic, true disciples in every area of their lives. Digital Discipleship is right where people are, right when they need it.

Customer / Mission Field Context

Digital Discipleship is reaching people across the globe who are hungry for more than just a once-a-week church experience. We find these are people who are marginally “religious” but looking for an authentic, thriving faith in Christ. They often have a “there has to be more to faith than this” mindset and are eager to take next steps in discipleship. We often connect with people who feel unseen in their local context and are looking for connection and validation online that they aren’t finding in-person. We connect with people across a wide spectrum of socioeconomic levels, races, cultures, and denominational backgrounds but the one thing we have in common is the desire to be seen, known, and loved by God and by a loving community of faith.

Goals and Desired Outcomes

  • More geographic location-specific gatherings and groups of The Chapel Online in WhatsApp to build and deepen community. We currently have location groups in five towns in Uganda, one in Pakistan, one in Kenya, and two in Zimbabwe that gather both online and in-person when they are able. I would like to add three in South Africa, one more in Zimbabwe, one in Ghana, and one in Botswana – our top cities represented by people who are part of The Chapel Online.

  • We are adding a Becoming More Men’s Ministry. We have identified a leader and are working through the process of developing a leadership team. We want to form micro-communities of men meeting online and in-person using our digital discipleship tools.

  • We would like to expand Victory Children’s Outreach to reach another town in Uganda where there is great need for child sponsorships within the people in our community. We have plans to move into Mityana, Uganda and have a leader in place who is ready to go when we get funding.

  • We have been approached by many people around the globe who would like to plant churches under the name of The Chapel Online using our discipleship tools and approach. In 2023, one of our leaders will graduate from seminary in Jinja, Uganda and plans to plant the first Chapel Online church! We are working on systems and processes to support him with the discipleship tools he needs to start well. This will be the first of many across the globe!
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Results and
Impact

  • The Chapel Online’s Facebook group has 3.9K people across over 50 different countries.

  • Becoming More’s Facebook group has 1.4K women across over 15 different countries.

  • We have 143 individuals in a global WhatsApp prayer group that share daily with each other and support each other in prayer throughout the day.

  • We have 132 individuals across 3 different countries who participate in one of 9 geographically specific WhatsApp group who connect with discipleship contextually through leaders we have invested in.

  • We have 32 sponsored children in Victory Children’s Outreach being supported for schooling and nutrition needs by 32 people within our online community.

  • In July 2023 we are taking a team of 5 leaders to work alongside our Jinja, Uganda leadership team to put on a Vacation Bible Experience for 200 kids including those in Victory Outreach. We will also be working together with our Jinja leadership team to put on a leadership conference for 50 of our most active participants in The Chapel Online.

Media Assets

Snapshots of Innovation
Exponential NEXT Podcast