Phone app encourages Tennessee Baptists to be Great Commission Christians
By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
BRENTWOOD — Wake up in the morning, turn on the television or pick up your morning newspaper and you’re immediately reminded of the sin that is rampant in today’s society.
The Tennessee Baptist Convention has launched a new phone application designed to provide an encouraging word to help Tennessee Baptists and other Great Commission Christians to start each day.
“The Reaching App” is available for both iPhones and Android phones, according to David Evans, TBC evangelism specialist.
David Evans
“The purpose of this new app is to encourage and inspire you to be a Great Commission Christian every day,” Evans said.
The app features a devotional each day written by Tennessee pastors and ministers, Evans said. “It is the only app of its kind written by Tennessee people for Tennessee missions,” he observed.
Evans noted that there are numerous books and teaching helps written by people from all over the nation that can be effective in reaching the lost. “But who knows Tennessee best? It is those men and women living and ministering in our state,” he stressed.
The app is an important tool in helping Tennessee Baptists to achieve the first of its Five Objectives (long-range goals adopted by messengers to the Tennessee Baptist Convention two years ago) in “seeing at least 50,000 Tennesseans annually saved, baptized, and set on the road to discipleship by 2024,” Evans continued.
In order to see that goal accomplished there has to be a daily reminder and inspiration, he said.
“We need all of us as Tennessee Baptists to link arms, pull tight, and to live out the Great Commission. The best way to do that is through a daily reminder and encouragement from pastors and others who have a strong conviction and heart to follow Jesus,” he stressed.
In addition to the daily devotional the app also has videos with interviews with Tennessee Baptists on how they are engaging their communities, living with purpose, making decisions, sharing their faith, and explaining what the gospel is.
An additional feature of the phone app is an audio and video feed of breakout sessions from TBC-related meetings. For instance, sessions from the recent West Tennessee Evangelism Rally held last month at Union University are now available on the site, Evans noted.
The site also provides tools or links to other sites that will “enable you to live out your Great Commission life,” Evans said. Among those is a link to a daily Bible reading that you can read for yourself or listen to from your phone, he added.
To download the app, go to Apple App Store and type in “The Reaching App”; the Windows Phone Marketplace and type in “The Reaching App;” or Android and Google Play Store, and type “The Reaching App Tennessee Baptist Convention” for Android systems.
