Social Media is NOT something I grew up with. We did not have a computer in our home, our school, or anywhere else I hung out. The first I was aware of a computer was when my sister signed up for a course to learn how to program computer punch cards. (Sadly, a skill that was obsolete before she could ever find a job in that field).

Now it is difficult to find anyone without portable technology on their person: taking calls, pictures, sending and receiving texts, receiving emails, instant messages, taking zoom or Facetime calls, and checking the weather or the latest posts on multiple social media sites. Like many things, this can be good or bad. Bad information, images, relationships are now only a click away. And yet, I have been able to communicate to multiple ministry friends this week via a WhatsApp connection, in an instant, some who are literally half way around the world.

I am not a technophobe, a digital refugee, social media averse, or a “Luddite.” I like sharpening a pencil and scrawling notes on a legal pad or on the back of a napkin at the local diner. So, I ask other people to do the technical things whenever possible (and affordable), because it would be unwise not to do so.

Clear and Simple Media is now involved in managing or assisting with six (6) websites. We are responsible for www.clearandsimplemedia.org, www.asimpleword.org, and www.unsimplemot.org (French). We also provide all of the content and support for https://www.asimpleworddari.org (Dari) and https://www.asimplewordpashto.org (Pashto).

Recently, to help reingage with the missional orality community, we created the Story Seminary website https://storyseminary.com. Story Seminary was created to support the research and practice of biblical storytelling as a tool to reach the world’s oral learners with the gospel of Jesus.

We could do none of this without the help of people who know their way around computers, websites, and understand the ups and downs of social media platforms (we use Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), Youtube, WhatsApp), and we are considering one or two more. Twenty-four hours ago, I recieved this quick report about a short (4-day) generically targeted Facebook add. We were giving away copies of the Simple Stores from the Life of Jesus. We also invited people to follow our daily posts that provide a SAMPLE from each book in the Bible over the first weeks of 2025. I am not fluent in Facebook-speak, but here is a paraphrased summary of the results.

We are sorting through the results, but so far 153,000 Facebook users saw the add. You had 3,717 people download the book. As to the ad that encouraged people to follow the Post Series (Bible Reading Sampler) on the A Simple Word Facebook page. You reached 108k facebook users. You had 1.3k content interactions (The number of likes or reactions, saves, comments, shares and replies on your content, including ads). You had 1100 link clicks, your facebook page was visited 585 times, and you added 29 followers. A Simple Word currently has 1,800 Followers, primarily from Canada, the United States, Indonesia, and Bangladesh.
That was about 3 weeks worth of effort with a very small budget. 

We are in the process of evaluating those numbers and considering the spiritual ROI (which is always tricky). But we imagine that 2025 will see us invest more of our time and resources into writing linguistically simple material, using more of the computer-assisted translation resources available to us, and trying to sow the seed widely and indescriminately as possible, trusting God to “make it grow.”

To all who have been so faithful in helping us in the past, thank you. And know that, as we look at 2025, we think the best is yet to come.