On Thursday, Global Media Outreach announced that it saw the ten millionth person this year indicate a decision for Christ on December 7 through one of their more than 90 websites. Furthermore, over 1.8 million people have initiated follow-up for more information, guidance and discipleship since the beginning of the year.
"It is humbling to be a part of the Great Commission and watching millions of people coming to Christ," commented GMO founder and chair Walt Wilson. "We have responders all over the world, connecting to people through e-mail for prayer, discipleship and church connections."
Since its inception in 2004, GMO has seen the number of people indicating a decision for Christ grow from 21,066 people annually to more than 10 million people in 2009. Last year, more than three million people made a decision for Christ and this year, the internet ministry had originally projected around five million decisions.
In response to the growing figures, the ministry has been creating more website for individuals who are searching for God online and recruiting more online missionaries, who reply via email to questions posted by seekers, skeptics, and Christians needing support.
Volunteers come from a wide range of professional backgrounds including business executives, housewives, students, truck drivers, and others.
Recruited from evangelical churches and recommended by their pastors, Christians participating in the ministry typically spend only a few minutes a day responding to emails and hold another full-time job.
Still, through these online missionaries, people from places as removed as a small village in Afghanistan have been able to ask questions about Jesus and Christianity.
GMO estimates that 80 to 90 per cent of their e-mails are sent from outside the United States. And even many of the English e-mails they receive come from countries such as India and the Philippines.
So high is the volume of e-mail that GMO had to ask Northland, A Church Distributed, a well-known megachurch in Florida, to recruit and train 5,000 online missionaries by 2010.
But even with the help of Northland, the Internet ministry says it needs at least 3,000 more online missionaries to meet the demand.
"Our online presence shows us daily – moment by moment – that the fields are indeed ripe to harvest, yet the laborers are few," said Wilson earlier this year. "More online missionaries are needed."
A few months ago, GMO launched "GmoAlwaysReady", an online mission programme available to all churches, to get more churchgoers involved in their web effort.
"GmoAlwaysReady.com is the portal for churches to begin their online missions program and answer the call of the Great Commission," Wilson explained.
Meanwhile, GMO continues to push forward in expanding its reach by tapping into other emerging communication technologies, including cell phones, podcasting, internet radio, TV, and film.
Last year, GMO launched a cell phone evangelism programme that helps reach people in developing or controlled countries who cannot access a computer or Internet but have mobile phones.
"As the number of cell phone users continues to grow worldwide, we expect to see the percentage of decisions through cell phones go even higher," the ministry had reported.
GMO is currently sowing the seed of the Gospel daily in 191 countries in 11 major internet languages.
One of GMO's goals is to present the Gospel in the top internet languages, namely English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Korean, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Arabic, and Russian. Together, these languages cover 85 per cent of the world's one billion internet users, the ministry noted.
In 2009, GMO presented the Gospel to over 63 million people through its more than 90 different websites globally.
GMO websites include WhoisJesus-Really.com, GodLovestheWorld.com, 4StepstoGod.com, and GrowinginChrist.com, among many others.
