MOORE—Oklahoma Baptists have created a new mobile phone app that is designed to help disciples make disciples through evangelism. The GoodNews Coach app was revealed during the Advance Conference at Moore, First, Jan. 24-25.
The GoodNews Coach app provides a means for accountability, coaching and mentoring for helping Christians advance the Gospel.
“Living life in a whirlwind is a reality for most people, and priorities can shift in moments,” said Brian Baldwin, who led in the development of the app. “Evangelism is one of those priorities that must not be set aside or forgotten!”
Baldwin, who serves as youth evangelism ministry partner for Oklahoma Baptists, believes the new app will help pastors and ministry leaders keep the command for evangelism on the front burner for themselves and those they lead. The app trains, reminds, tracks and inspires evangelistic action while connecting users to a trusted evangelism coach of their choice.
The app allows users to set goals and reminders to pray for and share the Good News with those the Lord puts in their circle of influence. It features encouraging training videos to help users become more proficient in expressing the Gospel, sharing a testimony, as well as developing other witnessing and discipleship skills.
Each lesson has a follow-up quiz to help aid in the retention of the lessons. The app also allows users to keep track of their progress and to invite a trusted person to be their coach and accountability partner.
Baldwin explained that coaching is central to the purpose of the app because it adds the needed element of accountability.
“Setting a personal expectation to share the Good News of Jesus is only the first step in evangelism,” Baldwin said. “The next phase is personal inspection. The very reason we allow teachers in school to grade our work and supervisors to check our progress is because we typically don’t do what is expected, but usually do what is inspected. The same is true for evangelism.
“The GoodNews Coach app is also a training tool to help you have effective Gospel ‘conversations’—not just ‘presentations,’” Baldwin continued. “Users will find it helpful in making sharing the Gospel regularly a reality instead of an unmet expectation.”
Since the app provides a means for accountability, coaching and mentoring, it is ideal for pastors, ministry leaders, Sunday school teachers, and various discipleship groups who want to encourage their members to advance the Gospel.
Bret Lalli, student and recreation pastor at McAlester, First, agrees that the app can be a useful ministry tool and expects the accountability aspect of the app to bear fruit in his ministry.
“We plan to use the GoodNews Coach app to equip our students for our GoStudents mission trip to Lawton in June,” Lalli said. ”We will require students who sign up for the mission trip to use the app weekly. Each missionary will complete the video training and will have the opportunity to practice and present the Gospel as they prepare for the mission field. They will need to check in each week and show how they are making progress. If they are not sharing the Gospel in their own community, how can they expect to do it on the mission field?”
Lalli explained the church will also offer the same training and coaching as an option to students in the youth group in the fall. He expects to offer multiple opportunities for students who have been equipped through the app to share the Gospel in McAlester.
“The app will become a part of our discipleship strategy,” he said.
The GoodNews Coach app is available for free for both iOS and Android. Visit GoodNewsCoach.com to learn more.
