How GNPI Uses Media to Share the Gospel Around the World
Good News Productions, International (GNPI) began with a simple insight: gospel media is more effective when it reflects the context, culture, and language of the people it seeks to reach. Fifty years later, GNPI uses localized media, social platforms, training, and technology to share the gospel around the world.
- GNPI grew from Ziden Nutt’s missionary media work in Africa into a global organization with 120 staff in 17 countries and 27 media teams.
- Localized strategies such as Hindi Church Online, Al Dar Aman, Mission15, and Nomad Academy use media to reach and equip people around the world.
- GNPI’s continuing mission is to use changing technologies and culturally relevant media to proclaim the gospel.
By Mike Schrage
Missionary Ziden Nutt was showing American-produced religious filmstrips to African audiences in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the 1960s. The crowds were significant in their strategic bush outreach, but the viewers asked questions about cultural rather than religious matters. “Why are men so rude to their wives?” and “Why do Americans drive on the wrong side of the road?”
Addressing a Disconnect
As a result of the disconnect, Mr. Nutt stopped showing the filmstrips. One day, while working on a hospital roof with his first disciple, Michael Nyandoro, Ziden and Michael were chatting about the powerful appeal of media (filmstrips) and contemplating the cultural confusion. Back and forth they talked until the Holy Spirit prompted this challenge from young Michael: “Why don’t you make your own? You take pictures. Make your own.” A stroke of genius and godly insight followed. Ziden and Michael set on a path to create customized media that would have the context, culture, and language of the local people who would watch what they produced.
As a result, hundreds, and later thousands, would come, watch, and listen, enabling thousands to understand and commit their lives to Christ. The success soon reached the ears of other missionaries working in nearby countries like Malawi, South Africa, and Zambia.
Launching a Ministry
After 14 years of service in Africa, the Nutt family left their flourishing ministry and returned to the USA to tend to the medical needs of their third child, Lynda. As conversations continued with stateside supporting churches and the trustees of Ozark Christian College, these leaders developed a plan to enable Mr. Nutt to have the space and financial equity to build an office and studio in Joplin, Missouri, at 2111 North Main Street, to continue this budding media ministry.
Groundbreaking took place in 1975. Good News Productions (as it was called in Africa) became registered as Good News Productions, International (GNPI) in 1976.
Today, GNPI is 50 years old and continues to create media to share Jesus. The gospel message is always biblically based and therefore remains consistent, but the production and distribution methods are constantly changing. From filmstrips to Solar Kits, from video to satellite uplinks, and from internet outreach to social media platforms—GNPI staff around the world create localized content for evangelistic and discipleship purposes.
GNPI has grown from one missionary couple and one part-time helper to 120 staff in 17 countries, comprising 27 media teams. These teams (from Mexico to Mongolia) produce original worship songs, video teaching services, podcasts, and even movies. For those who remember Solar Kits, they are still used in some of the most remote areas of the world. In fact, 976 Solar Kits have been sent out to more than 50 countries since 1981.
Reaching the Lost
Weekly online worship services like Hindi Church Online were a response to COVID in March 2020 in India, where just five percent of the population follows Christ in a nation with over a billion Hindus. Six years later, the weekly worship service outlined by Dr. Ajai Lall and his team for content works hand in hand with GNPI’s studio in India, which was started by Ajai’s older brother, David Lall. An estimated 1.5 million people watch every weekend, and a methodical follow-up program is in place during the week to contact those who reach out with questions and spiritual needs.
Al Dar Aman (Owner of the House) is a media strategy using podcasts with well-known Arabic-speaking leaders about healthy family relationships. Its focus is to offer respectful answers for Muslim families on Facebook Live. The non-threatening approach of this quality series of presentations has opened the door to a million viewers. Those interested in discovering the keys to healthy families are invited to join a second, more intimate, online course of teaching where Christianity is openly shared and highlighted. Hundreds in resistant countries have made decisions for Christ where the church is young or even non-existent. Many times, the media goes where traditional missionaries cannot go.
GNPI works with a creative team in Egypt and leverages follow-up expertise on social media platforms along with the Media Impact International (MII) organization. The MII leadership has long praised GNPI’s excellence in production and responsiveness in programming as the most effective strategies in the challenging areas of the Middle East and North Africa.
After a day of global fasting and prayer in November 2022, God placed on the staff and board of GNPI a bold, seven-year vision to use social media to deliver a billion gospel invitations by the year 2030. As a result, Mission15 was born and launched in the fall of 2023. The plan is simple: invite individuals to pray 15 minutes a week for those who don’t know Jesus in their neighborhoods and the nations. Second, share one’s faith at least 15 times between 2023 and 2030. And finally, give $15 a month to enable GNPI teams to produce relevant one-minute invitations that will heighten interest in those scrolling through their social media feeds.
The results have been remarkable! Hundreds of people have signed up to pray, share, and give. Over 300 million gospel invitations have been shared globally—so far. Of this number, over six million curious onlookers have clicked to watch another video like the Jesus Film, download a New Testament in their local language, chat with a trained digital responder online who is a fellow Christian, or schedule an in-person meeting.
Abundant gospel-seed sowing, added to the faithful prayers of Filipinos, combined with the evangelistic fervor of Kenyans, and underwritten by the financial generosity of the American church, is producing remarkable results! In the midst of a world at war and without hope, God is using the internet and social media to “redeem the time,” as founder Ziden Nutt fondly observes.
Another strategy born out of COVID was Nomad Academy. This is a free, online, foundational media training course for anyone in the world. Seventy-four micro-lessons are condensed into a Learning Management Software (LMS) that carefully vets candidates and methodically leads students through the curriculum, along with a live media specialist as their coach. The content is currently available in Arabic, International English, Hindi, and Spanish. Portuguese and Russian are coming soon.
To date, over 500 have successfully enrolled, and 110 have graduated from Nomad Academy. Many of these graduates are qualified to serve as fabulous volunteers in their local congregations, as they’ve done in war-torn Ukraine. They have been hired as staff for congregations and/or in Christian organizations as creative arts helpers who are technically savvy. Finally, others have been hired by companies, such as Toyota or even GNPI. Some have even started their own “briefcase” businesses in India.
Glorifying God
The prophet Habakkuk prophesied in 2:14, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Media and technology used by the global church are indeed covering the countries of the world (and the eight billion residents) with the knowledge of God. This is so vital, as six billion still have not obeyed Christ, and over half of them have yet to hear that there is a Savior who died for them.
Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 9:22-23, “To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”
GNPI is just one of God’s many tools to finish the global task given to us, the church, of proclaiming the knowledge of the glory of the Lord by any and all means possible.
