As the countdown begins to the Jesus All About Life media campaign in September 2009, Connect09’s Jim Ramsay says the TV ads will be a great boost for congregations during the second half of their local Connect09 program.

Jesus All About Life was launched this week with a lunch attended by denominational representatives including Anglican, Salvation Army and Baptist.

Jesus All About Life (JAAL) is a six-week, prime-time television advertising campaign, supported by radio and print advertising, that seeks to raise awareness of Jesus and encourage people to find out what Jesus ‘had to say about life’ and to motivate quiet Christians to share their faith.

Canon Ramsay is CONNECT09’s representative on the Bible Society committee overseeing the project, which will begin 12 months from now, following successful campaigns already run in Adelaide (2005), Canberra (2006) and Tasmania (2007).

Canon Jim Ramsay says Anglican Churches will be using JAAL as a media element in the year-long CONNECT09 program.

“Sydney Anglicans will be distributing up to one million Gospels in 2009, and we’ll be encouraging Christians to use the [JAAL] campaign to connect with people and talk about Jesus,” he said.

Churches are being urged to use existing courses to help follow up inquirers and Canon Ramsay, who is head of Evangelism Ministries, says the newly released ‘Just Start Talking’ DVD will be a great tool to prepare people to start gospel conversations around the ads.

Canon Ramsay says “The concept of ‘Just start talking’ is to encourage those quiet Christians to take natural opportunities in their everyday conversations.” (See our feature story for more details.)

Also at the launch was the driver of the V8 ‘Jesus Racing’ Ute, Andrew ‘Fishtail’ Fischer, who spoke of his work visiting schools.

A preview of the ads, which will air next September, is available at the JAAL site.