Building on the success of the first “web awareness focus day” held last year, a second annual Internet Evangelism Day is set for 7 May 2006.
“I encourage all evangelical leaders to take advantage of this initiative and explore their options for using the Web to win as many as possible to Christ,” says Ted Haggard of the National Association of Evangelicals. Many other leaders are also encouraging Christians to learn more about the potential of the Web to communicate the Gospel.
The Internet Evangelism Day website (www.internetevangelismday.com) contains many resources to help Christians understand and use the Internet to touch the world. These include how to build a church website that can reach out into the community, or start an evangelistic blog. There is even a free evangelistic screensaver to download: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com.
Creating a Focus Day
The IE Day site also offers materials for a church or Christian group to easily stage a “web awareness” focus program on 7 May (or at any time they choose). Resources include a PowerPoint presentation, video clips, music, drama skits, posters, handouts and many other ideas. You can build your own customized program, anything from perhaps 10 minutes to an hour, to suit your own needs.
Churches that ran this focus day last year were excited. “People were challenged and inspired! As a result, we will review our church website, add evangelistic signature blocks to emails, and learn how to use Bulletin Boards and Chat Rooms for evangelism,” said a church in Australia. “I want to thank you for the free resources you have provided through your website. This is a huge help for small churches such as ours,” claimed a church leader in California.
Read more stories of how churches and groups created an IE Day program last year: http://ied.gospelcom.net/examples.php. You can also watch a video of the web evangelism drama sketch “A Billion Squares” performed at Hazelwood Christian Church (Muncie, Indiana, USA).
Not Just For Techies
One surprising fact that the IE Day team emphasized: web evangelism is for anyone, not just the technically gifted. “There are many ways to share your faith online, without any technical background at all,” says IE Day Coordinator Tony Whittaker. “The opportunities are varied: writing, mentoring, chat rooms, or blogging.” There are also Christian groups offering spare-time (and full-time) opportunities for web evangelism: http://ied.gospelcom.net/vacancies.php
Church sites - A Missed Opportunity
Church sites outnumber all other Christian sites by about 5 to 1. These sites could therefore have huge potential - yet sadly the vast majority of church websites have been written in “churchy” insider language mainly for their members. Few have built on a foundation of user-friendliness to outsiders. Yet churches who choose to do this find that their sites really can reach into the community. “Week in, week out, more visitors turn up at our church on a Sunday because of the website, than anything else,” says a church in Kingston, UK which uses this strategy.
The IE Day site offers a page of 70+ tips on how to build a church site to reach into the community. This content can even be syndicated into other websites, by copy/pasting a few lines of javascript into the host site: http://ied.gospelcom.net/church-growth.php
Outreach Websites
The overwhelming majority of Christian websites are written for Christians. There are few sites which appeal to someone who is not already an active seeker. How can we attract their attention? One method is to integrate web evangelism within a total media outreach to a town or area. This has been effectively used in the Australian Jesus. All About Life” campaign: http://www.lausanneworldpulse.com/worldreports/221 which is continuing in Canberra and other towns during 2006.
The www.EveryStudent.com site also uses non-web publicity and is very effective on US campuses, being promoted by Campus Crusade staffers and Christian students using T-shirts, contact cards and word of mouth. Kristi is one of many who found Christ at this site: http://ied.gospelcom.net/videokristi.php
The other method is to use the “Bridge Strategy” - that is, build websites around a starting point of secular interest or felt needs. This is a major - and biblical - key to reaching the millions who would never dream of searching for Christian content: http:// ied.gospelcom.net/outreach.php
Blogging
So-called “blogging” has grown vastly in popularity over the last few years. Blog sites are essentially an informal, ongoing, diary-style commentary. Blogging matches (and shapes) the modern desire to receive (and be able to comment on) information in short personalized conversational blocks. Although there are thousands of blogs produced by Christians, almost all of them are written in Christian language and addressing Christian concerns. While non-Christians may accidentally find them, in most cases they are unlikely to stay to read, unless they happen to be seekers.
To use Christian blogs for outreach, we must understand how they work best and the ways they differ from conventional websites. The IE Day site offers a detailed guide on how to build a blog that can reach non-Christians: http://ied.gospelcom.net/blogging.php. Blogging needs no technical knowledge at all - just the ability to write briefly and enticingly.
The Needs of the World
During 2005, the Web passed a major milestone: it now has more than one billion users. Analysts believe that this figure will double over the next ten years. The potential for the Internet within hard-to-reach countries is enormous. Even in Europe, there are countries where evangelicals represent 1% of the population or less. Many people in such countries are unlikely to ever meet a believer socially face to face. But such interactions are possible online. Read how Kasia from Poland first encountered the Gospel on the Web: http://ied.gospelcom.net/kasia.php
Japan is another country with great need for web evangelism: many people use the Internet, yet few have sufficient English proficiency to comfortably access English-language sites. The church is small and Christianity is perceived, though without appreciable hostility, as an irrelevant foreign religion. Sadly, almost no one is using this wide open door into Japan.
Chat Rooms
A chat room is a web page which a number of people can access at the same time. It has a text box area where you can type short messages to the others “in” the room. A separate area of the page displays on a rolling basis the messages that are being typed, thus creating an ongoing discussion. Some churches have chat room teams with members who have been trained in this type of outreach. And anyone can participate in chat rooms from their own home.
If you can think quickly “on your feet,” and can discuss issues in a sensitive and non-confrontational matter, chat evangelism may be for you: http://guide.gospelcom.net/resources/chat.php
Training
There are a growing range of online training resources to help you understand more about web evangelism issues. These include:
- the self-study IEC course: http://www.webevangelism.com/otoe/index.php
- online training videos: http://ied.gospelcom.net/training-videos.php
- books: http://ied.gospelcom.net/books.php
- newsletters - as well as this one you're reading from the IEC, consider the Web Evangelism Bulletin: http://guide.gospelcom.net/resources/bulletin.php
- Other options: http://ied.gospelcom.net/training.php
Endless Opportunities
“Internet evangelism offers you a dazzling array of possibilities to communicate Christ,” says web evangelist Rusty Wright. If God is calling you to be involved in online evangelism, you have an exciting time ahead! Your fingers on a keyboard (Psalms. 144:1) can fight in the battle.
