 |
|
|
 |
 |
| May 2006 |
IEC Newsletter
Stimulating and accelerating web evangelism within the worldwide Body of Christ
|
| |
|
|
 |
IEC Annual Meeting: September 20-21 |
|
|
|
The Internet Evangelism Coalition will hold it's Annual Meeting September 20-21 at the Marriott Chicago O'Hare (Chicago, IL, USA). Plan now to attend this important gathering of Internet evangelism practitioners and strategists.
Guest speaker this year is Gordon Robertson, vice president of Internet Media for the Christian Broadcasting Network. Robertson is also Vice President of The 700 Club; Vice President of CBN WorldReach Asia; Founder and President of CBN Asia, Inc.; Founder and President of the Asian Center for Missions. (Complete bio here.)
In addition to an inspiring and challenging message from Robertson, you'll hear more about ministries involved in International Internet Evangelism, learn how one ministry is helping people share their testimony online and have an opportunity to share more about your ministry in Networking and Discussion Groups.
The 2006 IEC Annual Meeting begins at 11:30 a.m. with lunch on September 20 and concludes at 11:00 a.m. on September 21. More information is coming soon on the IEC Annual Meeting - but save these dates on your calendar today!
|
|
Internet Evangelism Day 2006 |
|
| By Tony Whittaker |
|
In the last year, we have added new materials to the site:
- web evangelists’ stories
- audio introduction to IE Day (1 and 3-minute versions)
- page about blogging to reach non-Christians
- web evangelism opportunities page - spare-time and full-time vacancies
- a third downloadable video testimony (thanks to TruthMedia)
- a popout menu, making it easier to find all the pages
- a "how can we help you" link from the home page, itemizing how the site can help different categories of people
- the offer of a diagonal corner banner to other sites
- request to churches to use a ready-made paragraph in their newsletters, even if they cannot participate more fully
Twin-track Emphasis
Of course, the site has an all-year-round value in terms of web evangelism advocacy. This is the twin- track approach of explaining the potential of web evangelism, as well as encouraging churches and other groups to use our materials to create a focus day. After last year’s IE Day, the focus on a specific annual date was de-emphasized, encouraging people to create an IE Day program at any convenient time, and that de-emphasis has again been applied to the site.
Site Visitors
Site visits increased in the run-up to IE Day, as publicity and awareness cut in. Earlier in the year, it was typically 500 unique visitors a day viewing around 2500 pages. That rose in the weeks and days before IE Day to 1000 unique visitors viewing 5-6000 pages, and occasionally up to about 1500 unique visitors daily.
Partnership and Publicity
Grateful thanks to all the IEC member ministries and many others who focused on IE Day. Their web-site and newsletter links gave widespread international coverage, and were crucial to the amount of coverage we received. Press releases also went widely, both online and into print media, including the religion section of secular papers - for instance the London Times printed an item. It is hard to know just how often material was published, but my impression is that we did achieve a higher and wider profile than last year. Certainly site visits were higher. But it is an uphill struggle, in an environment where there are so many Christian initiatives clamoring for attention, to gain interest for evangelism in general (not often the first priority of the church), and web outreach in particular. Of course, repeated exposure to a message is usually necessary before recipients start to respond.
Feedback
General feedback to the site, when it comes, is encouraging. For instance, Adelina wrote “I'm not sure how I stumbled upon your article: ‘Christian blog evangelism - strategy for outreach to the blogging world’, but it is the most wonderful, informative wealth of information that I have ever received for free. Every link turns up more and more gems of useful information.”
About the same number of people as last year remembered to tell us they were planning a focus day in their churches. I would like to hope that this number represents only a percentage of those who actually did something. If there was a 10% reporting rate, then maybe 4-500 churches did something specific. But we will never know. Certainly I sometimes hear of things second-hand, which have not been reported to me directly.
Reports from IE Day Participants
The TechVangelism one-day conference in Menlo Park, CA, USA in March was a response to IE Day, and had over 100 participants covering significant topics. “You were critical to (a) the idea (b) helping our program and getting speakers and participants.” - Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. CA, USA
“We did recognize IE Day with the following:
- The editor of our church paper researched IE for material including material from an web evangelist who attends our fellowship and prepared a story for publication on IE Day.
- In the Sunday service, we introduced the concept of IE ministry, interviewed the evangelist, who told some stories of interest explaining IE ministry. We had special prayer for IE ministries, its servants, and those in need.” - Ridgeland Community Church, Florida, USA
“We participate in Internet evangelism all year, and this is another chance to highlight it to our congregation and any visitors. This year, we used an announcement that pointed out how church attenders could use the link from our home page as an evangelism tool with regard to the release of The Da Vinci Code, as well as to use the resources provided on our site to equip themselves to respond to friends and relatives who talk to them about the movie and whether it is accurate or false. For us, IE Day is about casting the vision for stepping out into new areas and claiming them for Jesus. We will definitely consider holding an IE Day again. We caught the vision a while back and created an evangelism site and are using our church site to do evangelism and to equip others for Internet evangelism.” - New Life Christian Ministries, Saxonburg, PA, USA
Challenges and Opportunities
Many major online ministries have a policy of not linking to other websites. We managed to get round this to some extent with the diagonal banner, by positioning the proposal to them as a temporary partnership option, in terms that "we can help your site visitors." I hope we can extend this concept by offering other ministries the partnership option for their own name to appear on all pages of the site, for their site visitors who follow a partner link from their site.
It has not often proved possible to gain specific endorsement from denominational headquarters, or even where this has happened to see that endorsement translated into an active encouragement from the HQ to all their churches to participate in IE Day. This is an area where we can perhaps try again, hopefully with the help of a volunteer publicist.
We can also hope for an increased level of ongoing publicity to Christian media with a focus on web evangelism, placing our news releases or ready-made articles, or offer to write custom articles as needed. Improved site graphic design is another target for the coming months.
Finally
2006 was a very encouraging year, for which we thank the Lord. But, there are lots of challenges ahead. Begin planning now for your involvement in Internet Evangelism Day. The dates for the next two years have just been confirmed:
- April 29, 2007
- April 27, 2008
|
|
StorySpot.com: Sharing God-stories on the Internet |
|
| By Andy Fish, Campus Crusade for Christ |
|
Telling stories is an imperative part of the Christian faith. From the ancient heroes of the faith to modern- day saints, God has revealed Himself through personal experiences. These are told and retold as stories so that others might understand God. StorySpot.com brings this essential tradition into the digital age.
Sharing a God-story is an opportunity for another person to discover or grow deeper in a relationship with God. It doesn’t matter whether a story comes through Moses, Mary Magdalene, or the person who sits behind you at Sunday worship. Each story where God can clearly be seen as the hero creates a connecting point between His heart and the lost heart. StorySpot simply amplifies these stories by providing story communities, tagging, RSS feeds, web links, and more.
The value we want to create through StorySpot is simple but also very relevant. In our post-modern culture, facts are secondary to personal experiences. Through StorySpot, we hope that a great number of people will find a story they can relate to and, through it, begin to understand how God can change them too.
A key objective for StorySpot is to make it easy for virtually anyone to write a God-story. One of the most sophisticated parts of the web site is the writing assistant, which includes an animated coach. “Claire” guides the author through the process by teaching core concepts about telling a God-story, exploring some examples, and choosing a story idea. The author is led through a series of steps for writing the story, much like an interview, which are customized for five different types of storylines. Every step seeks to keep the story relevant to a non-Christian reader; we even built a “Christianese” checker that uses a growing database to highlight spiritual slang and offers alternatives.
Story communities are a significant feature of the site. Any author can create a new community for a real-life group like a church or campus group; or create a more virtual community for people who share a common interest or experience. Each community has a custom sub-domain on StorySpot.com and an RSS feed.
StorySpot uses a “folksonomy” system that allows authors to add descriptive words or short phrases – called “tags” – to themselves, stories, and communities. This open-ended system allows natural links to be formed between various parts of the site, allowing the user to experience StorySpot in a more meaningful way. In order to help a visitor start navigating through all the tags, StorySpot collects some of the more common or relevant tags into organized groups. Because of this, StorySpot is able to provide an interactive experience not possible with a pre-defined system of categorization.
StorySpot authors may select one of their published stories to be available using a direct web link based on the author’s username; for example, www.storyspot.com/~johndoe. This allows for viral- style marketing as authors spread these links through their Internet life: email signatures, IM away messages, blogs, personal profiles, and more.
StorySpot communities are another way visitors may come into the site. Communities can publicize their unique StorySpot.com web address; for example, ucf.storyspot.com serves the University of Central Florida. Through the RSS feed, the story list can be syndicated or published on other web sites.
Until recently, our primary focus has been making a steady stream of improvements to StorySpot and recruiting new authors from students involved in Campus Crusade for Christ. While we are beginning to do some general Internet marketing, our hope is that the greater portion of success of StorySpot will come more through personal and community-level marketing than broadly sown Google ads.
As a campus ministry, reaching young adults is our first desire for StorySpot. Yet we believe that the concept can have a broader impact for evangelism so we’re inviting others in the Christian community to participate. StorySpot can become increasingly compelling for all audience through a diversity of stories added by Christians of all ages, backgrounds, and experiences.
StorySpot.com was initially launched in 2003 by a U.S. region of Campus Crusade for Christ. It was adopted at a national level in 2005 with a view towards international versions and relaunched last December with an updated concept, design, and infrastructure.
For more information about using StorySpot, visit www.storyspot.com/guide.
|
|
Fuller Distance-Learning Course on Web Evangelism |
|
|
|
Course MP 537 is a pioneering 10- week distance-learning course on web evangelism scheduled to start June 19.
The description of the course online says: "The Internet is the place the world finds its information and does its private enquiry and thinking. As such, it has become a powerful communication medium for evangelism and missions with one billion people online - including an estimated 400 million religion surfers who regularly seek religious information. This course will address questions such as:
- What is an appropriate missiology of Cyberspace?
- Can genuine Christian community take place in cyberspace? If so, how can we facilitate such community?
- What are the most practical and effective methods for Internet evangelism and cybermissions?
- What online strategies are appropriate for different groups such as postmodern Westerners, Hindus, Chinese Communists, Buddhists, and Muslims?
The course is being taught by John Edmiston, Asian Bible Institute and www.CyberMissions.org.
To register for this course, students must first be admitted to a short non-degree or certificate program at Fuller Theological Seminary. They then request registration for the MP537 course after May 19.
(Source: Tony Whittaker, Web Evangelism Guide and www.internetevangelismday.com)
|
|
Da Vinci Code Podcast |
|
|
|
The just-released Da Vinci Code movie could be, according to some leaders, launching one of the most controversial periods in the history of the modern church.
Josh McDowell, who has authored or co-authored over one hundred books and spoken to more than ten million people in eighty countries at over 700 universities and colleges, believes the Da Vinci Code movie will give Christians a far greater platform for evangelism than Narnia and the Passion combined.
Josh believes that probably 95% of those in the Body of Christ could never give an intelligent answer why they truly believe the Bible is the Word of God – true, or historically accurate or reliable, or why Jesus Christ is the Son of God or how the resurrection happened. So when something like the Da Vinci Code book and then movie comes along and Christians don’t know the “why’s” of their faith, it undermines them.
In response to this need to equip Christians and non- Christians with answers to the truth of the Gospel in regards to the Da Vinci Code controversy, Josh and Campus Crusade for Christ have produced several resources aimed specifically at questions raised by the movie.
The Da Vinci Code: A Quest for Answers podcast is a dramatic presentation of Josh’s book which separates fact from fiction and provides truths that listeners can depend on for real answers. The podcast includes twenty, five-minute dialogue segments of three young people discussing the Da Vinci Code book and movie. Narration is provided by actor Max McLean along with teaching segments from Josh.
To download the audio or subscribe to the podcast, go to: http: //pcgmedia.org/davincianswers.html
(Source: Assist News)
|
|
International Conference on Computing and Mission (ICCM) |
|
|
|
ICCM 2006 will be held June 9-13 at Taylor University in Upland, IN, USA. The keynote speaker is Larry Wall, creator of Perl.
Organizers say ICCM features the following opportunities:
- Hands On - Get helpful hands on instruction from professionals with hands on know-how.
- Basic - Getting a good foundation is important for all ministry professionals. These sessions are designed to introduce people to technology they may not have used before.
- Technology - The Tech Track sessions will help you expand your expertise and implementation of a variety of technology.
- Management - ICCM has been blessed with many very Godly and very qualified leaders. The Management Tracks give participants the opportunity to learn from and interact with these great leaders.
- Muddy Fingers - An open lab where attendees can "get their hands dirty." Computers will be available for participants to install or just experience Linux desktops, Linux servers, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and applications. Get hands-on time installing Linux, Windows, or applications for those platforms.
ICCM says it “focuses on building a community of relationships, providing a relaxed forum for people to meet personally and to share ideas, opportunities and experiences, information and expertise, to help us all better use our God-given gifts and skills in His service.”
More information on ICCM is available online. ICCM will also hold a conference in Thailand in March 2007.
(Source: Brigada Today)
|
|
Internet and Culture News & Information |
|
|
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
|
