The IED website shares the stories of Kasia, Shoshy, Christina and others who were looking for answers and found God through someone’s commitment to sharing their faith online.

In addition, the IED website profiles several “web evangelists” to see why and how they’re using the Internet to actively reach out to others in Jesus’ name.

Internet Evangelism Day allows churches, ministries and individuals to catch a glimpse of how the Internet and other technology can be used for evangelism – both locally and internationally. IED is supported by a broad coalition of leaders and offers a variety of resources for leaders and individuals to learn more about the Internet and its potential for evangelism.

Please be praying for all who will participate in Internet Evangelism Day – and especially for those who will come to faith in Christ because someone shared the Good News with them online.

In the five months since ChristianVolunteering.org was launched, it has added over 1200 volunteer and short-term missions opportunities from over 700 organizations. The goal is to match hundreds of thousands of volunteers to those ministry opportunities.

The website has a section devoted to short-term missions and evangelism where users can browse over 350 openings in domestic urban missions, virtual evangelism, and trips all over the world. Opportunities range in commitment level from a few hours a week to a commitment of a few years.

ChristianVolunteering.org lists opportunities such as sharing Christ over email through NeedHim Ministries, in which individuals seeking to know more about Christ are assigned a Christian who will email them. The hope is that the Christian can explain their faith to the seeker and then lead them to a relationship with Christ. In another vein, the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students InterAction needs leaders who can commit to at least four years to help lead short-term missions trips. These teams start and support college ministries in Europe and Asia, hoping to see a vibrant student ministry in every nation.

Outside the Walls
According to the United States Department of Labor, faith-based volunteers are the largest pool of volunteers, representing over 34.8% of volunteers in 2005. The challenge is that the majority of these volunteers do not serve “outside the walls of churches,” so this represents an enormous potential that could be directed to areas with the most need.

Lester Salamon of the Institute for Policy Studies of Johns Hopkins University reports that only 7-15% of volunteering through churches helps the larger community. In fact, the Corporation for National and Community Service says the value of the donated time of faith-based volunteers in 2005 was $51.8 billion dollars, but only $3.6 to $7.8 billion of this value goes to serve those outside of the church.

If online volunteer matching were able to provide just a 10% increase in the number of faith-based volunteers serving the larger community, this would represent $5.1 billion in additional resources for those communities. ChristianVolunteering.org is designed to help Christians get involved in their communities by offering a way for them to easily find and get connected to volunteer opportunities.

TechMission is a Christian nonprofit social service organization with some 500 member ministries serving over 50,000 people in at-risk communities to address the digital divide. TechMission maintains http://www.urbanministry.org, http://www.safefamilies.org, http://www.techmission.org and http://www.christianfreeware.org.

For more information, visit ChristianVolunteering.org or contact Andrew Sears at 617.359.0394 .

"E-LIFE Kids is not just a program, but a lifestyle," explains E-LIFE National Coordinator Marshall Bruner. "Through E-LIFE, leaders can help children realize how they can become missionaries to their schools."

Suited best for upper elementary children, E-LIFE Kids was developed by the national Children's Ministries Agency with the assistance of key children's pastors from across the country.

E-LIFE Kids materials are available for free online at http://www.elife.ag.org/. According to Bruner, the site includes a full introduction to E-LIFE along with helps on how to begin, the E-LIFE Plan (of salvation), news and resources as well as free video downloads.

In addition, the site offers a variety of 5-minute theme activities. Leaders are encouraged to use these activities during other children's ministries settings to teach children about the Five Commitments of being an E-LIFE kid: seek, show, share, invite and invest.

"Although the ultimate goal for an E-LIFE Kid is to lead other children to Christ and then disciple them," Bruner says, "it all begins with building relationships, being kind to others, helping others and investing in the lives of classmates."

"Text messaging is often much less expensive than regular voice calls so we think this is a wave that's going to increase in the future. We're trying to set up the facilities so that people can call a place where there's not going to be suspicion and where the call can't be easily traced to us or to our partners in various parts of the world."

DeYoung notes other ministry possibilities. "We have set up some computer-based things that enable us to do this more efficiently. We are seeing some instances now where people are also calling in, or writing in, I should say, questions for radio programs, things to pose to the host. We think this has potential for live call-in programs as well."