Internet Evangelism
Compiled
by the staff of Global Missiology from: http://ied.gospelcom.net
Ministry opportunities:
Spare time and fulltime work in
web evangelism
http://ied.gospelcom.net/vacancies.php
You
want to be involved in some area of web evangelism? What next? First, two important
statements:
·
You do not need to be technical
– there are many options available for everyone.
·
Please take time to learn: we
offer a range of training materials and books on our Training page. We all need equipping for
any type of Christian ministry, and web evangelism
is no exception.
Find/start your own
If you want to be involved in web
evangelism on a sparetime basis at home, here are suggestions:
Opportunity |
Description |
Chat room evangelism |
Work at home as an individual. Or join a small team to
cooperate and learn
together |
|
|
Create a website |
Consider the great potential of
a Bridge Strategy site on a |
secular topic that interests
you – for instance your hobby. Remember, there are huge needs
for evangelistic sites in non-English languages. If you are not technical,
you can build a site using a CMS template
system |
|
|
|
Church website |
Create or assist
your church in production of an effective site |
|
|
Counseling/ mentoring |
Offer
support and advice to inquirers to an evangelistic or church website |
Other ministries |
Be pro-active: find an online ministry with an agenda
you identify with, and
contact them directly. Many such sites are linked to in the Web Evangelism Guide and in the twice‑ |
monthly Bulletin email newsletter.
Some members of the |
|
Internet
Evangelism Coalition may also need
volunteers. |
Opportunities available with different ministries
The following ministries can use unpaid sparetime
volunteers. These opportunities are posted
in good faith – we believe these ministries are, to the best of our knowledge, worthwhile in practice and orthodox in belief,
but you must make your own judgement about
them. Volunteers must expect to go through an application and vetting process;
it is likely that an organization
may wish to take up references about you with your church leaders.
A few of these ministries also
offer fulltime ministry in online evangelism. Often, these will
require applicants to raise their own support.
Organization/contact
person |
Opportunity |
Email addresses are not clickable: copy/paste to your email program and then add back an '@'
sign by hand |
Short description of work involved |
· Writing, editing · Email counseling ·
Providing biblical answers/response · Administration |
|
@ Randall AllAboutGOD.com |
|
· Email
counselors and evangelists · Article writers · Translators (English to
Spanish) · US liaison
representative |
|
@ jchuks cristoweb.com |
|
· Writing · Posting articles ·
Website
housekeeping (using website and reporting broken links, etc.) |
|
@ e610 e610.com |
|
· Promote
the site in personal conversations or in major promotion · Write
& submit articles to effectively help college students understand either
who God is or what it might be like to know Him. Write for unbelievers,
in conversational & interesting style. |
|
@ Marilyn.Adamson uscm.org |
|
· Email Responders: Answer emails from
seekers and inquirers · Prayer Team Coordinators: Collect, develop, publish and post content for weekly prayer letter · Research Coordinators: Research countries
to be profiled in newsletter · Web Site Designers: Collaborate with Chief
Technology Officer to design
site content · Graphic Artists: Assist design for GMO
brochures, posters or websites · Computer Input Assistants: Computer data
entry · Prayer Partners: Sign up on website for weekly prayer letter; agree to
pray regularly for GMO ministry |
|
@ Marnie.Rinker ccci.org |
|
· Online
Mentors: Email counseling, evangelism and discipleship · Mentor
Coordinator: Manage mentoring requests; assign emails to mentors · Writers:
Offer relevant insight to university students’ concerns, touching hearts,
minds and spirits |
|
@ marc.mikitka crusade.org jackie @iamnext.com |
|
• Poster Girl/Boy: Post honest, funny, incisive,
intelligent, down-to-earth reactions
to website articles, to help stimulate conversation and build online community ·
Spinmeister: Create short (10-30 word) summaries
for each online article. Requires
ability to synthesize, creativity and a facility with language to help move reader from site entry
point to Gospel. Especially important
for French site, www.ilyaplus.com |
|
|
This site: InternetEvangelismDay.com email |
·
Experienced publicists to write and
circulate news releases and promote IE Day to denominations, Christian leaders and news media ·
Technical experts for occasional
consultations on style, coding, and graphic design, including creation of occasional
graphics ·
Experienced counselors to give email
advice and mentoring to non-Christians with life problems, arising from an evangelistic site · Full-time/part-time
database expert based in Derby UK |
|
|
· Translators
(English to Spanish) Translators
(English to Chinese) |
|
C• field fibertel.com.ar (for Spanish) a sue probe.org (for Chinese) |
|
·
Email interaction with seekers and
inquirers · Note:
This site coordinates online follow-up for a growing number of ministries and seeks to blend
high-tech with high-touch, personalized, prompt response. |
|
To contact Ministry Response Centers, follow instructions on website. |
|
· Mentoring · Prayer · Writing articles · Witing your life
story · Chat participation · Chat hosting |
|
To contact Truth Media, follow instructions on the website |
|
Write your own page about a hobby or
interest, to be posted on the Acts website. |
|
info acts-on-the-net.org |
|
Full-time opportunities: admin/support, software
development, server administrator,
webpage designer, writer/editor, site administrator, translator, Spanish webmaster. Part-time opportunities: translators, web
designers. |
|
To contact CCCI WorldLinc, follow links on website |
|
Training, encouragement and support,
to teach IT skills to disadvantaged communities, anywhere in the world. Follow the ‘get
involved’ menu link. |
|
To contact TechMission, follow instructions on the website |
|
Sparetime: co-ordinators for online courses in
Russian and Thai. programmers,
and help with security for CAN nations.
Pastors/Bible college graduates as online facilitators for online learning courses. Course content developers.
Graphic artists/web designers to
upgrade website. |
|
CPHP/MySQL/Linux john aibi.ph |
Send
us your opportunities
We
are happy to post other opportunities on this page. Please note: they must be
directly related to online evangelism. Web-related opportunities
in, for example, an evangelistic or mission agency, where the
target audience is the ministry’s Christian support base, are outside
our scope. To be added to this page, opportunities should primarily be outreach
to non-Christians, or mentoring and discipling new
Christians. Use the brief descriptive style
displayed on this page.
You
may find broader career opportunities at churchstaffing.com/lifeway
and christiancareercenter.com. In
UK, see Christian Jobs.
·
about the day ...
·
What is the Day?Purpose, scheduled date,
sponsoring organizations
·
Planning your Day
programCreate a Web Evangelism focus slot within a church service, house-meeting or seminar
·
Publicity/mediaNews
releases, representatives for interview, other types of publicity
·
about the Web ...
·
Unique potentialHow the nature of the Web can
enable targeted evangelism
·
Does it work?How the Web is reaching people
directly, around the world
·
DangersHow to protect you and your family from
potential online dangers
·
how to do ...
·
Church websitesWhy many church sites don't reach
outsiders, and how to
redesign them
·
Outreach sitesStrategies for evangelistic websites
that can reach the world
·
Chat witnessHow to
share your faith effectively in chat rooms and online bulletin boards
·
TrainingInformal
online training options and books for Web Evangelism
Making websites that are
evangelistic
http://ied.gospelcom.net/outreach.php
Websites
offer us incredible power to share the Good News. But to make use of this potential,
we must understand these six issues:
1. The nature of the Internet
It is a pull
[www.web-evangelism.com/medium.php]
medium. There is no automatic
audience for any website. There are only three ways that someone will find a site:
a.
using a search engine
b.
following a link from another
website
c.
by a personal recommendation –
in an email, on a contact card, in print, TV/radio
etc.
The majority of website visits start through a
search engine. Most other visits result
from following recommended links on websites.
Because people are in control of which pages they
visit, in general they only find sites
they are searching for – those which correspond to their particular interests and needs. Only rarely do people find sites by
accident about topics which do not
interest them, and even more rarely will they
linger at them. (If you have no interest
in chess, when did you last accidentally find a chess website?)
2. The Web is non-linear and
interactive
The outreach potential of the Web should not be
seen primarily as ‘tracts online’. The
Internet is a medium where people want choice, interaction, and a sense of community.
3.
Most people are not seeking for God
Although research shows that a surprising number
of people do search the Web on
broadly ‘religious’ topics, we must assume that these relate to all types of religions, including searches for horoscopes,
fortune telling, and similar New Age issues.
The Gray Matrix [www.web-evangelism.com/gray-matrix.php]
is a valuable visual tool which helps us to understand the
spiritual position of a person or group.
4.
Most Christian websites are
designed for Christians
The overwhelming majority of Christian websites
are written purely for Christians,
in terms of language and issues addressed. This can be called the 99 percent problem. [web-evangelism.com/99percent.php]
The Body of Christ seems to spend
most of its energies ministering to itself. Check the target
audience of books and videos in
any Christian bookshop, and do a count! Yes, of course
we need feeding too – but to the end that we will have more to give than a ‘few
crumbs under the table’.
5.
Insider language excludes others
Many Christian websites, even those which hope to
be evangelistic, tend to use Christian
jargon. This may be incomprehensible to many non-Christians, and perceived as
‘church’ or ‘preachy’ by others. The result is that we tend to communicate well only to the ‘churched’ people
(that is, those with some degree of
church exposure in their lives), and fail to communicate with the much larger numbers of ‘unchurched’.
Jesus,
by contrast, adjusted his language to his listeners, and most of his group evangelism
took the form of stories in everyday language.
It is in fact possible – and highly preferable –
to communicate the Gospel in easy neutral
language. Arguably, the only religious words we need to use are ‘God’, ‘Jesus’, ‘Spirit’, ‘Bible’ and ‘heaven’. Everything
else can be rephrased.
More:
·
Avoiding Jargon – the words to avoid [www.web-evangelism.com/jargon.php]
· When Words Get in the Way – valuable advice from
OnMission Magazine [www.onmission.com/webzine/jul_aug00]
·
Free training video clips – TruthMedia.com resource on
effective evangelistic writing and
followup
6. Wise web communication
Effective
web communication needs the gifts of a journalist, not a preacher or evangelist.
You do not have a captive audience. Site visitors can leave at the click of a
mouse. The Press has learned over many years how to engage with and retain an
audience. Learn their secrets!
So
what strategies can we use to reach non-Christians effectively on the Internet?
First let’s look at two types of outreach site: ‘gospel
presentations’ and ‘evangelistic sites’.
a.
Gospel
Presentations
We define these as sites which focus mainly on
the essentials of the Gospel. They may
include some element of lead-in, but the primary focus is to explain the way of salvation. It is surprisingly hard to
communicate the Gospel in a balanced biblical way, avoiding a cost-free
‘easy-believism’, while explaining the true nature of salvation by grace alone. IEC's Now Try God [www.NowTryGod.com] is a ‘gospel
presentation’, view others here. [web-evangelism.com/gospel.php]
Gospel
presentations can be easily found on search engines by people who are already
seeking for the way of salvation. But in order to be read by a wider range of
people, other strategies are needed. For instance, they are an ideal ‘find out more’
weblink for tracts, contact cards or radio/TV broadcasts.
They
can also serve as ready-made gospel links for Christian pages. For instance church
or other Christian websites can link directly to an existing presentation,
rather than creating their own. Even sites with a Christian target readership
such
as this one, can link (see our page footer) to an
existing gospel presentation. available
for any non-Christians who happen to visit. Because there are so many good gospel presentations available, it is not
always necessary to ‘reinvent the wheel’.
b.
Evangelistic
sites
These are distinguished from gospel
presentations, by having content on a broader range of topics. They may well lead into a gospel presentation at their
core, or they may link out to an
existing presentation.
The
big need is for many more sites of this type. But how can we draw visitors in
to reach them?
The
Bridge Strategy
“Bait
the hook according to what the fish likes, not what the fisherman likes.” -
Hemingway
Here’s
the logic:
1.
Most non-Christians are not
seeking for God.
2. Most online
non-Christians have no wish to search for Christian websites.
3.
All online non-Christians are
searching for websites on needs they have, and topics
that interest them.
4.
Therefore to reach
non-Christians, we must create websites around the topics and felt
needs that they have. This is the Bridge Strategy.
It is
“fishing on the other side of the boat”: John
21:5-6.
The
Bridging Transition
A
bridge site must be truly about the topic or need that is its starting point.
There must be no sense of ‘bait and switch’ – this is not a
‘decoy trick’. But we can then transition across,
with integrity, to:
·
testimony pages – of the webmaster, or other
people associated with the site topic. (But
don?t use the word ?testimony? – it is a jargon word. ?Life story? is much better.)
·
parallel pages: almost all secular topics contain
embedded within them a spiritual parallel
which can be drawn out.
·
‘meaning of life’ questions: pages which ask
leading questions
·
a gospel presentation; the three previous
categories of page can gently lead to an explanation of the way of salvation (within the site, or as an off-site
link).
We are convinced that this Bridge Strategy [web-evangelism.com/bridge-strategy.php]
is thoroughly justified biblically, and is a key to
effective online outreach. For the first time, the
Web allows us to target any affinity group of people with a high degree of
precision, according to their interest, hobby, personal
need, ethnic background or language.
What
can we write Bridge pages about?
Anything! If you have a hobby or
sport, you share that interest with millions of others. If you
have come through a difficult personal problem or illness, you can be sure that
is a felt need for millions of others. Do you have a
professional interest? This is a wide-open field.
The potential is mind-blowing.
Showcase
examples of Bridge sites
You
will see that different sites use the ‘bridge principle‘ in different ways.
Some sites address personal interests or hobbies. Others are
designed to meet people’s felt needs.
·
Women Today Magazine [www.womentodaymagazine.com]
is a large and very effective site, which addresses
women’s needs and issues. Because it is outwardly similar
in appearance to a website which targets Christian women, it makes an excellent case study [web-evangelism.com/case-study.php]
on how to target and write for non-Christians.
• I am Next [www.iamnext.com]
uses a similar magazine approach for the teen/student
band. Note that the site does not appear blatantly Christian from the home
page, though there are links indicating some spiritual content.
·
EveryStudent.com [www.everystudent.com] has a
higher immediate spiritual profile
than IamNext, with more apologetic material and answers to religious questions. Kristi and Patricia became Christians
through this site: their stories.
·
Hobbit Lore [www.hobbitlore.com] is for
Tolkein enthusiasts. The world is divided
into those who don?t ‘get’ Middle-Earth, and those who do! This site targets, very effectively, those who do.
·
The Life [www.thelife.com] is one of
several outreach sites which were developed
in response to The Passion of the Christ film. It has been repositioned to take account of the tsunami tragedy. Cristina
is one of many whose lives were touched
through this site: her story.
·
Sport is a valuable starting point for an outreach
site. To the Next Level [www.tothenextlevel.org]
developed by Doug Reese, is one of a
small number of sport-related sites
which specifically target non-Christians, view other
examples. [web-evangelism.com/sport-pages.php]
·
Health is one of the most-searched for topics on
the Internet. There is a wide range
of informational/diagnostic material online, and many support groups. Christians who suffer from a medical condition
are well-placed to create a support site
which can touch other sufferers. Unfortunately, a majority of such Christian sites position themselves as being for Christians
suffering from the condition. This
rather excludes non-Christians, and compromises any gentle evangelistic intent the writer may have had.
Examples
of health sites which are accessible to non-Christians: here [webevangelism.com/health.php]
• Relationships are another area
of felt need [web-evangelism.com/felt-needs.php]
There is enormous potential within this subject.
Outreach sites such as
Women Today Magazine [www.womentodaymagazine.com]
and MOPS [www.mops.org]
frequently address relationship issues. A few other sites also cover
them in a style designed, or least accessible, to non-Christians: examples. [web-evangelism.com/romance.php]
·
Children: there are sadly very few sites designed
for unchurched children: possible
reasons. [web-evangelism.com/children.php]
Most assume Bible knowledge and resemble Sunday School lessons. Look at HiKidz
[www.hikidz.com] for a bilingual
outreach, Kids Ranch [www.kidsranch.org]
for a different approach and Kings Call
[www.kingscall.com]
as an example of an evangelistic
children’s game. See other examples of childrens
pages and games [web-evangelism.com/kids.php]
·
Apologetics sites (i.e. reasoned answers to
questions about faith) are usually written
almost entirely for Christians. But sites which understand how to present these answers from an angle and in language that
relates to non-Christians, can be very
effective: examples. [web-evangelism.com/apologetics.php]
·
Hobbies offer huge potential for outreach. A
hobby-based site has the potential to reach millions of like-minded people
around the world. If you have a hobby – you are well-equipped to write about what you know! Another strategy which
is grossly underused: examples. [web-evangelism.com/hobbies.php]
·
Community-based resource sites also have great
potential. You can create a small portal
for your town or area which draws together the best relevant local secular sites, but also includes outreach sites in
appropriate categories: examples. [webevangelism.com/community.php]
Other approaches and strategies
Outreach
sites can complement other media, such as radio or print literature, and can
also be specifically designed to draw people into face-to-face relationships.
(Church websites are a prime example of this 'twin
track' approach.) More on this topic. [webevangelism.com/twintrack.php]
The popular ‘blog’ style of website can be used
with many of these secular topics. There is an another advantage here: it is possible to use a blog provider and
create a very professional-looking
site with very little technical knowledge.
God is leading some Christians into very creative
and unusual ways to grab attention for the
Gospel: examples. [web-evangelism.com/creative.php]