Twintrack websites

The synergy/co-operativity/symbiotic effect

"Synergy" - when two things working together produce an effect greater than the sum of their individual effects.
"Co-operativity" - the effect when two medications are given at the same time, and interact together to multiply each other's effectiveness much more than would be expected by simple addition.
"Symbiotic" describes the relationship of two very different organisms which live in very close relationship to each other, and benefit each other through their own different properties.

Many evangelistic websites are primarily a single-medium outreach - a 'one-track' approach. All the content is on the site, and followup is probably carried out by email in the first instance.

However, some evangelistic websites use a 'two-track' strategy, where each enhances and complements the other. We can divide these into two categories:

2+ parallel media

Now that Web access is so widespread, many ministries doing radio or literature outreach also operate a parallel website. The advantages are obvious. A tract of necessity can only contain a limited number of words (and an evangelistic contact card even less).

But a matching website can offer as much content as the ministry has time to write. ATS, for instance, has different followup sites for their different tracts - for instance Halloween tracts offer www.october31st.org, Easter tracts offer www.eastermessage.com, children's tracts use www.ATSkids.com and so on.

An outreach team working in a town or area can create a locality site to enhance their ministry.

Alternatively, if a group does not have the opportunity to make its own site, then a recommended 'more help' link can be made to a quality evangelistic site such as Power to Change - which incidentally will partner with other ministries to 'brand' their material with the partner's identity.

Evangelistic radio is an area with great scope for this approach. Additional material relating to a specific program can be included on the site, profiles of the broadcasters included, plus wider magazine-type material which will help listeners to identify with the ministry. Ron Hutchcraft Ministries are an example. Radio ministry sites can also include real-time streaming of the current program feed as sections of FEBC do, archived programs, and of course program schedules. RadioWorldwide offers evangelistic streamed programs. Streamed video (and live webcasts) are now reasonably practical for those with fast Internet connections - though the vast majority of web users will only have slow dial-up access for many years to come.

In the secular world, the example of a radio twin-track site is BBCi, UK's public service broadcaster. It is the most popular website in Europe, and the amount of material it carries has to be seen to be believed. Remarkably, the central technical team is very small - maintenance of individual program segments is done by each program's own team using 'content management' updates. In other words, each program administers its own individual customized area without needing to know HTML scripting.

Web/Face-to-face (W/FTF)

W/FTF sites are, naturally, those where a website is intended primarily to draw people into a face-to-face relationship with others. The most obvious example is a church site - these outnumber all other Christian sites by 5 to 1. Of course, the site may also act as a resource of information for the physical face-to-face community, and it may also operate as a single medium site to people geographically remote from the physical community. Indeed, there will probably be a spectrum in people's relationship to the site. Some may only occasionally visit, deriving a small benefit. Others may feel they belong to the cyber-community of the site, yet never for reasons of geography or inclination ever make face-to-face contact with the ministry. Many of these ministries can also be classified as creative evangelism.

Here are examples of W/FTF ministries which are primarily or partly evangelistic, and usually ministering to a specific felt need. Please submit others.

• Mothers of Pre-Schoolers (MOPS)
  Very accessible to non-Christian young mothers, this ministry provides lots of online support, but also encourages mothers to locate a MOPS group in US, Canada and a growing range of other countries around the world. There's radio and a magazine too, so it's also a '2+' media site! You will note that the ministry is using a similar ethos to that in our case study.

• Possibly Pregnant
  The online face of Corvallis Pregnancy Care Center (Oregon USA): "We developed the site to primarily target students in our small college town (pop. 50,000). The challenge was to create a positive, hopeful online environment where Christians and non-Christians alike could find help in time of need."

• Church Initiative
  A non-denominational non-profit ministry which aims to equip local churches to minister to hurting people, both in their fellowships and in the wider community. They provide materials and structured help for the operation of small groups to minister to specific needs: grief, divorce care, and coming soon - gambling addiction. People are most often open to spiritual solutions for their lives when they face a major life crisis. A key to the operation of these groups is that of accessibility to non-Christians. GriefShare and DivorceCare groups have been placed in 1000s of churches in throughout USA, Canada, and 20 other countries. The program is designed in a way that is non-threatening to those outside the faith and includes video seminar material from noted speakers such as Bill Bright, Elizabeth Eliot, Joni Eareckson Tada and Luis Palau. A typical group may contains 90% of the participants from outside the host church, including 50% who are non-believers.

  Although the main Church Initiative website is designed for Christians, the Griefshare | Divorcecare | Divorcecare for Kids | Before you divorce | DivorceCare for kids | sites are designed to draw people into these programs, allowing them to find local support groups through a zipcode/country search option, as well as explaining more about the ministry to churches. This ministry illustrates the importance of Bible-based caring recovery groups based in the local community, and how an outside team can empower a local church to develop such a vital ministry.

  The ministry also operate the Facing Forever ministry which equips North American churches to reach those regular church attenders who have not apparently, for whatever reasons, understood the need for personal faith and new birth. (This website is purely for Christians, to explain the ministry.)

• Christian Penpals recruits Christians to write snail-mail letters to prisoners.

• Animal Alley - promoting a face-to-face evangelistic outreach.

• Health-related pages
  Some health-related ministries include face-to-face support groups.

• Follow-up
  Of course, wherever possible, even one-track evangelistic sites should aim to offer follow-up to inquirers and converts which will culminate in them finding face-to-face Christian fellowship and support.

• More examples - of creative evangelism and the need for it.

The mixed audience problem

On any website, it is very hard to write for a mixed Christian/non-Christian audience. In the context of a ministry which wishes to draw in non-Christians to its programs through a twin-track site, and yet also inform a Christian support base about its activities, this is particularly hard, and it may be wiser not to attempt it. Non-Christians are not usually very pleased at reading about themselves being referred to by Christians to other Christians as 'unsaved', 'unreached', etc. It's all very cringeworthy. Many ministries in this position maintain two different websites - one for non-Christians and the other for Christian supporters - sometimes even branded under different names.

Note: I chose the terms "Twin-track" and "W/FTF" because they seemed descriptive, and I have not heard any other words in use which would describe these concepts. However, I am very open to improved descriptions! Please send your comments.

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