WEB EVANGELISM BULLETIN
. . . learning from each other
W-E-B Issue 126 ~ December 05
Twice a month ISSN 471-0323
News this time...
NARNIA AT LAST
MISSION AND THE WORLD
CALIFORNIA WEB EVANGELISM CONFERENCE
TIPS
THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
COMMUNICATION IN WRITING
SPACE CADETS. FUN BUT IS IT ETHICAL?
TAILEND
"Feed your faith and your doubts will starve to death" - roadside church sign
NARNIA AT LAST
The film is released!
The Good Book Company in UK is another ministry offering Narnia tracts:
http://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/Youth-and-Children/Tracts/#
COOK Ministries offer a Narnia-based 4-week multimedia curriculum program to disciple
teens and empower them to reach out and share their faith:
http://www.CookMinistries.com/NarniaProject
Talking Narnia to Your Neighbors: How C.S. Lewis's fairy tales can impact your friends
for Christ.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/2005/006/11.42.html
CCCI have recast their 4 Spiritual Laws as a single Narnia-based gospel page:
http://www.talesofnarnia.com/
R-R-ROAR! FINDING GOD IN THE LAND OF NARNIA: Dave Buckna has created a Narnia-based
quiz available for syndication into print or web media - write to him at
dabuckna [at] direct [dot] ca
http://www.ashleylangford.com/archives/2005/12/chronicles_of_n.html
LEWIS. If you want an in-depth look at C S Lewis, Leadership University have brought
together a wide range of articles:
http://www.leaderu.com/focus/lionandlewis
It has been interesting to note that we seem to have reached a 'tipping point' in contemporary culture, with the film receiving considerable criticism in the secular media for being, as they see it, Christian propaganda.
MISSION AND THE WORLD
If your role includes enthusing other people for evangelism and outreach, then these
downloadable video clips may be very useful:
http://the-task-virals.blogspot.com/
http://viral-life.blogspot.com/
Find national anthems - words, music and background history - for most countries of the
world
http://david.national-anthems.net/index.html
CALIFORNIA WEB EVANGELISM CONFERENCE
Menlo Park Presbyterian Church (California) is arranging a conference: Techvangelism
'06, 17-18 March 2006. More details next time. They are currently selecting speakers - so
if you can suggest anyone who is experienced in these areas, please contact the
church:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/TechvangelismCallForSpeakers_2.doc
TIPS
- non-techies look away now...
COUNTDOWN 'CHARACTERS LEFT' FOR FORMS. Of course, it can be got round with javascript
disabled:
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex16/limitinput.htm
RADIO BUTTONS - click near them rather than in them:
http://gethelp.devx.com/techtips/dhtml_pro/10min/10min0101/10min0101.asp
LOOK OUT FOR THE SOBER WORM - if you have not already heard of it:
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5967601.html?tag=nl
MENUS: Latest issue of Merle's newsletter discusses different navigation options to use
on websites:
http://www.merlesworld.com/archives/MM_111505.pdf
I do like popout left-to-right menus and dropdown menus since these are what most
people are intuitively used to with Windows and Macs, and they enable people to quickly
hover over the entire site contents and see at a glance the main pages available. The
Internet Evangelism Day menu has just been upgraded to a pure CSS menu, using the Adx Menu,
with additional tooltips within a balloon graphic. Advantages include:
- fails safe (the top level still works) in older browers or IE with javascript disabled,
unlike most DHTML menus, which may even vanish completely with no javascript
- repositions submenus if needed, in a smaller browser window
- will cover text-area forms and other elements of a webpage
It's a bit harder to implement than the other main pure-CSS menu, Suckerfish, which is
also very good, though lacks a couple of advantages of the Adx menu.
Do you like it? Does it work in your browser? Do you feel it gives you enough visual
clues about where you are in the site, and where you can go, and also where you have been
(pages that have been visited already have gray links)?
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/index.php
ONLINE TRANSLATOR - many second-language people struggle with English-language
websites. You can help them with a double-click word translator - see how the Internet
Evangelism Day site uses this system. This javascript does not currently work for Macs or
Unix - unless anyone knows how to modify it accordingly!
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/index.php
THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
POETRY is the music of words. If you love poetry, you'll like the Poetry Archive, which
includes historical sound recordings of poets such as Browning and Betjamin. There is
surely potential to look for redemptive parallels in poetry, and build a site around
it:
http://www.poetryarchive.org/
VISUAL ARTS: few Christian visual artists cross the divide to create material suitable
for non-Christians. "Makoto Fujimura restores art's good name among Christians and gives
Christians a good name in the arts."
http://worldmag.com/subscriber/displayArticle.cfm?ID=11357
THE WEB GREW more in 2005 than at the height of the dot.com boom, says the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4325918.stm
INTERNET USAGE - latest new:
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm
NEW DANGER mobile phones: the ability of 3G mobile devices to download videos is
leading to the usual exploitation of human nature. Children are at risk:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3438533.stm
Children can also be hooked by apparently innocent 'cross-over' sites:
http://www.netfamilynews.org/nl050408.html
BEST AIRFARES - based on searches that others have done recently:
http://www.kayak.com/h/buzz/
COMMUNICATION IN WRITING
The skills needed for web-writing are very close to those for journalism and magazine writing.
MTI offers Christian magazine-writing training resources, and conferences for E
Europe:
http://www.magazinetraining.com/
And there is a new Christian distance-learning journalism course (leading to National
Council for the Training of Journalists qualifications). "It is the only one of its kind
in the UK and aims to equip Christians - especially young people - to make an impact in
the secular media," says director Cleland Thom, a journalist of 30 years. The course is
done online with full personal tutorial support. Although operated from UK, students can
be based anywhere, with special arrangements for taking the exams locally:
http://www.ctjts.com/
For a Christian-based house-style/grammar guide:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/style.php
SPACE CADETS. FUN BUT IS IT ETHICAL?
UK's Channel 4 TV has just broadcast SPACE CADETS - a 'Trueman Show' reality hoax stunt where the participants really did believe they were training in Russia in order to go into space, and some were then chosen to be 'sent into space' in a shuttle. They were in fact hermetically isolated in a disused airbase in eastern UK. Cadets were selected for being, how shall we say, gullible - and presumably also for lack of scientific knowledge. Though - unlike Big Brother contestants chosen by the same production company - they all seemed to be pleasant easy-going young people. (The program will no doubt syndicate into other countries soon.)
Apart from the ethics of this hoax, the development of this surely impossible-to-repeat
trick also raises interesting faith questions about false and true belief systems, how
people can believe what they want to believe, and group reinforcement of delusion and
stifling of doubts. Maybe someone will do a serious study on this - please write if you
find one online. Reminds me that: "Truth exists; only falsehood has to be invented." As
with the Truman Show, there are certainly also Bridge Strategy entry points for evangelism
here too, in outreach sites and blogs.
http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/S/spacecadets/
http://aerialtelly.co.uk/space-cadets.php
(and search for comment on many other websites too)
TAILEND ô¿ô
1. This really happened to a tug-boat:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/~soldier/towboat.htm
2. The young woman really thought she'd been very patient, through a protracted period
of dating with no talk of marriage. One night her steady boyfriend took her to a Chinese
restaurant. As he perused the menu, he casually asked her, "So... how do you like your
rice? Boiled? Or fried?"
Without missing a beat, she looked over her menu at him and replied clearly, "Thrown."
[Source: www.cybersalt.org ]
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