WEB EVANGELISM BULLETIN
. . . learning from each other
W-E-B Issue 122 ~ September (ii) 05
Twice a month ISSN 471-0323
News this time...
AN ATHEIST SELLING JESUS?
MORE KATRINA HELP
STILL JUST TIME TO PLAN A FOCUS DAY
HOPEKEEPERS MAGAZINE
NARNIA FILM
CONNECTING WITH CULTURE
YOUR CHURCH WEBSITE STORY?
BLOGS FOR EVANGELISM
MOBILE DEVICES FOR OUTREACH
COMMUNICATION AND THE GOSPEL
THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
RSS EXPANDING
SEARCHING ONLINE
WEB-BASED HELP FOR SINGLE MOTHERS
TIPS
TAILEND
"If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others" - Tryon Edwards
AN ATHEIST SELLING JESUS?
A coalition of evangelical churches led by the Bible Society of Australia has run a media campaign in Adelaide for the past month, spending about $AUS 250,000 on the most intense and broad-based religious campaign in this country to try to reclaim lost ground. The slogan is "Jesus. All about life" and the plan is to roll it out across the country in the next couple of years, with Canberra due next April. And an atheist has been advising!
The strategy is for 90 per cent of the population to see the television ads 10 times,
with billboards across the city, radio spots, an internet site (allaboutlife.com.au) and a
mail-out of 250,000 postcards. This multi-media approach, with the central role of an
outreach website, is a model that could be used almost anywhere.
Story in the Australian News:
http://www.web-evangelism.com/rd?b05sept-australian
More news for Christians: http://www.jesusallaboutlife.com.au/
Outreach site: http://allaboutife.com.au/
MORE KATRINA HELP
TruthMedia now offer a banner to enable other sites to link to their Katrina disaster
help-page:
http://www.thelife.com/interactive/linktous.html
STILL JUST TIME TO PLAN A FOCUS DAY
Craig Gross and Mike Foster started x3church, and are encouraging churches to run a
p--n focus day on 9 October - or any convenient time:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2005/003/12.15.html
HOPEKEEPERS MAGAZINE
Lisa Colpen saw the potential of the Web very early on, when she started RestMinistries
for those suffering from chronic pain. Although clearly a Christian site, it is accessible
and welcoming to non-Christians. Now she has extended the ministry with a print magazine
called HopeKeepers. Printed four times a year, it is incredibly cheap for US subscribers,
and somewhat more for other countries:
http://www.hopekeepersmagazine.com/
http://www.restministries.org/
NARNIA FILM
Previews of the Narnia film for faith community leaders in US:
http://www.narniaresources.com/events/
Literature to build on this incredible opportunity for your church:
http://www.web-evangelism.com/rd?b05sept-atsnarnia (ATS Tracts USA)
http://www.cpo-online.org.uk/ (CPO UK)
CONNECTING WITH CULTURE
Dave Buckna's gift is to see biblical connections and embedded meanings in popular
culture. His pop gospel quizzes are reprinted even in secular newspapers, and he is
offering them for syndication to other print and web publications - write to:
dabuckna [insert @ sign here] direct [insert dot here] ca
His latest:
TV's hottest show, Lost, is set in the aftermath of a plane crash on a mysterious South
Pacific island. Lost Quiz here:
http://www.dickstaub.com/culturewatch.php?record_id=916
'Bob Dylan: Tangled Up In the Bible' - quiz here:
http://www.tollbooth.org/2005/features/dylan.html
YOUR CHURCH WEBSITE STORY?
Got a church website? We are looking for short stories (even just two sentences) of how someone was first drawn to your church through its website, and later became a Christian: email
BLOGS FOR EVANGELISM
Blog sites differ from normal websites in that they are essentially a one-page rolling diary. Although there are vast numbers of blogs aimed at Christians, very few people have figured out how to produce a blog that is actually designed to reach non-Christians. The main way to do this is by the 'bridge strategy' - i.e. the blog is built on a secular topic. Next time we will focus on blogs using this method. Please write with examples that you know: email
MOBILE DEVICES FOR OUTREACH
Although mobile devices have been with us for some years, till now there have not been too many avenues to use the medium for evangelism. With the new 3G devices, things may change. At last it is practical to download, and pass to friends, video and cartoon clips. There is great potential for short specially-made downloads of this type, and Christians are discussing the best way to utilize this medium. If you know of clips already available, please write: email
ATS Tracts is one of several groups developing material in this area.
Here's a creative secular way to communicate with mobile devices:
http://www.web-evangelism.com/rd?b05sept-mobile
COMMUNICATION AND THE GOSPEL
WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE CULTURE: a prominent Jewish human-rights activist praises -
and pointedly counsels - evangelicals:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/009/30.71.html
LATEST BARNA REPORT: Churches have jumped on the technology bandwagon in a big way
during the first five years of the third millennium:
http://www.web-evangelism.com/rd?b05sept-barna
NEAR EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND? October sees one of the large Christian Resources Exhibitions
13-15 October:
http://www.creonline.co.uk/
Richard Searight will be taking a seminar each day on community-based microportals for
church web presence:
http://www.creonline.co.uk/pages/data.asp?layout=page.htm&Type=&Id=431
THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
INDIA. Recent research reveals that new churches have been planted in almost 50% of the
villages in Punjab State, northern India - an almost unbelievable development.
http://www.jesus.org.uk/dawn/2005/dawn25.html
THE TWO_THIRDS WORLD: a sub-$100 laptop for children in developing nations, could do
huge things to bridge the digital divide.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4292854.stm
EVERY KILOMETER: This website aims to collect a geographically representative
photograph for every single square kilometer of the British Isles.
Site users may elect to contribute their own photographs.
http://www.geograph.co.uk/
THE POWER OF GOOGLE. WebProWorld says, "No doubt about it, Google has Gates-like
ambitions. Bill Gates told Fortune magazine in a discussion about Google, '…they are more
like us than anyone else we have ever competed with.' Clearly, Google is the biggest
threat to Microsoft dominance that Microsoft has ever seen."
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=51501
GOOGLE AND YAHOO DIVERGE IN DIRECTION - 2005 seems to be where the road forks:
http://www.web-evangelism.com/rd?b05sept-googleyahoo
GOOGLE EARTH: "Google Earth's vivid satellite imagery has a serious goshwow factor, but
the program also offers a lot of useful tools and data sharing features that make it a
terrific research and learning resource":
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3532061
PUBLIC RECORD SEARCH: the largest directory of free public record databases on the
Internet:
http://www.searchsystems.net/
UK BIRTH MARRIAGES DEATHS - a majority of records from 1837 onwards now online and
searchable through this volunteer project:
http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/
RSS EXPANDING
Probably only web users living on the planet Zog have not noticed those little orange
buttons which signify that a site has an RSS feed. It's becoming mainstream, and is
changing the way people think about information acquisition. It has the ability to send
out text, audio and video, yet bypassing email. Internet Explorer 7 will integrate RSS
feeds, making it even more mainstream. AOL now has the option to grab your chosen
feeds:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/rssexplain.php
For advice on choosing an RSS reader:
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3531486
SEARCHING ONLINE
What are people searching for? A recent study found that most people (88%) said they were researching specific topics. And women (61%) were more likely to search for health and medical information than men (35%). Relatively few people are looking for job or career information (28%).
Other common things people use search for include:
* Getting directions/maps - 75%
* Looking for news - 64%
* Shopping - 51%
* Looking for entertainment web sites - 47%
TRICK OR TREAT: Don't try and trick search engines - they are too clever:
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3525086
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3524751
UK SEARCH: the UK Christian Handbook, the directory of all Christian organizations in
the UK, has a new home online! It is now under the banner of Eden Interactive and gets a
new look and functionality:
http://www.ukch.org.uk/
WEB-BASED HELP FOR SINGLE MOTHERS
'What's Next' is a program that any church can use for single mothers and their
children. "Not your average support group," say the organizers. Some of the weekly topics
covered are:
- Budgeting and Finance
- Employment / Interviewing Strategies
- Health and Wellness
- Domestic Violence Awareness / Child Protection
- Parenting on Your Own
- Car Care Essentials (optional)
- Beauty Out Of Ashes
- Starting A Relationship With God
If your church or organization is interested in running this positive life advancement
program, visit:
http://www.whatsnextfreshstart.org/
TIPS
-non-techies look away now
FADE IN - Do you need a photo to fade in slowly?
http://www.clagnut.com/sandbox/imagefades/
CSS - Stop floated images interfering with each other:
http://www.complexspiral.com/publications/containing-floats/
SITE PROMOTION: Site Pro News have a number of downloadable ebooks relating to
promotion and other things, some of which look useful:
http://www.sitepronews.com/sharebooks.html
FONTS: 'The Font Thing' is an f-ware program for managing your fonts:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~scef/tft.html
CSS non-thumbnail image trick:
http://www.webreference.com/programming/css_gallery2/examples/gallery.html
CAPSUNLOCK (nopay program) allows you to disable the Caps Lock and Insert keys, both
minor annoyances when inadvertently enabled:
http://www.brainsystems.com/capsunlock/
KEYTWEAK (nopay program) remaps your keyboard to redefine those keys that you have
little or no use for:
http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/
CROP - Computer Re-use Optimisation Project - has a list of computer refurbishing
charities, plus no-pay software that refurbishing groups (or churches, missions, anyone)
can use
http://associate.com/camsoc/crop/
LEARN TOUCH-TYPING. If you have not yet learnt to touch type (i.e. without looking at
the keys), do it! You will bless the day you start, and the time spent will be repaid many
times over. Check these resource links, which include no-pay software downloads:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/training.php (links at end of page)
Personal: would be grateful for your prayers for:
a) My aunt, Nellie, a believer, well into her 80s. An infection has brought on a period of
delusional behaviour and dementia. Please pray this will reduce, and my cousin, her carer,
will find the strength to cope.
b) Our youngest daughter Jeni is going through a very hard and stressful time at the
moment.
TAILEND ô¿ô
What the astronauts found on the moon - zoom the moon viewer all the way to the "+" and
see what the astronauts saw! Will Google's sense of humor get the better of them one
day?
http://moon.google.com/
The Whisper Test
A young girl with a cleft palate and speech challenges was fortunate to be in a classroom
setting with a wise teacher. Each week the children would take the "whisper test"...
http://dailywisdom.gospelcom.net/archives/2005/09/20/index.html
Bike Training
Never having learned to ride a bicycle as a child, I finally decided to do it in my late
twenties. My boyfriend, William, offered to teach me, and we headed to the park for my
first lesson. He held on to the seat as I wobbled down a path. My self-consciousness was
just beginning to disappear when I saw a father, teaching his little daughter to ride a
bike, approaching.
As we passed, I was mortified when William said to the dad, "They grow up so fast,
don't they?"
[source: www.cybersalt.org ]
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