WEB EVANGELISM BULLETIN
. . . learning from each other
W-E-B Issue 172~ July-August 2009
Monthly ISSN 471-0323
News this time...
VITAL BOOKS
MOVING VIDEO CHALLENGE
THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
TECH TIPS
SOCIAL NETWORKING AND VIDEO RESOURCES
SURVEYS FOR CHURCHES AND MISSION
CHURCH WEBSITES
CONFERENCE CALL AND FULLER TRAINING COURSE
WHEN SETTING UP YOUR WIRELESS ROUTER
VOLUNTEERS FOR INDIAN BIBLES. AND FREE ARABIC BIBLE DOWNLOAD
TAILEND
"It's been said that next to food and drink, our most basic human hunger is for storytelling" - Leighton Ford
VITAL BOOKS
Pop Goes the Church: Should the Church Engage Pop Culture?
Tim Stevens
Power Publishing
ISBN 0979017491
Stevens makes an inspiring case for leveraging pop culture to reach out to people in
the language of their lives, with compelling biblical backing for this approach. He offers
a new perspective that give relevance and impact to the church by using popular culture -
stories from movies and music - to point people to the gospel. He encourages us to get out
of our comfort zones and look people in the eyes, meeting them wherever they are:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/748
Tell Me a Story: The Life-Shaping Power of Our Stories
Daniel Taylor
Bog Walk Press
ISBN 097065110
"You are your stories. You are the product of all the stories you have heard and lived
- and of many that you have never heard. They have shaped how you see yourself, the world
and your place in it. Your first great storytellers were home, school, popular culture,
and, perhaps, church. Knowing and embracing healthy stories are crucial to living rightly
and well. If your present life is broken or diseased, it can be made well. Or, if
necessary, it can be replaced by a story that has a plot worth living." Taylor, a
professor of English, writes with great insight into how and why God uses story:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/748
The link includes video interviews with both the authors, and for Dr Taylor, an audio and video of his address to the Desiring God conference last year.
MOVING VIDEO CHALLENGE
The video 'A Thousand Questions' is a moving challenge to Christian service: "Are you
ready to take part in God's story?" Many are using it for church meetings. Watch it on the
link below, where you can also download it in Flash or Quicktime and read the brief story
of Craig who made the film:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/715
We have links to two other challenge videos, also available to download in
high-definition, one about children's ministry:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/evangelism-opportunities.php
THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
YOUR HOME TOWN - when did your place of birth change most? 1910-1950, or 1950-2009?
When staying back in my home area in a holiday cottage (which was already 200 years old
when Charles Wesley stayed there!), I got to thinking about my own town and why the
dramatic technological changes of 1910-50 are trumped by the last 50 years:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/768
FIND A BIBLE IN ANY LANGUAGE, free ebook 'Reaching the Campus Tribes', why Lee Strobel
says traditional apologetics approaches do not work any more, and learn what a 'cardboard
testimony' is:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/646
US 1930 Census online free till end of August:
http://www.web-evangelism.com/offsitelink?b09july-census
UK Census is available 1841-1911:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/census/
ABANDONED PLACES - poignant shots of ruined towns:
http://www.dirjournal.com/info/abandoned-places-in-the-world/
For eerie shots of another ghost city, google for 'chernobyl pictures'.
TECH TIPS
- non-techies look away now
FEEDBURNER - Make the most of Feedburner for your blog:
http://www.web-evangelism.com/offsitelink?b09july-feedburner
LONG URLS - want to know the long URL hiding behind a short URL without clicking
it:
http://www.longurlplease.com/
NON-POPUP POPUP - HovClick is an example of a popup layer message you can add to your
website without knowing the scripting necessary to create your own:
http://hovclick.com/
MANIPULATE GRAPHICS ONLINE - free PICNIK tool:
http://www.picnik.com/
SEACH IN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES - a front-page with two search boxes:
http://2lingual.com/
CODING CONTRACTOR - Are you are looking for a professional contractor for coding
(Javascript, jQuery, PHP) and web design? Damian Dawber has been very helpful and
knowledgeable:
http://www.damiandawber.co.uk/
SOCIAL NETWORKING AND VIDEO RESOURCES
SOCIAL BOOKMARKING - What's the advantage?
http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2009/jul/8prt.html
TWITTER - 15 ways churches can use it:
http://communicatejesus.com/2009/07/15-ways-for-churches-to-use-twitter/
FACEBOOK - Be careful what you give away about yourself on Facebook:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=851
SOCIAL NETWORKING: Comments, statistics, maps, Twitter:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/636
HOBBIES - Why you should get a hobby:
http://missionalspace.com/?p=231
BOOK REVIEW - The New Community Rules - Marketing on the Social Web
Tamar Weinberg, O'Reilly, ISBN 0-596-15681-2
"...reads easily and is a great reference tool for navigating social media sites such as
Facebook and Flickr, understanding blogs and why YouTube is so popular. If you are in
ministry and are not using social media, or just getting your feet wet, this book will
really flesh out the why's behind everything and how to leverage social media towards your
organization's goals," writes Brian Barela:
http://tinyurl.com/socialwebbookreview
FUTURE TRENDS - School Reunion site Friends Reunited has just been sold for a quarter
of what its owners paid several years ago, as it has been in part superseded by Facebook
etc. On the other hand, some have been predicting a decline in social networking sites.
However, rumors of their demise are exaggerated, says George Simpson:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=111717
VIDEOS SAFE FOR CHILDREN - for younger kids, you may not be happy to let them loose in
YouTube. There's now a video site for younger ones, with over 60,000 parent- and
teacher-approved videos:
http://video.kidzui.com/
SURVEYS FOR CHURCHES AND MISSION
Focus is a Christian ministry specializing in the 'new media' - web-sites, podcasts, blogs and videos. They provide training to help churches and other ministries make the most of the opportunities provided by these new media.
Focus needs your help to complete a brief survey which will help them find out how your
church currently uses the Internet, how you would like to use the Internet in future, and
how Focus can help you achieve your goals in this area. This will help them develop new
training courses and other resources:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=85VKjNYZ3s85FFN4smADQQ_3d_3d
Communicate Jesus blog would like mission groups to help by completing a survey on how
mission organizations use online tools and technology to achieve their mission:
http://communicatejesus.com/2009/08/online-tools-and-technology-a-survey-of-mission-organisations/
CHURCH WEBSITES
Tony Morgan's "10 Easy Ways to Keep Me from Visiting Your Church Because I Visited Your
Website" is well worth reading:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/blog/archives/701
See too Frank Chiapperino gives "10 Reasons Your Church Should be on Facebook". He says,
"Actually if you look closely at the image on the post, the second guy in the image
posted to the fan-page asking us if he should visit our church! How cool is that? If you
go to our fan-page you can see that another first-time visitor jumped on the page and told
him she visited for the first time this weekend and that he should definitely check it
out."
http://www.web-evangelism.com/offsitelink?b09july-facebook
CONFERENCE CALL AND FULLER TRAINING COURSE
You can still book for the Christian Web Conference 11-12 September at Biola in
California:
http://www.christianwebconference.com/
and the COICOM conference 26-29 August 2009 in Argentina:
http://www.coicom.grid.agathongroup.com/cgr09/index.php
Other events:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/events.php
FULLER Course MP537 on Internet Evangelism & Cybermissions is running again this
Fall. It's a distance-learning option so you can study from any country:
http://documents.fuller.edu/cll/dl/ecds/fol/MP537_Edmiston.html
WHEN SETTING UP YOUR WIRELESS ROUTER
When you set up your wireless router, Tony O'Hagan suggests you give it the name of an outreach website you know and recommend. That way, when neighbors open a computer looking for their wifi connection, they will keep seeing the URL of an outreach site, and may be inclined to check it out. They will not be able to use your network of course - this is just a way of placing an URL in front of their noses!
VOLUNTEERS FOR INDIAN BIBLES. AND FREE ARABIC BIBLE DOWNLOAD
Vinod of Jasminecorp.com is looking for volunteers to keyboard or proofread Bibles for
an online bible project in the following languages: Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali,
Telugu, Kannada, Nepali and Urdu. I will pass on offers or inquiries - write:
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/feedback
The WBTC Arabic Bible is available as a free download for desktop or mobile:
http://skybible.org/
TAILEND ô¿ô
Chelsea Flower Show is UK's premier garden festival. When laddish TV broadcaster James May entered a garden made out of Plasticine (children's modelling clay), the entry was accepted in the spirit it was intended, and he was awarded a Plasticine medal.
The garden is now open to the public at Sudbury Hall, just up the road from our
house:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiaqJRZoPH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw_Sk9RrDvk
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