The problem is – it's free

One 'problem' with the Internet: it is free! How does this impact Web evangelism?

There are many ministries which produce evangelistic materials for others to use – literature, videos, etc. Often these things are sold (or offered on a donation basis) so that although they may be free to non-Christian end-users, they are paid for by churches, ministries and individual Christians. This funds the production costs of the materials, new product development and often also pays the support of the staff producing them.

However, in online evangelism, there is no 'product' to sell. Neither is it usually appropriate for evangelistic websites to attempt to sell things (with the possible exception of appropriate evangelistic books), so there is little opportunity to recoup costs this way.

The result of this is that most evangelistic sites fit into two categories:

• produced by individual Christians in their spare-time.
• produced by large organizations who have the resources to fund staff dedicated to online evangelism, despite getting no financial 'return' on the investment.

In fact, there are relatively few major organizations who are actually supporting staff to work partly or exclusively in online evangelism, including cross-cultural missions. ('Online evangelism' means the production and administration of websites which are directly evangelistic, rather than the perfectly valid use of websites to promote evangelistic endeavors in other areas of outreach, or to equip believers in outreach and biblical understanding.) If we exclude this type of support website, plus the other sites which are primarily aimed at Christians, and the many church websites (usually produced by a willing volunteer, or sometimes by the pastor in his 'spare' time), we are left with very few major players. The Internet has been mainstream for some years, there are 700 million people online, yet you could probably still get all the people who are involved 'professionally' 'full-time' in Internet evangelism into one conference hall. And it is doubtful if even 1 percent of Christian websites are directly evangelistic. Most Christian websites can be defined as 'X1' on the X Spectrum.

'Compare and contrast that', as exam questions say, with the numbers of people directly involved in radio evangelism, in evangelistic literature production, in audio and video cassette recording and TV. I don't know the figures, but my guess is – online evangelism is a very small percentage. Yet the number of people online has been doubling each year! Teenagers (in US at any rate) spend more time online that watching TV – a social change of huge impact.

Why do we devote so few resources to online evangelism? It's not because the church has failed to notice the Internet. There are thousands of Christian sites out there – but mainly written for Christians.

The poor relation

As ever, it seems that evangelism is the poor relation. Christian books published by the thousand, but mainly written to build up Christians. Videos by the shelf-load, but mainly for believers.

And even when staff do have the opportunity to be full-time on the Internet, ministry policy may require them to raise their own support. It's not something that many are comfortable with doing, but it has become a necessary task for many. It is often very hard for 'full-time' workers who do not work in a 'glamorous' overseas ministry to raise support. An additional hurdle is that the average church member does not understand what a web evangelist actually DOES all day. (Subtext: "Why should we pay you to spend all day geeking on the Internet? Why don't you just do it in your spare time?")

Happily, the democratic structure of the Internet means that evangelism is not just in the hands of 'professionals'. So much is done by spare-time webmasters, evening chat-room witness, or email discussion participation - and that is as it should be.

But full-timers are needed too. They have the time for follow-up, for research, for learning new techniques, for counseling, for designing technically-advanced specialist pages and culturally-relevant sites in foreign languages for countries which do not have the resources to produce their own.

Advocacy appeal

So here is an appeal and challenge:

• to individual Christians and churches: financially support and encourage ministries involved in web evangelism.

• to churches: recognize, encourage and pray for any in the fellowship who do sparetime online evangelism.

• to evangelistic organizations: employ staff for direct involvement in online evangelism, even though there is no product to sell.

• to Christian institutions: offer training for web evangelism.

• to web evangelists: constantly try to be an advocate for this medium. Take church meetings, get articles or news items into Christian print magazines, demonstrate the results of your ministry by telling the stories of lives that have been changed. There is a big need for a generic CD, Powerpoint presentation, or video, that any web evangelist could use in church meetings and other settings to demonstrate the value and effectiveness of online outreach. You can use this 5-minute video (easy to download in Windows Media Player or Quicktime formats) in such meetings.

to missionary groups: encourage present and retired staffers with language skills to start online outreach in non-English languages: Open Letter to mission executives.

to everyone: challenge and enthuse all Christians to see the possibilities in web evangelism, and pray for God to raise up ministries and evangelists who can use this medium to the full.

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