WEB EVANGELISM BULLETIN

. . . learning from each other
W-E-B Issue 159 ~ April 08
Monthly ISSN 471-0323

News this time...

GUIDE NETWORK TO MOBILIZE DIGITAL EVANGELISM RESOURCES
FOURTH INTERNET EVANGELISM DAY CELEBRATED
RUSSIAN WEB EVANGELISM
EVENTS
SOCIAL NETWORKING AND EVANGELISM
IT MISSIONARIES AND THE INTERNET
MOBILE MINISTRY
TIPS
THE STATE OF THE WORLDWIDE CHURCH
CHURCH WEBSITES AND MINISTRY
CHINA
SAYING THANK YOU
TAILEND

"Laughter can be heard further than weeping" - Yiddish Proverb

"Anyone without a sense of humor is at the mercy of everyone else" - William Rotsler

GUIDE NETWORK TO MOBILIZE DIGITAL EVANGELISM RESOURCES

The new Global Use of Internet and Digital Evangelism (Guide) Network is an informal networking resource, linked with Internet Evangelism Day & Web Evangelism Guide, Internet Evangelism Coalition, Global Christian Internet Alliance, and visionSynergy. Its purpose...

Enhancing global spread of the Gospel in multiple languages via the Internet and mobile digital devices by networking with practitioners to:
- share resources and information
- encourage Kingdom collaboration
- help the body of Christ to embrace and engage in internet/mobile evangelism

The network includes a YahooGroup (which has merged with the IEC GlobalForum group) and a range of other resources, including a Wiki and blog on mobile evangelism, a group for those interested in children's online outreach, and free articles - both evangelistic and evangelism-challenge for Christians.

The Guide Network aims to draw together those interested in web evangelism and mobile device evangelism, with a particular emphasis on the huge opportunities in the non-Western world, in languages other than English, and in the Unreached Peoples world. The Guide Network has a wide range of contacts, and may be able to help you to find others working in an area of interest to you. It can also provide conference and seminar speakers.
http://ied.gospelcom.net/guide-network.php

More resources and links will be added soon. One area we particularly want to see developed: informal networks relating to web or mobile outreach to particular language or audience groups. If you have such a group, or know of one, and would like it to be added to this page, or need help in developing one, please write.

Please also make the Guide Network known in newsletters, blogs, or by linking to it.

FOURTH INTERNET EVANGELISM DAY CELEBRATED

27 April was the fourth Internet Evangelism Day since its inception in 2005. Did your church or group mark it in any way? Please tell us what you did, and what the reaction was. It is a big encouragement to hear feedback:
http://ied.gospelcom.net/feedback

Of course, you can use our materials to create a web evangelism focus spot on any other day of the year!

Paul Steinbrueck has written about coverage of IE Day online, and stories relating to IE Day activities:
http://blog.ourchurch.com/2008/04/30/internet-evangelism-day-stories/

Paul also wrote about the potential for web evangelism - 'Salvation is just a click away' - in the April edition of Christian Computing Magazine:
http://www.ccmag2.com/2008_04/ccmag2008_04coverstory1.pdf

RUSSIAN WEB EVANGELISM

Russian Language Internet Evangelism/Discipleship Network:
Greater Europe Mission's eDOT Ministry http://www.GEMeDOT.com is sponsoring a meeting in Moscow on July 23-25 2008 for those interested in using the Internet for evangelism and discipleship in the Russian-speaking world. "We are seeking to bring together a group of people that are currently involved in internet-based ministry to facilitate cooperation together and to learn from each other." If you are interested in attending, please contact Rich Bonham:
RBonham [at] GEMission [dot] com

Please keep in mind, this first meeting is only for those already actively involved with Internet Evangelism/Discipleship in the Russian language already. Future meetings will be organized for those interested in developing this area.

EVENTS

Center for Creative Media: 8-day hands on workshop - looks fun:
http://centerforcreativemedia.com/

Internet Ministry Conference is booking now:
http://www.internetministryconference.org

SOCIAL NETWORKING AND EVANGELISM

There are estimated to be 10 billion relationships within MySpace!

Here's an interesting map that shows which social networking sites are dominant in which countries, and the implications for ministry:
http://digital.leadnet.org/2008/04/map-of-social-n.html

Christians are increasingly seeing the potential for being incarnational and building relationships within these networks. Cynthia Ware (TheDigitalSanctuary.org) has written a 10-point guide to sharing your faith in Facebook, which she has generously allowed us to incorporate into our page on social networking:
http://ied.gospelcom.net/social-networking.php

Eric Robinson has written a 'Facebook Application' called 'Life Questions' which allows you to incorporate a block of evangelistic content within your Facebook profile. You can currently link to a range of pages within the EveryStudent.com site, according to your preference:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=6611135350

He writes, "I was going through my stats today and noticed that since I launched 7 weeks ago there have been users of the application from 39 different countries representing the entire globe. The number of users is still only around 350, but I'm hoping to see that grow in the coming months. Here are two quotes from students that they posted on their friend's wall (the friend had installed Life Questions):
'I just want to thank you for adding the life question application... i was beginning to question that, but that article made so much sense to me know!!'
'I agree with Claudia. I clicked on the life question and started reading. It does make so much more sense. I just never had it explained so well.'"

This is a very effective way of providing ready-made resources for Facebook members to use. Of course, you can manually add links to your profile too.

It is also quite easy to create a Facebook Application of your own to offer to others - see these tutorials:
http://guide.gospelcom.net/offsitelink?b08apr-facebook1
http://guide.gospelcom.net/offsitelink?b08apr-facebook2
http://guide.gospelcom.net/offsitelink?b08apr-facebook3

It would be good to see a range of Facebook Applications available, appropriate for different affinity groups and languages. Please tell us if you develop one, or know of any.

Twitter is a 'microblog' service. It allows you to send very short updates (140 characters) by SMS, instant messaging, or the Web, to the Twitter website, where they are viewable to others who have signed up to Twitter and chosen to listen to a friend's 'tweets'. It is usually a 'stream of consciousness' personal commentary, far briefer than a normal blog. A Japanese version has just been launched.

Normally, it would be only close friends who would have the interest to listen to your tweets, though the service can also be used to pass on breaking news or other information. It is therefore primarily another means of social networking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter/

Social networking sites continue to develop into new areas. Facebook is developing an alternative to i-tunes. Bebo gets 1.5 million viewers for its version of a TV soap: Kate Modern.

IT MISSIONARIES AND THE INTERNET

Loren Cunningham, founder of YWAM, first reflects back on the expansion of God's kingdom via communications advances of the past, and then he expresses his heart for seeing the global Church exploit the Internet's massive potential to do the same... only with far greater impact. Watch it here:
http://createit.podomatic.com/entry/2007-09-14T21_02_30-07_00

which is on the regular CalCast podcast, one of our recommended best blogs and podcasts on web evangelism and communication:
http://ied.gospelcom.net/christian-communication-blogs.php

MOBILE MINISTRY

Mobile devices are becoming increasingly important in communication. In France, 20% of mobile users access the Web with their phones. India is expected to have half a billion mobile users by 2010:
http://guide.gospelcom.net/offsitelink?b08apr-mobile1

Antoine writes in the latest issue of Mobile Ministry Magazine - 'What Mobile is Teaching me about Evangelism':
http://guide.gospelcom.net/offsitelink?b08apr-mobile2

With the mobile web at last being a practical usable option, we must start making our sites user-friendly for mobile devices. Here are some ideas:
http://guide.gospelcom.net/offsitelink?b08apr-mobile3

TIPS

- non-techies look away now

HORIZONTAL SCROLLING without scrollbars by mouse alone: this effect, done by CSS and Javascript, could be useful in certain situations:
http://woork.bravehost.com/mootoolsScroller/index.html

PHOTOSHOP EXPRESS: Adobe new release - a free, online tool to manage and edit photos:
https://www.photoshop.com/express/

SNAPSHOTS - this system gives you a mouseover preview of an external link. Particularly useful for links to blogs or individual Amazon book links because it usually shows latest blog postings or actual book info, rather than just a snapshot of the web-page. To prevent the Snapshots icon ever getting separated by a linebreak from the link it belongs to, enclose the entire link in nobr tags (this works in both IE and Firefox):
http://www.snap.com/

FIX PIXELLATED MOVIES: makes movies from your mobile phone, digital camera, or webcam look less pixellated:
http://www.fixmymovie.com/splash/

LOOKING FOR A WEBCAM? People seem to like the Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000. It's a 2 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens. Search for the reviews online.

FREE PICS AND VIDEO CLIPS. Christian site MuddyRiver offers great resources:
http://www.muddyrivermedia.org/

PHP EMAIL. IF PHP mail function is not sufficient for your needs, look at the excellent PHPMailer:
http://phpmailer.codeworxtech.com/

BOOKLET CREATER - allows you to turn any PDF file into a booklet:
http://bookletcreator.com/

PDF MAKER. If you need to convert files of any type into PDF, PrimoPDF is great, because it is no-cost, and does not add its own name to the files made. It will require you to also install Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 if you do not already have it. (MAC users get this facility in their operating system automatically, within the print menu.)
http://www.primopdf.com/

ANIMATED LOADING GRAPHICS - create the style and color your want online:
http://www.ajaxload.info/

WEB CONFERENCING - an alternative to Skype:
http://www.oovoo.com/

CAPTCHAS GET CRACKED: "Hackers have streamlined their anti-CAPTCHA tools and can attack Microsoft's Live Hotmail service in about 6 seconds," says Websense. I personally hate CAPTCHA on email contact forms, and our own form, with PHP anti-injection checking and a hidden trick form field, has not yet been spammed.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1023&tag=nl.e540

THE STATE OF THE WORLDWIDE CHURCH

WORLDWIDE CHURCH GROWTH IN LAST 5 YEARS: Bradley A. Coon is a research assistant at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary:
http://www.lausanneworldpulse.com/research.php/928/04-2008?pg=all

THE EUROPEAN CHURCH TODAY: REFLECTIONS ON HER CONTEXT by Gordon Showell-Rogers, UK Evangelical Alliance:
http://www.lausanneworldpulse.com/lausannereports/931/04-2008?pg=all

CHURCH WEBSITES AND MINISTRY

"The latest statistics from the Southern Baptist Convention should be a wake up call to us all," writes Chris Jordan. "Here is an article offering evidence that unchurched people are NOT likely to visit a church. The people who are most likely to visit are Christians who are merely 'church-shopping'. The article states, 'evangelism must begin outside the sanctuary in relationships between Christians and unbelievers.' What this indicates is that the 'come and see' approach to evangelism is not where God is working most, nor where people are responding:
http://guide.gospelcom.net/offsitelink?b08apr-churchsites1

STOP BEING A FRIENDLY CHURCH! What! Actually, what the HackingChristianity blog means is, a church can be seemingly friendly, yet not a place where you can actually make friends. A very important difference:
http://guide.gospelcom.net/offsitelink?b08apr-churchsites2

Please link to our Church Website Design tool or blog about it:
http://ied.gospelcom.net/linktodesignpage.php

CHINA

SIGNIFICANT TIPPING POINTS: Last October the number of mobile phones exceeded 3 billion - half the world's population.

Equally significant is web usage in China:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-11/18/content_495922.htm
This month, another landmark has been reached, when the number of web users in China passed that in USA. They are projected to grow to 490 million by 2012:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3809140.ece

What is the significance for web evangelism? Although there are 200-300 Chinese learning English, many of them will probably struggle with English language outreach websites, and many other Chinese web users will not read English at all. In any case, evangelism is usually best done in the heart language. Compared with the numbers of outreach sites in English, there are very few in Chinese. How can we help catalyze outreach ministry in Chinese? Perhaps an informal network will help? Web-evangelism training materials in Chinese? What do you think?

SAYING THANK YOU

I am very grateful to many friends who have helped with coding and other issues on the Internet Evangelism Day site: Pete C, Perry B, Dean, Christian Webmasters Forum friends BobbyMac, Mathachew, Mr Herald, WeBBy, and many more who know who they are:
http://www.christian-web-masters.com/forums

A special thank you to Vinod, who has just done some seriously complex PHP coding to install a PDF converter on our church website self-assessment tool, so that the report can be easily saved permanently as a PDF file:
http://ied.gospelcom.net/church-site-design.php

Vinod runs Jasmine Computers - a web design, hosting and programming company. It particularly caters for corporate and organizational customers, and the site also includes some free tutorials and games:
http://www.jasminecorp.net/

TAILEND ô¿ô

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words! Yes, really.

Can you fly a plane to Europe?
http://www.lufthansa-usa.com/useugame2007/html/play.html

How artists have seen the human face over the last 500 years, morphed one into another:
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/mtvideobox.php?video_id=78