Indian Christian online evangelism strategies can reach India with the Gospel

Reaching India using the Internet

Web evangelism strategies for Indian Christian outreach

"Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle."
Psalm 144:1

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The Internet is a powerful medium to reach the rapidly-growing generation of computer-using Indians. At the end of 2002, there were nearly 8 million web users in India, which is expected to rise to 40 million in 2005. This may seem small in comparison with the 1 billion total population, but it is more than the total population of many smaller countries, and it is increasing rapidly. This is a huge opportunity which must be taken up: P G Vargis and Vishal Mangalwadi make an urgent appeal for this.

Indian web users are a group not easy to reach by other means – young and educated professional and business people of higher caste, yet who may be often open to outside ideas. Although the majority are English speakers, there is an increasing demand for web pages in Indian languages. The Bible is available online in Malayalam | Hindi. Tamil | Kannada.

However, the Web can only be used effectively when we understand the nature of this medium. Just as TV is not radio with pictures, so the Internet is not just a way of delivering tracts on a computer monitor. Unlike radio, TV and literature – which are "push" mediums – the Internet is a "pull" medium which draws people in – but only on the basis of what interests them.

It is therefore a waste of time merely to create web-pages explaining the Gospel – because most Indians are not searching for such pages. Different strategies are explained in this Guide, which are being already being used to effectively reach millions around the world. In particular, we believe that the 'Bridge Strategy' is the one which can best touch Indian web users, for example, looking at Bollywood films. Sadly, there are very few evangelistic pages written for Indians, yet the potential is huge.

Indian Evangelical Mission – reaching the subcontinent.