Online Evangelism - Why Missions Do Not Use Web for Outreach

“I believe the Web is one of the most key tools that God has given us in the church today. Internet Evangelism is a dynamic, effective, cutting-edge ministry that more people should get involved in!”
– George Verwer

There are thousands of missionary and evangelistic agencies in the West. Now, happily, we have increasing numbers of indigenous non-Western missions in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Almost all of them use the Web – but only to promote their ministries to Christians. As defined by the X Spectrum, these websites are 'X1'. Only a tiny number of mission groups use the Web to achieve their very reason for existence – direct evangelism and discipleship. Why is this? We suggest the following reasons:

1. Mission agencies rightly understand the potential of the Web to promote themselves to the Christian public, and enhance their relationships with their supporters. They naturally view the Web as an extension of their publicity departments, offering the online equivalents of magazine features, newsletters and brochures. So webmasters and web designers are employed within the publicity department. Their gifts, and job descriptions, relate to mission advocacy to Christians.

2. Many mission executives and staff, especially those in home-end administration, tend to be older. They may have relatively little experience of the Web, apart from email. If they previously served overseas during the formative years of the Web, they probably had little opportunity to learn much about the potential of the Internet.

3. It can be hard to recruit experienced web designers to a mission team anyway. There are not be so very many Christian designers available and prepared to take a salary cut in order to work with a mission agency, or face the challenges of raising their own support. It is often harder to raise support for staff to do home-end computer ministry, as compared with more exotic overseas placements, even though the Web in fact offers the opportunity for cutting-edge evangelism.

   And with a limited budget for web design, missions may be looking for a direct financial return – building the mission's support base.

4. Some mission agencies may not realise the potential for web evangelism in the non-Western world, or be unaware of strategies to achieve it. If they minister mainly to the rural poor, they may not be fully aware of the increasing numbers of people using the Web in their countries of work.

   Even when such web users are a small percentage of the overall population, they include the business, educational and administrative classes as well as young people and students. These are groups often hard to reach by conventional outreach methods, and they have an influence on society out of all proportion to their numbers.

A way forward

Here are some suggested answers to this challenge:

• Encourage mission executives and researchers to investigate the huge potential for web evangelism. Show them this 5-minute video clip – the testimony of a young woman converted through the EveryStudent.com site.

• Suggest that missions set up Cybermissions Departments with a remit for web evangelism and online discipleship/teaching of converts. These departments may be based in the home-end HQ, or on the field. They should not report to the publicity department or existing web design team, but be created as a direct outreach ministry, responsible to the leadership and integrated into the evangelistic strategies of the mission. This ought not to create rivalry between the publicity web team, and those involved in web outreach, any more than there should be conflict between people in an organisation who produce printed publicity material and those involved in writing outreach literature.

• Mission agencies can facilitate in-house training in cybermissions for existing staff.

• Missions should encourage Bible colleges, seminaries and other training institutions, to offer web communication modules within their training courses. Here is a proposed curriculum.

• Mission groups can utilize the great potential of returned or retired missionaries to be involved in some aspect of web evangelism or online discipleship. Email counseling and mentoring are often ideal for them.

• Outreach websites can be closely integrated with on-the-spot ministry. This model uses content management to enable a local team to have a web presence without any technical knowledge.

• Articles such as this one can be reprinted in mission house-journals to stimulate discussion. Web evangelists may be available to address mission agency staff consultations to explore potential.

What they say ...

Web evangelists share their motivation and calling:

"2000 years ago the Apostle Paul effectively made use of the most sophisticated transportation and communication medium of his day ... slow Roman roads and uni-directional postal service. Today, I am able to communicate the gospel at the speed of light ... and receive responses instantly ... worldwide ... far more effectively than I did in field ministry."
– Allan H. Beeber, WorldLinc CCCI

"It brings me to tears to think that what God give me the privilege of doing for Him reaches more people in one day than some of the greatest preachers of 100 years ago could reach in their whole life. No wonder God made the Internet!"
– Dean Craig, gotWWW.com

"I am involved in web ministry because it suits my talents, gifts, and my desire to use what God has given me to make the greatest impact for His Kingdom. I feel God has equipped me in web technologies, online social communications, and kingdom work being done on a "glocal" (global and local) level."
– Rob Williams, Global Technology Office, CCCI

"The sign over my computer says 'You are now entering the mission field.' That's why I do this. In my own small way, I can, indeed, go into all the world."
– Terri, web evangelist, writer and lecturer

"I like preaching in churches, but when I preach in a church, my voice travels two hundred feet. When I preach on the net, my voice travels to two hundred countries."
– Eric Elder, www.theranch.org

"I'm in it because Christ demands it (Matthew 28:19-20)."
– Jim Watkins, writer, humorist and journalist, jameswatkins.com

"Because the Internet is a community of 'seekers' (people only arrive at a website because they have sought it out via a search engine or page link) the visitors to my site are almost entirely an audience of interested folk, who want to learn about prayer or missions or whatever – and that is a bible-teacher's delight! It is also great for evangelism, I have led over 500 people a year to the Lord online whereas at my best (not being a full-time evangelist) I have led 100 people a year in face-to-face ministry."
– John Edmiston, cybermissions.org

"The Internet is a 21st century Roman road, marketplace, theater, backyard fence, and office water cooler. Web evangelism gives believers opportunities to reach people with the Gospel right where they are, just as Jesus and Paul did."
Rusty Wright, writer and evangelist

"The most exciting thing about web evangelism is that I can be in the middle of the prairie in west-central Minnesota and extend my reach to the far corners of the world that are closed to Gospel."
Doug Reese, tothenextlevel.org

"The Internet provides a platform which can be both personal and at the same time anonymous. It is one-on-one and at the same time one-to-many. It is a form of communicating one-way, while it is also interactive. It is low-cost but perceived as high-tech, trendy and exclusive. This is why I am excited to be involved in web evangelism in India."
Joseph Vijayam, mahalife.com

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Printed from Web Evangelism Guide © 2008
Can be freely reproduced in print in any non-profit situation with attribution to web-evangelism.com. This page content can also be inserted into your own web-page by copying a simple Javascript insert code into your page - explained in the online version of this page: guide.gospelcom.net/resources/
Please do not copy the text of this page onto your own web-page - search engines do not like hard-copy duplicate content on different sites.
To receive the twice-monthly email newsletter Web Evangelism Bulletin, visit the Guide.