. . . learning from each other
W-E-B Issue 68 ~ March 03 (ii)
Every 2 weeks ISSN 471-0323
SCREEN-SAVERS FOR EVANGELISM"Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering
wrongs."
- Charlotte Bronte
Your computer monitor screen (and even your computer desktop) are coveted
attention-getting areas - after all, you probably look at your computer screen for hours a
day. Screen-savers (and desktop wallpapers) have long been used to publicize both
Christian and secular organizations. There are many remarkable secular screen-savers
available - even games and sound can be included.
Of course, a screen-saver communicates more widely than a custom desktop, which will normally only be seen by the computer user at start-up or other brief times. Screen-savers can send out a message to workmates at lunchtime and whenever you are out of the office.
Can screen-savers be used evangelistically? Obviously, it is unlikely that non-Christians will normally wish to install a screen-saver which is directly evangelistic. But there IS an exciting evangelistic strategy for Christians to use thought-provoking screen-savers that will be noticed by work colleagues, friends or family. Christians can use such screen-savers on their work computers, to 'intrigue the lost' and be 'conversation starters'.
FREE EVANGELISTIC SCREEN-SAVER
There's a free evangelistic screen-saver developed by
Frank Johnson using this strategy. It is also available for customizing with a church name
on a pay-for basis, so that churches can distribute it to their members to use at work or
at home. I cannot recommend it too highly. It really rocks! It's easy to install. Try it
now. Screen-savers can become people-savers!
http://www.churchsavers.com/
This is an exciting concept - please make it known widely. For more details on the
strategy this screen-saver uses, other screen-saver resources and desktop wallpaper:
http://www.gospelcom.net/guide/resources/screensaver.php
If you have ideas, examples, technical solutions, or working screen-savers to contribute, please email. If many people want to create evangelistic screen-savers, maybe there will be a need to start an email discussion list for them?
Power to Change/Women Today offer an active desktop you can install - it requires the Activbax program to be downloaded too (7mb). Details on the screen-saver page above.
Many ministries are creating pages relating to the current war situation. See for
instance:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ctmag/
http://www.gospelcom.net/content/iraq
The Web gives many opportunities to bring comfort and meaning to those especially affected
by the crisis.
"What's the Mismatch Chart?" Well, I didn't know either till a few days ago, when I
doodled some lines on paper to try to show graphically the huge disparity between the
actual target audience of Christian websites and other media, and the spiritual
understanding of a population as a whole. Does it makes sense - please email.
http://www.gospelcom.net/guide/resources/99percent.php
CARTOONS by Brian Zaikowski are free to use on your site:
http://www.bztoons.com/moretoons.html
USED CHRISTIAN BOOKS - I've not used it, but TecBec.org claims to be a good place to
exchange Christian books:
http://www.tecbec.org/
LOST A DLL FILE? Free downloads of most common .dll files to replace those gone missing
from your computer:
http://www.dll-files.com/
GIVE YOUR GRAPHICS SPACE TO BREATHE! Text hard up against a graphic is not easy to read. Create some white space using the attributes (within the code for the graphic) of vspace= and hspace= with a value in pixels (or ems).
BROWSER ARCHIVE - browsers you may have never even heard of, some going back to the
dawn of time. The rest of the site has lots more help:
http://browsers.evolt.org/
DHTML - while we should not use every zany effect just because it is possible, it is
nevertheless interesting to see what IS possible with DHTML:
http://www.htmlguru.com/guru.html
Things will try to crowd the heart and diminish a passion for souls. As a tire can get
a slow leak, so a love for evangelism can experience passion leakage. The Soul Winner's
Devotional is a free monthly email devotional with only one purpose to help soul winners
keep their passion. To subscribe, send a blank email to:
soulwinnersdevo@cs.com
The Ewangelia web evangelism team in Poland have created a multi-search page called
Tutaj.net - it links to a wide range of valuable search resources and encyclopedias. They
realized that most Internet cafes use a portal page or search engine such as Google as a
preset start page. So the team have asked Internet cafes to set Tutaj.net as a start-page,
and in return have put the Internet cafes on a listing within the site, so providing free
advertising. There are thousands of Internet cafes throughout Poland, and initial reaction
by those approached has been very favorable. Among the many links offered on Tutaj.net are
those 'bridge strategy' outreach sites operated by the team. Of course, the page is an
ideal start page for private computer users also. This is an approach which could be
replicated widely, in both English and other languages.
Michau Pleban, the webmaster, writes:
"We give each Internet cafe an unique URL to set as a start page, e.g. http://www.tutaj.net/?k=123 where '123' is a code identifying the cafe. This allows us to monitor if they really set up our page as a start page! But it also enables us to display customized adverts that show up only in that cafe. Because we know which codes apply to which city, we can post city-specific ads. For instance, if a church is organizing an evangelistic event on one city, we can put information about it on all the pages for Internet cafes in that city."
http://www.tutaj.net/
The start page strategy is only one of several methods which the Polish outreach team
use. They have an integrated portfolio of sites, designed to lead people towards gospel
content. Read this vital case study for Poland - these strategies could also be replicated
in many other countries
http://www.gospelcom.net/guide/resources/poland.php
If any church or individual is interested in helping with regular support for Michau,
the key full-time member of this team, please email.
There's a new community page for the Tri-Cities area of Tennessee (US) Tri-Cities
Directory:
http://www.tri-citiesdirectory.com/
It uses the various techniques described at:
http://www.gospelcom.net/guide/resources/community.php
to reach the local community by offering a really useful portal.
Help for people to link to a variety of evangelistic websites, with codes and graphics
for sites including Now Try God, Who is Jesus, and GrowinginChrist.com
http://www.greatcom.org/links.htm
The last published words of the late British comedian Spike Milligan of blessed memory
were recently issued in The Times, and relate to the Bible, his religious upbringing, and
specifically his confusion about Jesus. During a time when he was losing his faith, he
writes, "I remember, during this period when my faith was fading, that I wished that
somehow, somewhere, I'd come across something humorous - a comment or an incident - in my
prayer book or Bible. One, just one, line like 'And lo, Jesus laugheth heartily', or
'Jesus sayeth "Come unto me and I will tell you a joke".' But no such luck."
How sad that he was unable to see in the Bible the very humor he was sure must have been in the ministry of Jesus, for he goes on to say, "Why? Why? Why? I wonder. I suspect Christ peppered his teachings and parables with wit and repartee. He was a "whole" man. And surely the message of religion is that we find happiness in it?"
A gospel of fun and joy could have ministered to this dear man, who struggled with
manic depression all his life.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-7-607113,00.html
http://www.gospelcom.net/guide/resources/humor.php
SURFERS - Australia's Christian Surfers International has worked with the Bible Society
to release the "Surfer's Bible", a modern New Testament translation with photographs and
testimonies by well-known surfers, plus a special foreword to surfers. A campaign is on to
distribute this Bible and surf-themed tracts to the estimated 2 million people in
Australia who identify with the surfing
subculture. Is there an evangelistic surfing site anywhere? I don't know of one. Would be
a great opportunity for a 'bridge' site.
CHINESE WOMEN TODAY NEWS RELEASE - For a full press release on the new bilingual
Chinese/English evangelistic site for women highlighted last time:
http://www.truthmedia.com/news/articles/chinesewomentoday.html
COMIC TRAINING & CARTOONING 1-day introductory seminar on Writing and Drawing Comics-style Literature at the Russian Baptist Center in Moscow April 5, 2003. More info: kolgar@mail.ru
MICROSOFT NEW PROJECT TARGETS THE 13-24 NET GENERATION - the new Softie project is an
irreverent time waster called threedegrees:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/873455.asp
Automatic 'machine' translation can never be much more than a 'gisting' service, giving
a sense of what is on a page. Having said that, Google's new translation system does seem
to be an improvement on previous online translators. Try it by translating a
foreign-language site INTO your native language, and see what you think. Is it an
improvement on previous offerings? How does it cope with Christian content? Please email.
http://www.google.com/language_tools
One day, a young man saw a brand new medium, and was gripped by a vision of how he
could use it for the Gospel. No, not the Web, but the very early days of TV. The man was
Fred Rogers, and although his material was never culturally relevant for broadcast outside
North America, he had a profound influence on generations of American children, so much so
that following his recent death, Alastair Cooke devoted an entire 'Letter from America'
broadcast to him:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/003/1.38.html
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s03020137.htm
http://family.org/fofmag/pf/a0023489.cfm
The Web is giving many men and women that same buzz as they realize their gifts and vision
will mesh with the Internet. Although there are still huge gaps and unexploited potential
in online outreach, enormous numbers of people are being touched through online outreach.
It is a medium come of age.
SEAFARERS - A STRATETIC MISSIONARY VISION
Martin Otto, ISBN 0-9535757-6-4 Publishers Piquant, PO Box 83 Carlisle, CA3 9GR, UK, £6 www.piquant.net, £5.99/$8.99
also available in German ISBN 3-931188-48-5
"What a strategic book. Around 200 of the world's 238 countries have direct access to
the oceans of the world - and these are many of the least evangelized countries. Reaching
seafarers is strategic, but building a network of evangelizers, disciplers and even
seafarer congregations could be even more so." (Patrick Johnstone)
Martin Otto is a full-time port worker in Hamburg with SCFS. He explains clearly the stresses and problems of life at sea, both for seafarers and their families, and shows how evangelism among them can be very effective. The book is available from bookshops in UK, the publishers in UK, and Gabriel Resources, P.O.Box 1047 Waynesboro, Georgia Ga.30830-2047 U.S.A. gabriel@omlit.om.org
(I have prepared a proposal for an evangelistic website for seafarers and their families, if anyone is interested in discussing it - please email.)
NET WORDS - CREATING HIGH-IMPACT ONLINE COPY
Nick Usborne, McGraw-Hill, ISBN
0-07-138039-6, 16.95 $US
We have a lot to learn from the people who make a living by communicating on the Web in e-commerce. Not, of course, that Christian writing should become glib sales patter. However, Usborne's book is not merely about sales techniques. It reveals much about the nature of the Web and the expectations of web users, and how it differs from other mediums. Usborne also explains techniques for writing clearly. Dr Ralph Wilson, who is both a web marketer and a pastor, says, "The best book I've seen on writing for the Web." Definitely worth reading. Try your local library.
In January 2003, 67.5% of US home users connected to the Internet at 56Kbps or less.
Broadband penetration passed 30% for the first time in December of 2002 and grew to 32.6%
in January. Broadband figures for other countries are likely to be considerably less.
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/
When designing sites, remember that many people may connect at an effective 28k or less on a busy day. Sites which are meaningless until 250+k of graphics have downloaded will just lose visitors. Splash pages are also usually something to avoid, they are mega visitor-losers. Please believe me - all the research shows it to be true!
If you hope to reach people in the non-Western world, be aware that web access may be even slower than this. Many Internet cafes will hang perhaps eight computers on a single dialup line.
The good news is that you can create the equivalent of many graphic effects using CSS,
which will therefore load almost instantly:
http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol6/css_no5.htm
TWR Australia's CHRISTIANITY WORKS outreach site reports:
"The past twelve months has been an exciting time of ministry at christianityworks.com
with over 10,000 visitors to the site each month and the joy of seeing over 100 people
begin their discovery of a relationship with God. It has also been a privilege to assist
people by answering those difficult life questions, which they may be embarrassed to asked
face to face, questions which needed a sensitive yet truthful answer. After much prayer we
believe it is time to fine-tune the site to give it a more evangelistic thrust and make
the site more current and interactive with events in the world. To achieve this we are
looking to redevelop the site content over the next four months and believe we need a
person who can join the team as Site Content Manager and Editor."
http://www.christianityworks.com/
Evangelicals don't do it much, apparently:
http://www.youthspecialties.com/articles/topics/personal_stuff/think.php
And to be stimulated to think round how we do church, or could do, see:
http://www.coolchurches.com/
During my husband's time as a mature student, we didn't have much money for our family
of seven. At a friend's wedding, my four-year-old daughter was sitting next to me when the
vicar asked, "Do you take this man for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness
and in health?" Our daughter turned to me and whispered loudly, "You chose poorer, didn't
you Mummy?
[Source witandwisdom.org ]
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