Projects: Internet Evangelism Day

Since I manage the website for my church, my partners and I have been able to play a small part in helping this happen.

I was surfing the web this evening and ran across a blog that I check in on periodically called Christian Web Trends.  On the Blog they were talking about Internet Evangelism Day.  This is a project that has apparently been going on for a few years now within the Christian online community and sparked my interest, here’s some more info… 

The Goal of Internet Evangelism Day is to focus on expanding Christianity’s Digital outreach by encouraging the Online Christian Community to spread the good news online.  The IED website has some suggestions for every member of the Christian Community including: Church leader, Webmaster / designer, Computer user, Youth leader, Ex-missionary, Stuck at home, Blog enthusiast, Writer, Trained counselor, Evangelist, Film/video maker, Bible college, Mission agency,
Web ministry, Denomination HQ, Conference organizer, Magazine editor, Radio editor, Email newsletter, Outreach ministry, and Musicians. (click on these links for suggestions)

I am pretty impressed with the amount of resources that are available online for anyone wishing to participate in this event.  I jotted down a few notes that I think could be beneficial to bring more people to Christ via church website…

• If you use MySpace, Facebook, or any other social networking site, be sure to include a link to The Church Alive Website in your online profile. 
• At the bottom of your personal email signature (this appears on all of your outbound email messages, you can add a link to The Church Alive website.  This doesn’t have to be fancy, it can even say, “visit my church” or “hear the good news”, etc.  Seeing this link at the bottom of your email signature might spark someone’s curiosity and prompt them to check out the website.  Be sure to do this on jokes or stories that you email to your friends, sometimes these jokes can circulate around the world in a matter of days and even stay alive for years.
• If you work in an office or share a computer with others add The Church Alive RSS Feed to your Google Desktop.  This RSS Feed will update itself with new headlines each time a blog entry or audio sermon is uploaded to the website. 
• When you hear a sermon at The Church Alive that you think could benefit someone you know, email them a link to the sermon audio and follow that up with a phone call to let them know about the email. 
• When you sit down at a Public Computer System at a Coffee Bar or Library, bookmark, or add The Church Alive website to that computer’s favorites.
• Share the Good News!  Once a week, set a goal for yourself to share the church’s website address with at least one person in your address book.  If you are able to do this, you will have shared the Good News with 52 people!

These are just a few ideas that I have came up with after looking over the Internet Evangelism Day information.  I am sure that the creative members in our church can come up with some other cool and innovative ways to share the good news also.  Once I have shared this initiative with some folks I will post back any additional ideas here…

Anyone else that’s interested in helping to promote Internet Evangelism Day can include this graphic on their Blog or website if they want:

<span style="color: #606060">   1:</span> &lt;script language=<span style="color: #006080">"javascript"</span> type=<span style="color: #006080">"text/javascript"</span> src=<span style="color: #006080">"http://ied.gospelcom.net/scripts/iedayrighthandtopbanner.js"</span>&gt;

<span style="color: #606060">   2:</span> /script&gt;

Here are some additional links to websites discussing Internet Evangelism Day:

• http://ied.gospelcom.net/index.php
• http://www.ag.org/top/news/news_article_template.cfm?ArticleID=8190&NamedFormatID=2001Article&SearchDepartment=01-140&SearchStartDate=02/17/2005&SearchMaxRows=4&SearchMaxRecordCount=2459
• http://blog.ourchurch.com/2008/04/03/get-ready-for-internet-evangelism-day-april-27/
• http://blog.ourchurch.com/2008/04/07/internet-evangelism-day-in-the-news-april-3-7/
• http://blog.ourchurch.com/2008/04/14/internet-evangelism-day-in-the-news-april-8-14/