Here’s an interesting news item today — an online database of evangelical training courses is in the works.

In partnership with Trainers of Pastors International Coalition (TOPIC) and coordinating closely with the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and member bodies of the International Commission for Evangelical Theological Education (ICETE), the Missionary Training Service is working on a multi-lingual online database of evangelical training courses. We hope that all theological colleges, missionary training organisations, Bible Colleges and non-formal training programmes will be able to input information about their courses online, and that these should then be immediately searchable world-wide in all major languages.

Read the rest of the story here.

Rob Williams is launching an innovative use of blogs today: The Lent Challenge. Challenging readers (whether they be Christians, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, or Martians) to read the four stories of Jesus as told by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John during the 40 days of Lent. Rob has included a reading plan (and will post the daily reading schedule early in the morning of each day) and will invite comments from readers on the chapters which are read.

Why not join Rob (and me!) in this venture? If you’re up for the challenge, leave a comment on the first post of The Lent Challenge blog. But hurry because Lent starts on Tuesday, March 2.

News.com has a good wrapup of the various initiatives for providing low-cost computers to the poor and disadvantaged in the world. Besides the obvious ramifications for taking the gospel to the world via digital means, I found this portion of the article intriguing:

Internet cafes in emerging markets have already familiarized locals with PCs too: Visit an Internet cafe almost anywhere, and you’ll see people conducting VoIP video calls.

Also this from a related article on piracy of DVDs and software in Vietnam:

Western corporations have their work cut out for them when it comes to stemming piracy. Combine an industrious, hardworking population fascinated with all things electronic with grinding poverty, and you get an explosive combination. What do you think underemployed undergraduates and high-school students are doing with their ample spare time? Rewriting the “Windows Tricks and Tips” manual, that’s what. Internet cafes dot the street. Many are filled with tourists, but also with Vietnamese teenagers. The 12-year-old granddaughter of the owner of the cafe where I am sitting now reconfigured the networking protocols so I could get online.

See also John Edmiston’s work on using cybercafes in evangelism.

An interesting website:

StandPoint

Is there an opportunity for outreach here?

Recently, I wrote an article about MySpace and Teens. Scott Reese has written an extended article about MySpace which I would highly recommend you read. I especially like Scott’s comparison of MySpace to the Athens of Paul’s day, encouraging us to use Paul’s strategy in Athens to reach the “residents” of MySpace, as well as Scott’s call for the church to support internet ministry.

Check out this post on Scott Reese’s blog, Adventures of a Web Evangelist. Scott has some great thoughts on using teams to reach out to unbelievers outside of the United States.

Todd Rhoades’ Monday Morning Insight blog has an interesting conversation this week entitled Is Blogging Bad for the Church? I’ve commented, and I’d encourage the readers of this blog to add their perspective as well. I especially liked the comment by Tally Wilgis, likening blogs to Mars Hill.

Dan Lee of Blog Ministry has created his first video cast! I first learned about Blog Ministry about 3 months ago and it’s nice to see an actual video of Dan rather than just his photo and articles - puts a little more personality in the overall experience!

If you’re like me, you’ll love the opening animation, the content is good, and oh, by the way, Dan looks to be a fair juggler!

If you are coming to this blog for the first time after seeing my short article in Outreach Magazine, welcome! I appreciate your visit!

Unfortunately, the article I had originally written for Outreach Magazine was edited in such a way that I think the intent of the article was dramatically changed. I have just finished sending an email to the magazine and felt like it would be a good idea to post what I wrote, along with the original article I submitted, so the regular readers of this blog and new visitors can understand more clearly what I was trying to say. 

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I’ve added another category of links to the sidebar of this site: “More Blogs & Sites”.

In the past, I’ve hesitated to add blogs which don’t discuss internet evangelism to either the “Blogs I Read” section or the “Additional Links” section. There are a couple of reasons for that: 1) with only a few exceptions, if a blog is not about internet evangelism, I rarely have the time to read it regularly; and, 2) because this website is concerned almost exclusively with how we can use the web to reach out to unbelievers, blogs and websites which don’t discuss web evangelism just didn’t seem like a good fit for the “Additional Links” section.

At the same time, I’ve come to realize that there are blog authors who may have added a link to Strategic Digital Outreach because they believe in what we are doing but whose blogs don’t directly discuss web evangelism. It doesn’t seem fair to accept a link from them but not reciprocate. So I’ve added a new section called “More Blogs & Sites.”

Chuck of FellowServant.com is the first link. Chuck’s site is a combination of devotionals and Bible studies. His “Mornings With God” section is especially interesting.

If you have a blog of your own and would like me to link to it, just let me know and I will try and add your site.

SearchEngineWatch has a nice article today - a compilation of reviews of books on search engine marketing.

Looks helpful - might be time to liberate my wallet and invest in some more books. My wife will be thrilled!

Mark Swanson has a great post on his blog in the wake of the first ever GodBlogCon about the use of blogging for evangelism and outreach.

I want to reach the person who is not necessarily a cultural conservative, who is seeking some form of spirituality but is probably leaning toward Buddhism or New Age because he/she has been turned off by the Religious Right. How can we effectively use blogging to reach this 20-30% of the population with the gospel? This is one of my two blogging passions and I’m not finding much in the way of models. I’m looking for ways to develop a blogging strategy that will draw non-believing readers and plant seeds (or uproot weeds) of thought.

Why not visit Mark’s blog and participate in some brainstorming regarding an outreach-focused blogging strategy?

For myself, my conviction that outreach is most effective when it is local colors my thinking on this topic a bit.

As I’ve said before, I envision a website which facilitates face-to-face relationships between unbelievers and believers around common life experiences and interests through combining a Yahoo-like directory for a local geographic area with video profiles of believers. A core facet of that vision, although I may not have expressly stated it here before, is to provide profiled believers with the opportunity to blog about their interests so that unbelievers in the same local area will be drawn to their profiles and thoughts.

The end-game of such a website will be to facilitate the introduction of unbelievers to believers in face-to-face relationships so that the unbeliever can be drawn into the midst of authentic Christian community over time. It’s that immersion into Christian community that will become the foundation of an unbeliever’s journey toward salvation (cf. John 17:21-23).