A great post by Keith at Under the Acacias about Biblical imperatives to keep in mind while blogging.

OSMinistry (The Open Source Ministry Project) is a great website for people interested in the use of modern-day technology by churches and ministries. I just discovered a relatively new forum on their site (their forums are great in general, by the way!) called Blogs and Blogging.

Within that forum, there is a discussion about a church (Jacob’s Well in Kansas City, Missouri) that hosts and aggregates the blogs of its members. See this page on their site to see their aggregation of blog posts.

There is such great potential here for conveying the authentic voice of their community to unbelievers in their local area (and beyond). So many church websites are limited to service times, program descriptions, staff bios, etc. While these things may be necessary (I’m not entirely convinced myself), they certainly don’t convey a complete, authentic voice. Because what really makes up our churches is our people, and we need to relate their stories to the unbelieving community if we ever expect to draw unbelievers to Christ.

Tim Hutchison, medical missionary to Kenya, recently wrote about why he blogs.

Here are his general reasons, but you should go to his blog to read his explanations of each:

To Inform To Share Our Experiences To Entertain To Process The Events of Life To Challenge Others

A great set of reasons for missionaries to use blog technology!

I first heard of Tim’s site from Church Marketing Sucks who heard of it from John I. Carney

Blog Business World has some helpful suggestions on dealing with comment and/or trackback spam. For Christian organizations, this type of spam can be especially onerous. I would agree with the author that we shouldn’t let the fear of spam keep us from using a blog format for our websites. At the same time, not turning off comments and trackbacks requires that we be vigilant (this is particularly on my mind today as I found approximately 15 instances of trackback spam on this site today - all for static areas of the site that have comments and trackbacks turned off).

Neil Cox, of IndyChristian.com mentioned his newest site in his comment on the post below entitled, “City Reaching.” But I think his new website, called ChristianCityNewsBlogs.com, deserves more play than that!

Dedicated to using blog technology to spread the gospel of Jesus throughout America (city-by-city, neighborhood-by-neighborhood), this new site is definitely worth a visit!

I have a great deal of interest in using the web in city reaching projects. So as I was reading my regular diet of RSS feeds this morning, I was interested to notice DJ Chuang’s post on his Equip blog entitled Reaching Cities. Naturally, I clicked through to read more.

DJ mentions a United Nations report, GodLovesIndy.com, and also a great surprise: our very own ChristianCruz.com.

Be sure to read DJ’s comments as well as one additional link to a great resource for those interested in reaching their cities.

See also:

• Our List of Localized Portals
• A Strategy For Local Internet Outreach, our white paper which presents a vision for using the web to facilitate face-to-face relationships between believers and unbelievers in a specific locality. This represents the second phase of our two-tiered city-reaching vision, with the ChristianCruz concept representing the first phase.

I have a different vision than most of how church websites can/should be used. When churches started jumping on the web bandwagon a few years ago, we saw a lot of sites which were not well-designed, to say the last. Sadly, we still see plenty of poorly designed church websites.

Now days, though, we are at least seeing more and more well-designed sites in the church arena. Some of that is due to church webmasters becoming more proficient at their craft. Some of it is due to the proliferation of companies offering template-based solutions to churches and ministries (while some may decry the “cookie cutter” approach of those companies, at least they don’t offer templates with spinning crosses and blinking text!).

As church websites become more and more usable and attractive, I believe that the next question we need to ask ourselves as a “community” of church webmasters is, “How can our websites be used most effectively?” Personally, I see very few church websites that make me think that the people responsible for the church’s web presence have spent much time considering that question.

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new website for Loving Leaders.

Once we had determined the client’s needs and desires, and using
Expression Engine for content management, we developed a basic site in two days for this Christian psychologist whose life purpose is to help marketplace leaders learn to lead with love.

Here is a list of resources I plan on distributing at the internet evangelism seminar I will be teaching in April and May. Does anyone have any suggestions for additions to the list?

Also, for the life of me, I can’t remember how I compiled this list. My apologies in advance to anyone from whom I borrowed this information!

Books
Allen, Roland. Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1966.

Graham, Billy. Christian Worker’s Handbook. Minneapolis: BGEA.

Baker, Jason D. Christian Cyberspace Companion: A Guide to the Internet and Christian Online Sources, 2d ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1995.

Careaga, Andrew. E-vangelism: Sharing the Gospel in Cyberspace. Lafayette: Vital Issues Press, 1999.

Carega, Andrew. eMinistry: Connecting with the Net Generation. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2001.

Hybels, Bill and Mark Mittelberg. Becoming a Contagious Christian (Participant’s Guide). Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Company, 1995.

Wilson, Walter P. The Internet Church: The Local Church Can’t Be Just Local Anymore. Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000.

Winter, Ralph and Steven Hawthorne. Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1998 edition.

Downs, Tim. Finding Common Ground � How to Communicate with Those Outside the Christian Community While We Still Can. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1999.

Websites

The Web Evangelism Guide
http://www.gospelcom.net/guide/

Faith Online
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/126/report_display.asp

CyberFaith: How Americans Pursue Religion Online
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/53/report_display.asp

The Evangelism Toolbox
http://www.evangelismtoolbox.com

PowerToChange
http://www.powertochange.com

BibleGateway
http://bible.gospelcom.net/

A Letter To My Friends
http://www.lettertomyfriends.com

iamnext
http://www.iamnext.com

The Jesus Film Project
http://www.jesusfilm.org

Effective Web Ministry Notes
http://www.eministrynotes.com/

Equip Blog
http://www.forministry.com/equip/blog.dsp

The Internet Evangelism Coalition
http://bgc.gospelcom.net/iec/

e-vangelism
http://www.e-vangelism.com/

Cybermission.org
http://www.cybermissions.org/

Rusty Wright Articles
http://www.probe.org/rusty/rusty-clips.html

Internet Evangelism Day
http://www.internetevangelismday.com/

Outside The Box Ministry
http://www.outsidetheboxministry.com/

Heal Your Church Website
http://www.healyourchurchwebsite.com/

Strategic Digital Outreach
http://www.strategicdigitaloutreach.com

ChristianCruz
http://www.christiancruz.com

SantaCruzLife (coming soon!)
http://www.santacruzlife.com

DigiTracts
http://www.digitracts.com

Articles

Communicating Christ on the Internet
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/1541/

The Role of Trust in Virtual Community Assimilation (in RTF format)
http://www.gospelcom.net/guide/docs/abstract.rtf

E-vangelism: Redefining Evangelical Identify in Online Global Culture
http://mkmccarthy.homestead.com/thesis.html

Cyberspace: A Valid and Effective Evangelistic Medium?
http://www.mleggett.uklinux.net/weq/html/results.htm

Here is my tentative outline for the fifth and final session of the internet evangelism seminar I will be teaching in April and May. Thanks in advance for any suggestions anyone might have - I really appreciate it!

V. Session #5: International Missions

A. Introduction of New Participants

B. Salvation Story #5 (preferably on international believer)

C. Discussion of last week’s homework: successes, challenges, questions, comments

D. Sharing The Gospel in Creative Access Nations
1. Instant Messaging
2. Cyber Caf�s

E. Evangelism Opportunity #5

F. Homework

Here is my tentative outline for the fourth session of the internet evangelism seminar I will be teaching in April and May. The outlines for this session and the final, fifth session (which I will post tomorrow) are less fleshed out, so your comments would be especially helpful!

IV. Session #4: Online Conversations

A. Introduction of New Participants

B. Salvation Story #4 (preferably a man)

C. Discussion of last week’s homework: successes, challenges, questions, comments

D. Chat Rooms, Message Boards, and Instant Messaging

E. Evangelism Opportunity #4

F. Homework

Here is the outline for the third session of the internet evangelism seminar I will be teaching in April and May. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated!

III. Session 3: Preparing For Effective Internet Evangelism

A. Introduction of New Participants

B. Salvation Story #3: Patricia

C. Discussion of last week’s homework: successes, challenges, questions, comments

D. Preparation For Effective Internet Evangelism
1. Personal relationship with Jesus
2. Prayer and dependence on God
3. Compassion
4. A written testimony
5. Become familiar with an online Bible (preferably in a modern translation)
6. Some background in apologetics is helpful, but not absolutely necessary (knowing how to respond to objections can be important)
7. Know the plan of salvation

E. Evangelism Opportunity #3: Advanced Steps
1. Develop a bridge website

F. Homework
1. Think about your passions. What would be a good bridge website topic for you?