On the way home from work yesterday, I was listening to a news item about a high school senior who had sent a letter to every student in his high school, presenting the simple message of the gospel to almost 3,000 of his classmates at Oak Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was fascinated by the story and reminded myself to visit the website that this high school senior had developed, A Letter To My Friends.

I actually forgot about the website until today. When I visited, I was thoroughly impressed, not only by the courage and boldness of the three friends who had sent the letter (the radio program I listened to either did not mention the other two students or I was not listening well!), but by the strategy which is reflected in their approach.

Here’s what I found at the website (and after reading a .pdf copy of the letter at that website):

1. The three students sent their letter to their nearly 3,000 classmates.
2. The letter, which can be read here, invites recipients to contact them directly - by phone, by email, or by instant messaging.
3. The letter goes on to say that if people don’t feel comfortable contacting them directly, they can still visit the website
4. Upon arriving at the website, it is clear that the site’s primary thrust is an invitation for site visitors to come and investigate Christian community (in the form of their youth group).
5. Even the website’s “How To Become A Christian” page invites those who want to make a decision for Christ to contact the three friends for help in making the decision.
6. The answers to various questions which appear on the “Got Questions?” page invite people to contact them for more help, offering Josh McDowell’s More Than A Carpenter and a Bible for free.

I am thoroughly impressed. The aspect of all this that causes my heart to leap is that they are using media (first their letter and then their website) to invite people to enter into personal relationships with them and then experience authentic Christian community by meeting their circle of Christian friends.

If you’ve read the articles I’ve posted here since recently launching this site, you know that I am a proponent of using modern-day technology to introduce unbelievers to authentic Christian community (John 17:21-23).

Eric Bast, Nick Wall, and Meredith Christopfel have given us all a great example of this strategy.

Wayne Hurlbert at Blog Business World posted an interesting article yesterday about gaining blog readership through writing articles which reflect your passion. Here’s a brief excerpt:

What really enhances the sweep and scope of most political blog writers is their passion. Whether writing posts in support, or diametrically opposed in every conceivable way, to various politicians and their political parties, what is displayed is genuine conviction….Business blogs, legal blogs, technical blogs, writers blogs, sports blogs, and personal blogs often display those important characteristics as well. By doing so, the blogs become must reads….The blogger who cares deeply about his or her subject matter, will also show passion for the topics, in their writing. The feelings flow out of the computer monitor, and affect the reader in countless ways.

I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind if you’re wanting to start a niche site which uses the bridge strategy to engage unbelievers in conversation. Choose a topic about which you are passionate, and you will find yourself writing more frequently and in a more engaging style. This can only serve to bring more people to your site as you get a reputation for having fresh, opinionated content.

I’m generally not one to talk about how the Lord spoke to me or told me to do this or that. I tend to believe that He speaks to us through the Scriptures, through giving us godly wisdom, etc. But there have been a few times in my Christian life when I can say that He gave me special insight into a question I was facing. He didn’t speak to me in an audible voice, but more often than not, he brought what seemed to be disparate circumstances or disparate thoughts together in my mind and heart in such a way that new insight was gained.

I say that because something like this happened to me a few days in regard to internet evangelism.

Rob Williams is blogging today about the wisdom of using particular interests unbelievers might have (guitars, baseball, gardening, etc.) to develop relationships with them and provide platforms for talking about Jesus. This is at the heart of a very effective strategy for web evangelism, developing websites dedicated to those interests, promoting them, and then engaging site visitors in conversations that lead to discussions about the gospel.

Daniel Terdiman writes today at Wired.com about using technology similar to podcasting to make video for iPod available on demand.

If we use video on a church’s website (in conjunction with profiles of people with specific interests and life experiences of interest to unbelievers), it shouldn’t be too far a reach (once the technology is more mature, of course), to start thinking about making video feeds available for people to view on their iPods.

Thanks to PaidContent.org for the link.

An interesting tidbit from Pandia.com, which incidentally looks to be an interesting resource on search engine marketing:

There are probably not many that are familiar with the new search engine for finding material online that can be used without paying royalty or clearing copyright issues. With a Creative Commons license you can allow others to copy, distribute, quote or develop what you have made available online .... Since September a beta version of a Creative Commons Search Engine has been available that lets you search for just this kind of thing. The results pages display symbols signifying which kind of license applies to the different hits.

Joshua Porter wrote an interesting article early last month entitled “Home Alone? How Content Aggregators Change Navigation and Control of Content.”

It’s a very interesting article about how content aggregators (search engines, blogs, news sites, links pages, etc. - virtually any form of website or software which gathers content from other digital sources and presents them in an aggregated fashion) are changing the way people receive information, and I would strongly encourage you to read the entire article. I’m going to touch on one point he made and how it possibly relate to church websites, but I think the whole article has some very important things to say to us as Christian webmasters.

Here is an excerpt which I found especially compelling:

Aggregation hinges on gathering content from other domains. This dramatically affects the search for content. Users no longer need to start their search in the domain where the content lies. In fact, they almost never do.

In response to an earlier article on kids’ web habits, Rob Williams at Effective Web Ministry Notes was kind enough to point me to Kids Ranch, a website developed by Eric Elder.  Any others?

MicroPersuasion ran an article yesterday about Hugh Hewitt’s upcoming book, Blog : Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World. Hugh Hewitt is an evangelical, a nationally-syndicated talk radio host, a Professor of Constitutional Law at Chapman University Law School, and an avid blogger.

What caught my eye in the MicroPersuasion article, however, was Steve Rubel’s quote of the publisher’s description. Among other things, the publisher wrote, “Millions are changing their habits when it comes to information acquisition, and the blogosphere has appeared so suddenly as to surprise even the most sophisticated of analysts.

In many ways, the church is in the information business. We are communicators. If people are changing their habits in the ways they receive information and communication from others, wouldn’t it be important for the church to be cognizant of those changes and adapt our communication methods to ensure that our message (the most important message in the world) is communicated effectively?

From the latest version of the SitePoint Tribune email newsletter:

Nielsen Net Ratings reports that kids aged 2-11 years old are leading the growth of Web pages viewed at home. Pageviews made by this group in the last year have increased by 36% on the previous 12 months.  The report also demonstrates the differences between the online viewing habits of boys and girls. The site that attracted the largest growth in pageviews by girls was MSN Messenger (an increase of 381%). For boys, entertainment sites lead the way—DisneyChannel.com page views were up by 230%.

As a parent of a nine-year-old child, I am always reticent when it comes to targeting kids directly without their parents’ permission, even with the gospel, because I think doing so is often counter-productive. On the other hand, I’m sure there are appropriate online evangelistic efforts directed at children. The data cited above would suggest that the church should be thinking seriously about how to use digital means to reach children.

Anyone know of any good examples of digital outreach to kids? Feel free to cite such examples in a comment to this post.

I’m capitalizing on an announcement in the blogging world today to write a bit about the potential of blogs for internet evangelism.

MSN Spaces, the new blogging service from Microsoft, was launched yesterday. At the same time, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, told Mike Wendland of the Detroit Free Press that ““Blogging is huge. It brings together the three biggest Internet trends: communicating, sharing and socializing. It started with e-mail and instant messaging and music sharing, and it’s getting bigger each day.”

Following on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s recent call for a $100 PC, Solar PC is announcing a sub-$100 PC which can be run from a solar panel or car battery, or even be human powered (with a bicycle-based generator).

The related Global Education Link project, referenced in SolarPC’s November 20, 2004 press release, has a goal of distributing one million SolarLite computers to schools in poor countries.