Here is the second session in our multi-part video series on internet evangelism.

In this session, we briefly compare the circumstances which God had orchestrated in the first century to circumstances and events which we believe He is orchestrating today. This pattern presents a question for the church of the 21st century — will we take advantage of the circumstances and events which God is orchestrating to further God’s kingdom?

In the past, I’ve experimented a bit with video blogging on another blog I run (which is fairly dormant to be honest) — ProdigalGod.com. I have long wanted to create a series of videos on internet evangelism, and this post represents my first attempt at completing that project.

This is largely an experiment for me, and I recognize that the videos are not perfect. The video quality itself is better on this site than the quality of the videos on ProdigalGod.com because I used a Sony camcorder to create these videos (while the videos on ProdigalGod.com were created with a simple webcam — at least until I redo them with the camcorder). My “on-camera presence,” however, is just as “clunky” as it is on the ProdigalGod.com videos! And I know that the setup I have in my living room (it’s obvious my wife loves me a lot to put up with pushing the furniture around to make room for the v-screen and pvc pipe stand I’m using!) needs some work - the lighting especially.

Hopefully, these will improve over time. If you have any suggestions for better video blogging, please don’t hesitate to contact me — I would be more than happy to hear any feedback you might have!

I used software called Vlog It! to create the videos, and the videos are in Flash Video format and as such, require that you have the Flash Player installed.

This first session gives a little bit of background on me (primarily because I may upload these to GodTube and/or YouTube in the future so not everyone who sees them will know who I am) and also addresses ways in which God orchestrated circumstances and events in the first century to facilitate the spread of the gospel. I am purposefully keeping the sessions short so that they can be easily digested.

I was looking for a book on Amazon today and noticed several Listmania! lists devoted to the church’s use of technology:

Church and Technology Books, by Tim Fisher
Audio Recording Picks, by Devin B. Hedge
Preaching in a Postmodern Media Culture, by Carsten R. Jensen
Life Online, by D.J. Chuang

If you know of any other Listmania! lists or individual books devoted to the church’s use of technology, feel free to mention them in comments to this post.

Evan Donovan of TechMission.org wrote me a few days ago to tell me about a new site they have launched, ChristianVolunteering.org. Here’s what Evan had to say about the site:

ChristianVolunteering.org is a free directory with over 2,000 volunteer opportunities in ministries serving the “poor.”  The site’s partners include the Salvation Army, GospelCom (BibleGateway.com), World Vision, the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions and over 1,000 ministries serving under-resourced communities.  In addition to volunteer opportunities for individuals, you can also search the site for opportunities that might be appropriate for church small groups and for short-term missions trips.  If you just type your postal code, you can get a listing of the volunteer opportunities in your region.

A second site, UrbanMinistry.org, is designed to equip people to serve the “poor.” Here is how the site describes itself:

(A) destination site for the urban ministry and Christian community development community: a website designed to connect individuals and Christian ministries, empowering them to bring social justice in Jesus’ name. On UrbanMinistry.org, you can meet others interested in urban ministry, start a blog, and share resources that have been helpful to you in the Urban Ministry wiki. You can also browse through an extensive library of sermons and lectures, recommended books, MP3 podcasts, justice-related videos, Christian workshops and presentations, and more.

Both of these sites are well worth bookmarking and visiting often. Thanks to Evan for telling me about them!

My friend Bradley Burck just launched a website for his new book — Conquering Nonprofit Chaos.

Bradley is a fundraising and marketing consultant who works with non-profits and Christian ministries to help them craft strategic development and marketing plans. His firm, Burck Communications, also provides design, copywriting and print services as well as training for non-profit boards and staffs.

When you have a chance, check out their new website. There is a lot of content which will prove helpful to churches and ministries.

Here is an interesting article about how Roman Catholic communities are using Facebook, blogs, websites, MySpace, YouTube, podcasts, etc. to attract young people who are potentially interested in becoming priests or nuns.

I found the conclusion to the article particularly interesting:

As always, personal contact — particularly with an admired religious role model at school or church — seems to be the clincher. “The Internet is a helpful resource, but it just doesn’t replace the one-on-one, face-to-face interaction,” Alvarez said.

So along with her Facebook presence, Sister Tracey has started a monthly coffeehouse night with local bands and an open-poetry mike at her community’s bookstore in Sweetwater.

“As great as technology is, there’s still this thirst for human connection,” she said. “It’s not about having the best Web site; it’s about what that Web site can facilitate.”

Here is what appears to be a new blog on internet evangelism (at least the first and only post is about internet evangelism), written by someone named Bob Fox. Does anyone know anything about this blog?

Dan Lee of BlogMinistry has begun “a series of posts dedicated to particular countries looking at their access to the Internet and the persecuted church.” Quite an interesting series.

So far, Dan has posted three articles:

Persecuted Church and the Internet: North Korea
Persecuted Church and the Internet: The Maldives
Persecuted Church and the Internet: India

I haven’t seen anything like this in the Christian blogosphere before - it’s a great series so far, and I look forward to reading additional entries. Thanks Dan!

On November 14, we have a chance to chat directly with J.R. Whitby, President of Gospel Communications, about their vision for media evangelism. The 30-minute phone call will include a discussion of Gospel Communications’ upcoming ministry plans and the chance to ask questions.

J.R. will talk about what God has put on his heart for Gospel Communications: a new direction for our film outreach, the latest news from our internet ministries, innovative new giving tools, and more.

For more information regarding the call, including how to sign up, visit the September 28 issue of the Gospel Communications Communique.

Dean Peters has posted a great list of ways to use a church website to make it more effective. From the introduction to his article:

A problem I find with many church websites is vision, that those responsible for delivering the goods don’t really see their site as much more than an online color brochure. As a result, more often than not, very little staff and/or funds are allocated to the church’s web presence past the server, the domain name and perhaps a content management service.

In no particular order, I’d like to offer 10 real-world examples you can expand your church and/or charity’s impact by expanding your vision past mere ‘brochureware.’

His second point (“Convert Seekers”) made me think about an aspect of church websites that I have generally resisted in the past and gave me a good reason to consider changing the way I think about that aspect (I’m purposely not telling you what that aspect is to make you go read the article!).

Here’s a link to the article.

By the way, the article appears on a great new site called digital.leadnet.org, a collaborative blog about technology in the church from Leadership Network.

LiveMocha is a website which is in beta and might prove helpful for missionaries trying to learn a new language.

From their front page:

The social way to learn a language.

Community. Livemocha is the first-of-its-kind online language-learning community.

Lessons. Fun and interactive lessons that move at the right pace for you.

Motivation. Track your progress and reach your goals with Livemocha tools.

The site currently offers courses in German, English, Spanish, French, Hindi, and Chinese.

Thanks to 901am for the heads-up!

As I was checking my email today, I was confused by a few emails that looked like this:

I couldn’t remember ever hearing of a blog or website called BlogInterviewer, but it looked like the type of email you receive when you have subscribed to a blog post’s comments (often after or as a result of adding a comment). With a bit of a bad feeling, I visited the blog in question.

BlogInterviewer is an interesting site. With a tagline of “A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Web’s Best Bloggers,” BlogInterviewer presents interviews with a variety of bloggers. They describe themselves this way on their About Us page:

BlogInterviewer.com is a website devoted to discovering the most interesting bloggers on the Internet and their reasons for sharing their thoughts with the world. You as a user have the opportunity to vote for your favorites and bury the blogs you don’t like.