Strategic Digital Outreach

Welcome!

Thank you for visiting the Strategic Digital Outreach website! My name is Frank Johnson. I have been a digital media strategist for approximately seven years, heavily involved with internet marketing techniques in the business world. The more I learn about internet marketing, the more I find myself thinking, "These techniques should be used to spread the gospel."

This website is meant to serve as an exploration of that line of thinking. As you read, please feel free to comment - my hope is that we will all benefit from each other's wisdom.

My Core Philosophy

I remember a few years ago teaching a course on web strategy for churches for the denomination with which my wife and I are affiliated. Prior to the first session, I wrote some notes on the whiteboard, including several passages of Scripture which I felt were relevant to the discussion I was hoping we would have.

When some of the session participants saw what I had written on the whiteboard, one of them snickered to his neighbor, “I wonder what the Bible has to say about websites.”

True, the Bible doesn’t have anything to say directly about websites. But it does have a lot to say about outreach! And if the purpose of our websites is to reach unbelievers, then we would do well to heed the principles of outreach which the Scriptures give us.

My core philosophy of internet evangelism revolves around a passage of Scripture in John 17:21-23.

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Posted in ideas/concepts on 11/30/04 at 12:54 PM
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Internet Evangelism Conference

The “Internet Evangelism for the 21st Century” conference will be held at Liberty University April 1-2, 2005. This conference expects to draw
attendees from the 8,000 member residential student body as well as pastors and leaders from Central Virginia and beyond. LU’s state of the art wireless campus is an ideal venue for IE-21st Century. For more information visit http://ie-21stCentury.com and/or email Professor Daniel Henrich at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Posted in events on 11/29/04 at 09:19 PM
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Credibility and Church Websites

I use a website (and its accompanying RSS feed) called Threadwatch to monitor various message boards related to search engine optimization. I probably miss some things by relying on Threadwatch to choose the most interesting conversations, but on the other hand, I don’t have to spend countless hours monitoring several message boards.

Recently, I noticed a post on Threadwatch about a conversation taking place at cre8teasiteforums.com about the ability (or lack thereof) of photographs of real people (rather than stock images) to create credibility in a website visitor’s mind. Since this is an issue that churches often struggle with when developing their websites, I thought I would check out the conversation.

But when I took a look at one of the links which was referenced in the conversation (The Web Credibility Project from Stanford University), I found myself considering the broader issue of credibility in general and specifically how credibility might relate to a church’s website.

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Posted in strategies for churches on 11/29/04 at 12:25 PM
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More Information on Video Search

Courtesy of Search Engine Watch Blog, here’s an article on how Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are all trying to enter the video search space: Striking Up Digital Video Search. Just a follow-on to the article below about Singing Fish.

Posted in ideas/concepts on 11/29/04 at 08:20 AM
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Singing Fish Search Engine

A post on Inside Google from this weekend made me start thinking about using online audio and video for outreach purposes. The site that Inside Google referenced was Singing Fish, a subsidiary of AOL which specializes in searches for online audio and video content.

I used to work for an audio company, so I knew about Singing Fish, but I had never really considered whether it would be a good search engine for churches and ministries to target. I’m not even sure how one would go about optimizing for Singing Fish.

But I did a quick search on “christian,” “gospel,” “evangelism,” and “Jesus.” I found a wealth of content for believers, but not much for unbelievers. If the local internet evangelism concept I’ve envisioned (see my white paper here) ever gets off the ground, the video excerpts of interviews would be great candidates for submitting to Singing Fish.

Any other ideas occur to anyone?

Posted in ideas/concepts on 11/29/04 at 08:07 AM
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There’s A Day On The Way!

Internet Evangelism DayA new international focus day will debut in April of 2005: “Internet Evangelism Day”. Churches and other Christian groups can integrate a web evangelism focus into their activities on or near April 24, thereby helping their members to understand more about the great potential for this new medium.

More information is available at www.InternetEvangelismDay.com.

Posted in events on 11/28/04 at 12:54 PM
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Low-Cost, Effective Church Websites

Many churches today see the need to have a website, but don’t know where to start.

Part of the problem is that a church feels it needs to have what they envision as a “complete” website - with service times, staff biographies, ministry descriptions, etc., etc. To create that level of website and also have a site which is graphically appealing normally requires an outside designer, which can involve a significant cost - a cost the church may not be willing or able to incur.

But there is an alternative approach which does not require an outside designer, does not need a fancy graphical appearance, and should also prove to be much more effective (in reaching the lost) than the typical church website.

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Posted in strategies for churches on 11/28/04 at 12:23 PM
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