The current issue of the Lausanne World Pulse, the online voice of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, includes an article about Sacred Ink, one of our partners in the gospel.

Written by Sacred Ink founder, Chuckk Gerwig, the article represents a good description of the way the new website is being used to reach out to the tattoo subculture.

A few weeks ago, I posted a brief mention of an article about how phone and cable companies were backing legislation that would require companies to pay fees to faciliate the faster delivery of their websites and other online services to consumers.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I posted an update which detailed how Sergey Brin of Google was working against the legislation.

Today, I noticed this article which says that an amendment on “Internet Neutrality” was rejected by a Senate subcommittee.

I’m not sure how it will ultimately effect the efforts of the church in cyberspace, but I think this issue continues to merit a watchful eye. 

A few weeks ago, I wrote this brief post about how phone and cable companies were backing legislation that would require companies to pay fees to faciliate the faster delivery of their websites and other online services to consumers.

Today, I noticed this snippet buried in an article about an admission by Google co-founder Sergey Brin that Google had compromised its principles in agreeing to accede to Chinese censorship demands:

Brin visited Washington to ask U.S. senators to approve a plan that would prevent telephone and cable companies from collecting premium fees from companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! for faster delivery of their services. Brin, dressed casually in jeans, sneakers and a black sport jacket, said he wasn’t sure whether he changed any lawmakers’ minds.

Seems like the legislation is not so “unnoticed” any more.

YWAMer Bill Hutchison has an interesting post on his blog about fo.rtuito.us, a new website that randomly introduces you (virtually) to a “new friend” every four days. After four days of interaction with your new friend, you get to decide if you want to “stay friends” or not.

Bill sees this as an opportunity for internet evangelism. I think there are possibilities here, but the one drawback I see is that there doesn’t appear to be a local element. I was hoping that I would be able to specify that I only want to meet friends in my geographical area (which would then create the possibility of an eventual face-to-face relationship). As a married man, I would also prefer it if I could specify that I only want to be introduced to male “friends.” I signed up for the service to see what parameters could be specified, and it was a bit disconcerting to immediately be “introduced” to a female “friend.”

But it is an interesting idea. Thoughts?

To be honest, this smells a bit like a conspiracy theory to me, but ....

Proposed Rule Changes Would Tangle The Web

Anyone know any more about this? If it’s true, what are the implications for internet evangelism?

comScore Networks, a global information provider and consultancy to which leading companies turn for consumer behavior insight, issued a press release yesterday claiming that 694 million people, age 15+, used the Internet worldwide from all locations in March 2006. Read the full press release.

A few notes:

1. The figure excludes traffic from public computers such as internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs, segments of internet usage which are much more prominent in the third world than they are in Western countries and which reportedly are on the rise dramatically (especially mobile phones).
2. The figure pertains only to people 15 years of age or older
3. The 694 million people who use the internet represent 14% of the world’s population which is 15 years of age or older
4. The online audience in the U.S. represents less than a quarter of the worldwide online audience — major Asian countries such as China, Japan, and South Korea make up more than 25% of the worldwide online audience.

As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 1 Peter 4:10

Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy. 1 Corinthians 4:1

Warning: The verses I have quoted above specifically refer to us being good stewards of grace and the mysteries of God (the gospel). I’m going to ask you to think about them in terms of being good stewards of tools we use to declare the gospel. I’m not sure immediately whether that’s a legitimate use of the verses. I think it is, but I wanted to offer this disclaimer.

On Thursday of last week, my Windows machine crashed, and I’ve been getting blue screens of death ever since whenever I try to restart.

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I have made some changes to the sidebar. Aside from the cosmetic changes (which I think help differentiate between the various sections of the sidebar), here are three changes I’ve made which will hopefully improve our service to the body of Christ:

1. Key Articles. I’ve added a new section which presents links to articles I have written which collectively describe core aspects of our philosophy of internet evangelism. My hope is that making these resources more prominent will serve as a catalyst to further thinking by Christian leaders and webmasters about the issues raised in these articles. I plan to expand this set of key articles in the near future.
2. Friends & Partners. For a long time, I have felt that my strengths lie in the area of strategy rather than in the areas of web design and coding. Although I have designed and coded websites for Christian organizations, I am trying to move more into strategy consultation and away from actual design and coding (there are people who are much more effective than I am at managing these aspects of a Christian website). At the same time, my sidebar previously had a set of thumbnails which pointed to sites I had designed and coded. In keeping with my growing conviction that Christian web strategy consulting is my niche, I have replaced those thumbnails with this new section. While it does include a couple of more traditional clients for whom I do design and coding work, it is now a much broader selection of people and organizations with whom I converse on a regular to semi-regular basis about web strategy for churches and Christian organizations.
3. Resources. I have expanded the earlier section which had book recommendations to include a link to Constant Contact, a web-based email marketing service with which I’ve recently had good experience as I help one of my church clients stay in closer touch with their membership. The links in the new Resources section are affiliate links (as the links were in the old Books section). Revenue from these affiliate relationships goes toward helping me along on the path to supporting my family while providing web-strategy consulting services to churches and ministries on a full-time basis (in other words, I’m not trying to get rich!).

If you have any questions about these changes or any suggestions for future changes, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. I know I would enjoy the conversation.

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.