What, you mean we’re actually suppose to respond to all these people writing blogs these days :-p Maybe we just missed the concept is all <grin>

On a less jokefull note, I am not exactly the “netevangelistic” type of guy. Sure, I love leading mission trips, doing outreaches and such, but the internet is just not a place I care to take my faith.

That said, nearly everybody who I do business with online, or have gotten to know over the last 15 years, knows I’m a faith-based person.

As such, the majority of the people know they can come to chat with me anytime and just about anything.

I’m not going to tell them they are doing the wrong thing, but I will encourge them to look at the situtation from a different angle.

I’m not going to preach to them. I’m not going to tell them “Find Jesus or go to hell, you sinner!” or anything stupid like that.

What my friends DO know is when they need to talk, I’m here to listen and encourage or listen and cry with them. For this is what the Bible says we should do.

I’d rather have 10 people who know they can come to me anytime, for any reason, and have someone who cares and isn’t going to preach at them, then to be a person that only randomly has people contact them and be preachy.

The majority of people enter the Kingdom of God through “friendship evangelism”, which is how it should be done.

Thanks for commenting, John. Since you’re the only one who has commented, I’ll risk offering my opinion before seeing if others have something to say.

You’re right - the majority of people do come to Christ through friendship evangelism. The strategy I advocate is to use the web to facilitate offline relationships. For example, I think church websites should be used to profile believers within a congregation so that unbelievers will become intrigued enough to want to meet them face-to-face.

When it comes to instant messaging, I envision being able to contact someone in another city/country, and then have a network of people who live in that city/country who I can bring in to the conversation. Then, the unbeliever will have a local contact who can continue the conversation in face-to-face meetings once the unbeliever becomes comfortable with that.

In some countries, instant messaging may be our only chance to contact the unbeliever.

Thanks again for your comment!

"For example, I think church websites should be used to profile believers within a congregation so that unbelievers will become intrigued enough to want to meet them face-to-face.”

Very true. At this years 2005 Lay Leadership Conference I’ll be pushing this big-time in the session I’ll be speaking out. One of the features I really want to get setup in my church website software ( http://www.manageyourchurch.com ) is the ability for pastors to go into their website and add members testimonies and comments about why they go to the church, and such. Really powerful way to help draw in new families to a church.

“When it comes to instant messaging, I envision being able to contact someone in another city/country, and then have a network of people who live in that city/country who I can bring in to the conversation.”

Yeah, very much right-on!!

That has been one of my main ideas behind my latest website ( http://www.agsingles.com ). To try to help people from around the globe hook-up with others via the internet (including IM).

There is a massive amount of possible growth when it comes to moving forward in this kind of online ministry. I’ve just been trying to ‘test the water’ to see what’s going to work and not work.

A friend had me develop http://www.ChurchlessFaith.Com a few years ago. It was to try to unite together those people who’ve left the church but never really left the faith. It worked on the principles of members registering then being able to contact each other via internal messages, IM, email and such. Sadly he never promoted it. BUT, he did have the right idea about how to minister online.

“In some countries, instant messaging may be our only chance to contact the unbeliever.”

That is very true. Throughout the week I often get IM messages from pastors, evangelists and other ministers using my A/G websites who can only really communicate to via (real time) via Instant Messengers. Sometimes sending 20 emails back and forth is just not realistic, whereas providing an IM client system works wonders!

I often enjoy sitting and chatting with people via IM. Just this week I had a pastor from the Southern Islands IM me. We’ve talked a lot about missions and online outreach and such.

I also stay in contact with one of my really good friends, who is a missionary in Belarus, via IM. We chat at least 2 or 3 times a week. It’s an amazing way to be able to stay in contact with them, and keep knowing how to pray for his family and ministry.

Anyway, yeah, totally agree with you Frank!

(btw, we’ve never actually meet, you making it to the 2005 Lay Leadership conference? If so, come join my class so we can actually meet in person!!)

for about a year, i conducted an AIM Bible study with my youth group - it was a good and fun thing, but very time consuming, difficult to manage, and eventually we had to cancel it for a number of reasons (the top two of which weren’t because of management problems, but because of direction/focus of the ministry and time constraints).

i’m not sure that this is exactly what you’re looking for when asking about using IM for spreading the Gospel, but it certainly did that in its own way.

positives: good interaction from students who normally wouldn’t talk out during a large group setting; attracted some kids who weren’t able to come to any other youth ministry event/meeting; much more open conversation from all participants (probably because of the semi-anonymous / non-face-to-face nature of it); good, honest questions without fear of “looks” from others; could be done from home; some folks brought their friends into the AIM chatroom who weren’t Christians and who had questions; fun to teach the Bible in a different format.

negatives: very difficult to control, depending on the number of participants; hard to get very far due to the “type and wait for responses” nature of AIM; difficult to control (case in point: several guys, non-christians, joined the chat over the course of 2 months or so and were very disruptive asking questions that would have been GREAT outside of the Bible study, but in it were just distracting); time-frame is hard - we limited it to one hour - 9-10pm on wednesday nights, but by the time you get everyone in, introduced, topic/chapter/etc laid out, you’re down to 45 minutes, then the time lapse as everyone is responding, keeping up with each one and the different convos that come from it.....

i got to the point that i was typing out my whole study beforehand so that i could just cut and paste into the discussion as we went along - it helped, but we still only made it through 5-7 verses a night (on a good night).

would i do it again? i dunno.