Lausanne World Pulse – WORLD PERSPECTIVES – Contextualizing Cyberspace—Missiology Still Matters When it Comes to Cybermissions and Internet Evangelism

By John Edmiston

[Cybermissions: The intentional front-line cross-cultural use of computers and the Internet to facilitate the Great Commission.]

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The Internet is being used worldwide to spread the gospel.

Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN can help hundreds of millions of people who are interested in searching for faith to find the gospel. In fact, “God” is one of the top online search terms. For the first time in human history someone sitting at home can type in a spiritual query in their own language, (sixty percent of Google’s searches are already in languages other than English) and be guided to an answer—if one is readily available online. The goal of cybermissions is to be there when these seekers ask questions and to lead them to faith and to integration in a local body of believers.

I have witnessed four phases of Internet evangelism since I first went online in 1991:

  1. Eccentric – (early 1990s) Newsgroups, bulletin boards and online “flame wars” between Christians and atheists were common.
  2. Enthusiastic – (mid 1990s) Online tracts with a gospel outline and a response form were available, but these were overwhelmingly in English.
  3. Evangelistic – (late 1990s to present) Online tracts with snippets of audio and video and testimonies and links to items of interest to Western non-Christians are available. These same post-modern, Western-oriented websites are translated into various major languages in an effort to “reach the world for Jesus.”
  4. Ethnically Aware – (2005 into the future) Indigenous missionaries and experienced Western missionaries combine to do highly contextualized and appropriate websites in their own languages and cultures without any corresponding English language website being established. These websites then link with on-the-ground efforts by those same agencies. The Western missionary may act as a technical and strategic adviser, but the design is done by national Christians who know that culture and its nuances.

The first three phases were good in their time and place but they occurred with little or no reference to modern missiological insights. Internet evangelists and cybermissionaries are beginning to understand the importance of learning language, culture and contextualization. Thus it is this last Ethnically Aware phase that is the true future of cybermissions.