Lausanne World Pulse – WORLD PERSPECTIVES – The Twenty-first Century Roman Road–Signposts along the Way

By Tony Whittaker

In New Testament times, the Roman Road system was strategic in God’s plan. It enabled the spread of the gospel throughout the then-known world. In the same way today, the Internet is a worldwide network that can facilitate effective gospel communication.

The Internet Evangelism Day website offers resources for Christians at two levels.

Mainstream Internet usage has been with us for more than ten years. Christians have been quick to use it for communication with other Christians. But relatively few have found ways to effectively reach non-Christians online. Surprisingly few cross-cultural missions are using it for their primary reason of existence. Yet the potential is enormous.

New Annual Focus Day for Churches
The Internet Evangelism Coalition, an umbrella group of major organizations involved in web ministry, has helped initiate an annual worldwide web awareness focus called Internet Evangelism Day to be held this year on 7 May 2006.

The Internet Evangelism Day website offers resources for Christians at two levels.

First, it explains the nature of the web, and the strategies we can use for evangelism. The site showcases examples of effective outreach sites, shares testimonies of people who found God online and tells the stories of Christians who use the web for outreach. There are tips on building a church website to reach out to the local community. One emphasis on the site is that web evangelism is for anyone, not just the technically gifted. The site lists spare-time and full-time web evangelism opportunities, one of which is email mentoring that can be done by nearly everyone: retirees, returned missionaries, mums at home and others. Self-training options are also listed. Because only a few training institutions offer modules in web evangelism, you can also find suggested college curriculum at http://ied.gospelcom.net/training.php.

Second, the website offers downloadable resources for churches, mission teams, conference organizers or Bible colleges to create their own focus day program. This might be anything from a five-minute slot within a church service to a two-hour seminar or anything in between. Ready-made resources include a PowerPoint presentation, video clips, drama sketches, witness-challenge music, posters, handouts and discussion materials. Everything can be customized to suit the individual needs of the participating group. Video clips include five-minute testimonies from two young women who found God online.

Churches who staged an IE Day last year were enthusiastic. “People were challenged and inspired!” wrote a church leader in Australia. “This is a huge help for small churches such as ours,” said a church leader in the United States. Read more stories of how different churches and groups created an IE Day program last year at http://ied.gospelcom.net/examples.php.

The Nature of This New Medium
The web’s explosive growth has been remarkable. In ten short years, as David Hackett points out in another article in this issue, it has jumped from being a minority hobby for computer enthusiasts to a communication medium used by over one billion people worldwide. If this article takes you ten minutes to read, in that time interval 460 people will have used the web for their very first time. The global impact of the Internet and the digital revolution will be as far-reaching as the invention of the printing press.

Tony Whittaker is editor of the Web Evangelism Guide and accompanying twice-monthly newsletter, Web Evangelism Bulletin. He is part of SOON Ministries (a branch of WEC International) which produces outreach literature in English, French, Fula, African-Portuguese and Swahili.