Internet Evangelism
My Blogrodent buddy, Rich Tatum, blogged about the subject of Internet Evangelism today. The subject came up as a result of Frank N. Johnson’s post on GospelCom’s GospelCon blog: “Flawed Follow-Up or a Flawed Philosophy of Evangelism?”
Rich and I have a rather unique perspective on the topic of Internet evangelism: he led me to the Lord online. I was a witch at the time, very dedicated to what I thought were gods, with zero plans of ever changing. I had two dreams, the second of which left me shattered and having to come to some sort of conclusion about who Jesus was. If I’d tried to ignore Him, I think I might have gone mad. Yet I wasn’t going to lay it all down without some sort of proof. I trusted no Christian at that time, so I couldn’t ask anyone. I knew the Bible said stuff about God, but I’d been taught my whole life that it was not trustworthy. So I asked God Himself to show me that He was real, and I asked Him to do so in a very specific way. He responded by sending Rich my way - first to answer that prayer in a way far more specific than I could ever have imagined, then to show me the way to Jesus. Every time I write or talk about it, I’m moved to tears.
Since then, I’ve gained a lot of experience with Internet evangelism - the staff at ExWitch successfully used a message board for six years for that purpose. Ancient Crossroads is another excellent model of using forum posts, emails and IM’s to witness and encourage. Both sites actively encourage people to find a supportive local fellowship of believers for ongoing discipling, but recognize that having an online component (especially for people with unique backgrounds, such as leaving the occult) can fill in gaps that local churches are hard-pressed to provide.
I don’t think that Internet evangelism should ever replace the face to face sort; Jesus said for us to go and make disciples and we should use every opportunity to do so, any time someone’s available to talk to. Maybe if we start looking at all our interactions with other people as “divine opportunities”, more people would come to know Jesus.
April 6th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Good comments, and thanks for the link, Kathi!
I agree, mediated (non-f2f) evangelism can never really replace face-to-face evangelism. In fact, I’m not sure it could be called evangelism, really. It may be “defending the gospel” (apologetics) or planting seeds, or such, but until a mediated relationship becomes something of a real relationship — even if virtual — it’s not much different than just writing, say, books.
And who ever called authors “evangelists?” Aside from the Gospel-writers, that is. Until mediated communications rise to the level of real and actual dialog, it’s just … writing.
Of course, we should take great care what we write, and we should recognize that our writing reflects what’s inside as much as what we say does. I think there’s a lot of room for improvement in this area for many Christians, but then, there’s a lot of room for improvement for most people in the realm of literacy.
Okay. I’m officially rambling now. Thanks, again, for the link-love!
Rich.
BlogRodent
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:10 am
[...] Sharpe wrote a post on Internet Evangelism. To give you a little background to my own connection here, I used to (I was going to say [...]