Over the last 20 weekdays, we’ve read and discussed 20 Ways to Share Your Faith Online. That’s 20 different Internet evangelism ideas written by 16 different bloggers.
I want to take this opportunity to thank some people, ask for your feedback, and talk about one final point – the tipping point for Internet evangelism.
Muchos Gracias!
I want to start by thanking all people who contributed posts to this series: Dan King, Tony Whittaker, Steve Fogg, Dana Byers, Wendy Spoon, Mike Ellis, Brett Borders, Chris walker, Rob Ross, Lois Ridley, Dave Hackett, Nick Runyon, Kevin Hendricks, Dave Bourgeois, and Gordon Marcy.
You guys did a fantastic job and brought to light some very innovative ideas.
Major props to those of you who went the extra step of really engaging with people in this series – responding to comments on your post, commenting on other posts, and sharing the ideas through Twitter & Facebook.
The Tipping Point
Some time within the last year or so, I think we reached a tipping point when it comes to evangelism.
Ideas #2 (Facebook prayer), #4 (Facebook), #9 (Twitter), and #18 (life online) all highlight the exponential growth in the use of social networks. We have reached the point in the Western world where many people spend more time engaging people relationally through social networks than they do offline.
Ideas #4 (Cell phones), #15 (non-western ideas), #16 (unprecedented opportunity), and #17 (online missionary) all highlight the exponential growth in global access to the Internet particularly in countries that are hostile to Christianity and missionaries.
Using the Internet to reach people with the good news of Jesus Christ is no longer an experimental concept that can be left to technology geeks and early adopters. We have reached the tipping point, the point where it is now more practical, effective, and cost-efficient to try to present the gospel to people online than offline.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that we stop sharing our faith offline with our family, friends, neighbors and co-workers.
What it means is that individuals, churches, Bible colleges, seminaries, and missions organizations need to give online evangelism it’s proper priority. Practically speaking, that means allocating more staffing, funding, training, promotion, preaching, and accountability to Internet evangelism.
Agree? Disagree? If you agree, what does that mean for you and your organization?
Takeaways
As we wrap up this series, I want to challenge you to answer two important questions.
1) What did you learn?
2) What are you going to do?
For me, the most important thing I learned was about the opportunity to become an online missionary with Global Media Outreach. And I took action. I filled out the application form to become an online missionary.
The other big learning point was concerning Global Media Outreach’s efforts to partner with local churches. I have not had the opportunity to watch the demo which Gordon Marcy referenced in yesterday’s post, but it’s on my to-do list. And if it looks like a good fit, the next step would be to talk with the senior pastor and the other elders at my church about it.
Series Feedback
Last but not least, I’d love to hear your thoughts about this series. What did you like about it? What could have been done better?
I’ll be honest, that it feels like we lost some momentum around the half way point. The numbers show significantly more tweets and comments during the first half of the series compared with the second half. Was it too long? Did you lost interest? Was doing it every week day too much? What’s your opinion?