Sunday, April 29th is Internet Evangelism Day (IED). If you’re not familiar with IED, it is a day to bring focus and attention to the vast opportunities to share the good news of Jesus Christ online. It’s also a day for Christians to educate themselves and strategize within their organizations about how they can better share their faith online throughout the year.
You don’t have to be an Internet guru, a Bible scholar, or an evangelist to point people to Christ online. Anyone can do it. That means you. It also means that if you are a leader in a church, youth ministry, Bible college, or other Christian organization, everyone in your organization can point people to Christ online. All they need is a little encouragement and instruction, which you can provide.
Today I want to take just a moment to point you towards some suggested things you can do and tell you what I’ll be doing for IED.
First of all, if you’d like a brief over view of IED, you can read our article from last year about IED.
Second, the IED website has tons of suggestions, resources, and reports from churches and other organizations on what they’ve done in past years. There are print-outs, statistics, video clips, powerpoint presentations, and more. Here are some suggestions for which the IED website has resources available:
- Include an insert in your church bulletin with tips on how to share your faith online and evangelistic websites you can point people to.
- Do a 5 minute drama/skit during Sunday service about Internet evangelism.
- Do a 2-10 minute overview of Internet evangelism during the Sunday service.
- Do a 45-60 minute class or training session during the Bible study hour.
- Announced and organize a web evangelism team for your church.
The possibilities are endless and can be tailored to the needs and constraints of your specific situation.
What am I doing?
Well, I wasn’t planning on doing much other than being an advocate for IED through this blog. Then by coincidence (yeah, right) I got a call from Kay, who has been planning the Wednesday evening services at our church.
Just to give you some background, I’m a member of a seeker-friendly church that does a seeker service on Sunday and a believers service Wed. evenings. For the last two months we’ve been experimenting with electives, where we’ll have two speakers in two different rooms talk about a topic to help inform and spur people on in a particular area of spiritual growth and allow people to choose which they’d prefer to hear.
So, last week Kay called me and told me one of the people slated to speak on the 25th is not able to and asked if I would do it. My first thought, being the ultra-spiritual person I am, is, “There’s no way I’m doing this.” I am totally backlogged and having trouble fulfilling all my work, ministry, and personal responsibilities as it is. So, I asked Kay if I could think and pray about it overnight and give her my decision in the morning. She told me that would be fine and added that I didn’t want to speak on the history of the Bible and would prefer to speak on another topic that would be fine.
Now I was serious when I said I would pray about it. I wasn’t just saying that to avoid saying no. However, I really didn’t expect God to change my mind. But up until my personal time with God the next morning I hadn’t made the connection that IED was only 4 days later. So, God showed me that connection, presented me with an opportunity I wasn’t even looking for, and now here I am with 45 minutes on Wednesday evening to encourage and instruct the people of my church about how to point people to Christ online. How cool is that?
So, how about you and your church? What are you doing for IED? If you haven’t made plans yet, it’s not to late to at the very least include an insert in your church bulletin and take 2 minutes to explain it during the announcements.
18 Comments
I have intrest in the EIV day
This is my first time to learn about IED. Am very excited about it and i pray souls anreachable through other means of evangelism will be reach through this means. please keep me informed.May God bless all those who have been invovled in this good work.
I hope that we can try to reach the lost at any cost.God is faithful by whom we are called if we trust him and never doubt. God bless.
Dan – I would love to hear more about the people you led to Christ online. How did you meet them? How did you share the Gospel with them? Did those who received Christ do so in your first conversation or over a period of time? Did you point people to any online resources or just converse with them in your own words.
It’s good to see so many of you are excited about Internet Evangelism Day. One thing I think it’s important to point out is that just because you have a Christian website does not mean you’re participating in IED.
There is what the IED site calls “the 99% problem.” 99% of Christian sites are created for Christians. Only 1% are to help seekers understand the Gospel message. If you really want to reach spiritual seekers, you have to intentionally design your site to accomodate them and you have to be proactive about engaging them on the non-Christian sites where they hang out.
What have you done to your site specifically to accomodate spiritual seekers? How are you engaging spiritual seekers where they already hang out?
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in which way can become the part of that ev.terms ,how do
“By wisdom a house is built,and through understanding it is established.”So fair and and very good when we can build our home with heavenly Ftahers wisdom and help,I am very sure that they home will stand firm,joy for gospel truth and win the lost men to Christ,pray for blessed revival soon.Thanks and bless.keijo sweden