For millions of users, the World Wide Web has turned into a devil’s den packed with urban legends, pop-up porn, Nigerian get-rich schemes and tidal waves of spam pushing medical products that make sailors blush.
That isn’t how the Internet Evangelism Day team sees things. It notes that “over 1 billion people use the Web,” the “Internet is changing the world” and “God is using the Web to transform lives.”
“The Internet has become a 21st century Roman road, marketplace, theater, backyard fence and office drinks machine,” proclaim the site’s Web masters. “Web evangelism gives believers opportunities to reach people with the Gospel right where they are, just as Jesus and Paul did.”
Tech guru George Gilder knows where the Web evangelists are coming from and offers a hearty “Amen.” He remains convinced that cyberspace is territory that religious leaders have to explore and, hopefully, master.
“The Internet is very good for building communities and, obviously, churches are communities. It allows a particularly charismatic, or brilliant, church leader to reach potential followers not only in his community or in his immediate locality, but all across the country and the world,” said Gilder, the author of two trailblazing books –“Microcosm” and “Telecosm.”
I’m the webmaster for my church in Tallahassee. We’re fortunate in that our priests, rightly, are spending their time on ministerial duties, while we’ve been able to form a “web guild” that handles the website. Among other things, we upload our weekly sermons and occassional “teachings” then podcast them. Our priests prepare and deliver their sermons as they always do. The Web Guild does the rest. We’ve already seen evidence of world-wide feedback, just from taking the audio of a regular Sunday morning sermon and podcasting it.
Several examples: A missionary in Japan says we are his only source of Christianity outside his Bible; a teenager in Canada listens to our sermons and even critiques them!; a priest in Uganda listens to our sermons regularly and even requested more “fire and brimstone”; most recently we heard from someone as close as Orlando who listens every week and forwards the link to others and even wants to visit our church if she’s in town.
TMatt raises an interesting question,
[blockquote]”There’s one more tricky issue that must be addressed. Many believers are highly skilled when it comes to talking to and arguing with other members of their own flocks, using a kind of “preaching to the choir” lingo that is mere gibberish to outsiders. The religious corners of the Web are packed with web sites of this kind, which do much to promote insider debates, but little to reach people outside church doors.”[/blockquote]
If you are for example a wavering agnostic or an uncommitted atheist, what would you find on a search engine when you typed in “searching for answers to God, life, and everything?” I just googled this and found at #8 Christopher Hitchens! ( Times Online, 2007 )
#1, I assume you are at St. Peters, and here’s another example: a sermon +Guernsey gave there last year was linked on Stand Firm and I wound up hearing it. Would I have heard it any other way? Highely unlikely.
Thanks, #3. You’re on to me. Here’s our Sermons and Teachings page: [url=http://www.saint-peters.net/sermons]http://www.saint-peters.net/sermons[/url].
Bp. Guernsey had both a sermon and a “teaching” on prayer on December 2, 2007. They can be found at [url=http://www.saint-peters.net/sermons2007]http://www.saint-peters.net/sermons2007[/url]
The internet csannot build a community. First, the members are not who they say they are and no one can know. Second, the internet is ephemeral at its best, it is novelty driven, and knowledge acquired there can never be more than partial or ever trusted.
A real community must be face-to-face, and it must endure in time , space,and values. The internet fills none of these requirements. This notion of community exists because those who push it intend to profit from it and, in all liklihood, never actually lived in a real community, for t here are so few of them left in the real world.
The virtual community is therefore a fraud perpetuated on those who cannot know otherwise. And there are now many of these. Indeed, there are many people who actually trust what they read on Wikipedia, and this gives gullible a new force and meaning. Larry