Sharing the Gospel and Building Christian Community Online

Sharing Good News Online

The Casual Christian is an online publication designed to share the gospel and build community within the body of Christ by bringing the truth of God to bear on contemporary issues and interests. It employs a number of tools designed to maximize personal contact through the ‘pull’ capabilities of the Internet (i.e. drawing the reader in by appealing to his interests rather than pushing a message out), thus developing deep, personal connections with readers. The format is a periodic electronic newsletter that employs the following features, among others:

Interview
(Going God’s Way)
A question and answer session with a member of the church who has an interesting story to tell about God’s work in his/her life. This may be the leader of some ministry, a new member who has just joined the congregation, someone who experienced God’s saving or sanctifying grace in some way, etc. This should always be the first page and contain a photograph because it will give a personal ‘face’ to the church, making it more appealing to those unfamiliar with the church.

Gospel Presentation
(Now Try God)
There are a number of gospel presentations available online that can be rotated. They should present the gospel in clear, understandable language with no religious jargon and preferably provide the ability to make direct contact with the enquirer. Examples:

Photoshows

Capture special occasions with photoshows - montages of especially captivating and engaging images that portray a warm, open church body. Focus on the expressions on people's faces with special emphasis on their eyes. Keep the mood light and unposed.Try to create a sense of connection with your viewers by showing people in unguarded moments. Then share these images on your website with people who are looking for a church home that is open and receptive to all kinds of people.

Issues and Answers

(Does God Really Love You?)
This feature will draw primarily on material from TroubledWith.com by Focus on the Family, Crosswalk Channels by Campus Crusade for Christ, and specialty sites from Truthmedia.com . A provocative question related to some difficult issue will be linked to the corresponding counseling piece online. Another excellent online resource for answers to common objections to the faith is All About God. This web site is devoted exclusively to apologetics, i.e. reasoned arguments for the truth of the Bible. If you would like to provide your readers the opportunity to send personalized messages on some of these same subjects to others, you can get E-tracts from the American Bible Society.

Movie Reviews

Focus on the Family produces a newsletter called Plugged In that reviews movies from a Christian perspective. Campus Crusade has a Movie Review feature on their Crosswalk site. Including a link to this site in your newsletter would give church members the ability to send reviews on popular movies to their non-believing friends and perhaps get them interested in some of the other features of your newsletter at the same time.

Photo Gallery

Give your church a personal face with photos of your members interacting in informal ways with one another. Include special occasions like church picnics, service projects, families, young people, children and the elderly. Use lots of close ups with expressions that captivate, arouse curiosity, inspire amusement, and show the personalities of your subjects. Stay away from shots of facilities, large group meetings, and formal settings like worship services, baptisms and confirmations.

Ask The Pastor

This piece will feature an answer from the Pastor to a question posed by either a member of the congregation or other newsletter reader. It will focus on some issue related to contemporary culture, moral or social concerns, the Christian faith, some difficult portion of scripture, or perhaps some personal struggle. Readers will have freedom to submit whatever question they like and the Pastor will choose the one he feels is most relevant, difficult, or frequently experienced. The answers should bring scriptural teaching to bear on commonly experienced issues using plain speech comprehensible to someone with no church background. See Ask Ron for an example.

Guest Book

Give your visitors an opportunity to get to know you by providing a guestbook where they can share their comments and tell you how they found you and how you can get in touch with them.

Family Forum

This bulletin board provides networking opportunities for readers for the purpose of providing mutual assistance, encouragement and even practical tips. It will be wide open as far as topics are concerned so long as the purpose is constructive. The hope is that needs will be revealed that would not otherwise be uncovered and others will lend a hand, provide referrals or even form new ministries if the need is large enough. A very inexpensive option is Groupsite.com . A much more robust but very expensive option is Yourmembership.com

Training

The Internet Evangelism Coalition publishes a free newsletter containing articles on how to do online evangelism in a contemporary, relevant fashion. Not only do you get good advice, but IEC will help provide resources that will make your newsletter interesting, provocative and compelling. For examples, see Online Training for Online Evangelists .

Truth Media has a variety of training videos for doing web evangelism, a number of chat rooms for talking about important life issues, and several bridge sites that present answers to life’s challenges from a Christian perspective.

Tell Your Story

Readers will be able to submit articles for the newsletter here. These will include items designed to reach out to unsaved friends and neighbors such as personal testimonies written in plain language (no church-speak), book reviews or movie reviews that provide a Christian perspective on some aspect of contemporary culture, or, depending on how creative the reader, perhaps even a poem or short story that reflects on God’s character as revealed in everyday experiences. They will also be able to submit questions for Ask the Pastor .

Surveys

Socrates once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Unfortunately, few churches take the time and make the effort to examine the effectiveness of their ministries. Surveys provide a neutral medium for measuring response to your ministries. Do newcomers feel welcome? What is the level of receptiveness to the gospel message? Who are your users? What are their interests, concerns and motivations? We provide a simple tool for building surveys and a console for monitoring responses.

Mini Polls

One question polls with yes/no answers on issues pertaining to how seekers perceive Christians and Christianity and how believers practice their faith. Available from Bravenet.com .

Questions and Comments :

More extensive questionnaires that seek to determine the level of spiritual understanding of readers and how to connect with them better on a personal level, get their input on how to make ministry more effective, or get a consensus of feeling on important decisions.