Digital Evangelism Issues

Interesting to notice that commercial companies (including new film releases) are now featuring Facebook Fan Page URLs in their TV commercials. Rather than initially point to their website, they use their Fan Page as a landing page which then links directly to their main site. The advantage is that people may become fans, thereby:

• opting in automatically to further news
• displaying to their friends the Fan Page link and its posts
• enabling discussion about the product or service featured in the Fan Page

Fan Page (and Facebook Groups) are highly strategic opportunities, either to make known your ministry to other Christians, or to creatively connect with not-yet-Christians. And, starting today, Facebook are introducing a new Community Page option, and they advised that Fan Pages would no longer be chosen by a ‘Like’ button (details) though within minutes they restored the ‘Become a fan’ button. (Hey, would you like to click the ‘Like’ or ‘Become a fan’ button on our IE Day fan page.) These could be very strategic. Read more on sharing the good news with outsiders on Facebook.

Other social networking news

May 15 sees a live webinar from Tony Steward: Social Media: Is it worth it?
. (11.00am US Eastern Daylight Time/ 15.00 GMT)

GMO has a webinar on 21 April: The Internet’s Effect on Online Missions. (10.00am PDT/18.00 GMT)

Seems there’s barely room for more than one main networking site. Bebo is up for sale, and most unlikely to survive.

For lots of helpful news and ideas on social media, check Mashable.com. Learn more about Facebook privacy settings and other safety issues.

No-fly zone

On a different and personal note, what a difference a week makes. If a few days back, someone had predicted a Europe-wide no-fly zone unrelated to terrorism, they would have been ridiculed. Yet now, almost everyone in UK knows someone who is stranded abroad or unable to travel. My sister-in-law is unlikely to have an easy return from Iran at the end of the week. (Three weeks earlier, and I could have been stranded in Lithuania – though my £5/$8 online travel insurance could have helped to get me back by rail.) How conditional all our plans should be (James 4:13-16)!

On the positive side, we are enjoying the sort of outdoor peace unknown since the 50s. Although not quite under the main flight path, I live near enough to UK’s largest air-freight depot to be occasionally woken at night by some aged and very noisy freighter. The millions of people living under the Heathrow flight-path are currently experiencing sheer bliss, with unbroken sleep at night and the sound of birds and bees in the day. This will be surely the final nail in the coffin for the projected third runway at Heathrow, already virtually dead in the water due to public opinion and legal challenges. It will strengthen the case for building greener high-speed rail links, and will also highlight the vision of a new London airport built on reclaimed land within the Thames estuary. In a future more enlightened age, perhaps we will realise how barbaric it was to damage the physical and mental health of millions of people through incessant jet noise.

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