Digital Evangelism Issues

A questionnaire-based research study into social media evangelism by Christian Vision has just been published. CV’s Andrew Flynn comments, “It basically confirms that Christians are aware of the opportunity to evangelize online but need help in how to – but that they are already a lot more engaged relationally than perhaps we sometimes give credit for.”

View the results including a summary infographic.

This study highlights the need for training sessions – either as regional training days, or as church-based seminars.

In UK, regional training days are being held in various cities. If you are offering such training days in any country, we can add them here.

Ready-made curriculum?

There is also surely a need to create a ready-made social networking curriculum with downloadable materials, that any church or group could adapt and use for their own member training? If you are a church, what would you like such material to cover? If you are involved in social media training, how do you do it? Please add your comments here.

Learn more

Our page on church social networking sums up the potential.

Internet Toolbox for Churches is a remarkable growing resource to help churches understand and use social and digital media with outsiders in mind. Subscribe to the newsletter, listen to the podcasts, and follow Dave on Twitter: @ITDDave.

Helpful imagery for thinking outside the box

In the idiom of this 50-second video-clip, we need to escape the imaginary confines of the jar:

The second largest nation in the world is a rich and wonderful mixture of contrasts. Skim through this very clear slide presentation to see just how far digital penetration is transforming Indian society (based on April 2011 stats).

Similar patterns of digital usage are at varying stages of maturity across the Majority World. These things being so, it is surely a priority of the highest order that agencies and national churches begin to understand and use these immense opportunities.

The range of options is wide – mobile phone sharing, video shorts, social networking, longer films. (See films for Asia produced by Create International.) I have long hoped for believers to build bridge strategy pages about Bollywood films.

Moses Abraham is active in mobile phone evangelism – for example sharing videos with a taxi driver.

Photo credit: Vasant Dave / sxc.hu

Although Internet Evangelism Day is now over, of course any church can create a focus spot about the opportunities.

If you are on Facebook, please share with this one-click link.
and here’s a ready-to-use tweet.

Above all, we’d love to see churches devoting a few minutes to share the practical opportunities that are now available. Here are 14 things your church can do on IE Day.

A changed world
The digital world has changed remarkably in the last year or two. Although a part of Internet Evangelism Day’s emphasis has always been to mobilize individual Christians into digital evangelism, until recently the options we could suggest were quite limited. Writers might be drawn to blogging, or create a website if they felt technically competent. Those good at thinking on their feet could share in chat rooms and bulletin boards. But most of these suggestions were time-intensive and intentional initiatives only suitable for a small minority.

What has changed? The emergence of the ‘three-fold cord’ of social networking allied to video shorts and mobile phones. At last it has become remarkably easy for any Jesus-follower to build relationships and discuss truth appropriately, especially within social networking platforms. Our digital communication culture has become highly visual and dialogue-based, and the sharing of conversation-starting video shorts on Facebook and Twitter is as easy as a mouse-click, though only if we know where to find them:
http://ieday.net/video

Phone apps
There are few smartphone apps that are genuinely aimed at outsiders, that can be shared one-to-one, or in a small discussion group. UK team Damaris has just released a strategic iPhone app called Talking About Jesus (Android version coming soon.)

Informal blog-like article about this app for re-use | News release.

A second new evangelism-related web app is called God’s GPS. Its purpose is to equip Christians to share faith appropriately and conversationally. It is not intended for non-yet-followers to download or look at:
http://ieday.net/blog/archives/7677

Curation
Pinterest.com allows anyone to create a very visual set of curated recommendations, within their own chosen areas of interest, with no tech knowledge needed.
http://ieday.net/blog/archives/6977

In 21st Century evangelism, there are four overarching principles that must inform what we do, worldwide:

1. Think digital
   The vast majority of people are wired – to the web or mobile phones. It is part of their lives. Any form of evangelism or discipleship which does not acknowledge, use or integrate digital into ministry is missing out.

2. Think social
   Digital culture is increasingly social, discussion and relationship based. (And post-Christian/postmodern.) Stop thinking ‘one-way proclamational preaching’ and start thinking ‘two-way dialogue’. And their preferred discussion topics are often their felt needs, popular culture or other interests.

3. Think mobile
   The mobile revolution means that people are connected 24/7, not just when they sit in front of a computer. For many in the Majority World, a mobile is the only electronic equipment they will own or aspire to. The mobile is unlocking opportunities for the good news that would have been impossible until recently.

4. Think storytelling
   The digital age is a storytelling age. Evangelism that does not ‘get’ story is not going to connect well in the 21st century, if ever it did.

   Visual Story Network’s 3-minute video highlights this:

You can download this video for seminars and meetings.

Storytelling is everything

Whatever we wish to communicate, we need story rather than abstract truths. Apologists such as Lee Stobel and Josh McDowell say they now need to embed the truths they communicate within story.

Secular documentary film-makers says the same:

A secular storyteller explains why storytelling is vital:

Jay O’Callahan: The Power of Storytelling from 99% on Vimeo.

Picture credit GregAtkinson.com

Internet Evangelism Day is set for 29 April, as the culmination of Digital Outreach Month.

IE Day is both an annual focus day and year-round resource guide for digital outreach. It has always been our suggestion that churches build a digital evangelism focus into their events or service sheets on (or near) that day. In previous years, although this could be an eye-opening challenge, actual involvement in digital evangelism or ministry was not something that many church members were likely to take up. The options were somewhat limited, time-consuming, and needed technical or writing gifts.

No longer! Social networking enables any online Christian to naturally share resources that explain some aspect of the good news, and start conversations with those they are already linked with. So at last, an IE Day presentation can suggest practical ideas and opportunities that most church members can use right now. There is a hugely significant three-fold intertwined cord of social networking, video shorts and mobile phones.

However, we must understand the nature of social networking to use it effectively. If we think of it as one-way publicity, we are will be ineffective and irritating. Social networking is people and two-way relationships. Think ‘cafe’, not ‘pulpit’.

14 digital ideas to share with your church on IE Day

1. Announce or publish a short item about IE Day in newsletters/service sheets.
2. Download and project a short testimony demonstrating the effectiveness of the Web for outreach, eg. Kimberley’s Story | more videos.
3. Download and project a video about social networking evangelism on Facebook, and consider also this dramatic overview of the current state of social networking.
4. Demonstrate live on screen how to post video clips from eg. YesHEIs.com | GlobalShortFilmNetwork.com | Focus.org.uk directly into a Facebook page.
5. Showcase live the new Talking About Jesus iPhone app (you can plug an audio jack into the phone for a clear audio feed) and discuss/demonstrate other ways that mobile phones can be used to share the good news.
6. Start a discussion on whether your church could appoint a Digital Advocate to resource the fellowship, if you do not already have someone fulfilling this role.
7. Recognize and honor any in your fellowship who are already involved in some area of digital ministry, including the church website, and ask them to share their stories. Pray for them publicly.
8. Project a live online demonstration of using a Pinterest account and add content to it including appropriate evangelistic/conversation-starting material.
9. Encourage small home-groups to discuss and investigate various digital evangelism opportunities.
10. Suggest to the youth group the possibility of creating some evangelistic YouTube shorts.
11. Tell your church about IE Day’s free ebooks and key book recommendations.
12. If you only have time for a 5-10 minute spot using one or two of the above suggestions, consider regular brief spots on different days. Or even create an entire service or meeting around digital evangelism, and integrate some music and a short drama.
13. Encourage the leadership team to consider digital outreach initiatives that might be implemented this year, such as using social media to connect the fellowship with the community, and testing the outsider-friendliness of the church website.
14. If you have never done this, consider explaining the crucial issue of how members can stay safe and accountable online, and also highlight protection software for children. And why not create a few ongoing classes on how to use some of these 14 options, or even some basic web training for online newcomers?

March 13 sees the publication of a very significant book, available in paperback and Kindle:

Viral: How Social Networking Is Poised to Ignite Revival
Len Sweet
Waterbrook Press
229 pages paperback
ISBN 978-0-307-45915-2

What’s it about?

About 10-15 years ago, you and I were relocated from our comfortable familiar home to a new land. Not necessarily unwillingly, like the Jewish exiles taken to Babylon. Not necessarily a worse new homeland. Some of us ran ahead. But others left trails of a resistant struggle. A few may have barely noticed they’ve been moved at all.

It was … the huge move from print communication culture to digital. Len Sweet styles those of us who grew up in a print culture as ‘Gutenbergers’, and those who grew up in, or have whole-heartedly adopted digital, as ‘Googlers’. It’s an apt and helpful simplification for a social revolution as far-reaching as Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press.

His book is probably the best and most insightful explanation of these two communication cultures, the tension between them, and the huge implications for Christians, the church and especially the retelling of the good news. We just cannot continue doing the stuff we used to do, because it won’t work any more. So this book really is mission critical.

And – there’s a clue in the title – he believes that online relationships and social networking can share the good news powerfully in ways there were never possible before. It is likely to be the most significant book on digital ministry to be published all year.

For this reason, it is the chosen book recommendation for Digital Outreach Month.

You can preview 22 pages of the book below, using the arrows at the bottom right of the frame below:

One of the most significant digital evangelism initiatives of 2011 was the release of YesHEIs.com. The team recently released this Our Chance video to highlight social media opportunities that YesHEIs gives. You can easily download this video to show in church meetings or seminars.

See more on using Facebook and other blog posts about social networking.

Where to find video clips to share

As well as YesHEIs.com you can find sharable conversation-starting video clips at God: New Evidence, Global Short Film Network, and Damaris Culturewatch.

These videos can be shared with one click onto Facebook and other networking accounts, into Pinterest, or embedded in blogs and websites, or Tweeted. They can often be easily downloaded onto a smartphone to share face-to-face.

Dizzying stats about the extent of social media usage. And a few figures are already out of date: YouTube now uploads 48 hours of video per minute, and delivers 3.5 billion daily views!

Video can be easily downloaded for seminars etc.

Many people spend the majority of their online time within Facebook. It is truly a ‘web within the web’. as this short story illustrates. But how do they precisely use their time on Facebook?

Jess3 Media has created this infographic to draw it all together and Mashable has commented on these figures:

Facebook has become THE way to sensitively share the good news in a conversational dialogue with those who want to opt-in and engage, across pre-existing relationships. This includes using the ready-made one-click links to post video shorts from YesHEIs.com in multiple languages.

Check our other blog posts about Facebook.

Interesting world map compares population with IP addresses (click to see full size):

Check also the world map showing Facebook friendship pairs, which points up the huge potential for relationships and networking. Read more about map production and implications. Click map below for full-size graphic.

See a map of the world on the World Christians blog with country areas modified in proportion to population.

Finally, by the end of October, a baby will be born who will make up the numbers of humans on earth to 7 billion. Check the countdown, and other stat tickers, at Worldometers.