For more interative maps from Charts Bin on a range of statistical developments, including web users, mobile subscribers, and many social trends.

For a graphic of piecharts showing mobile use in various categories, view The Size of the Mobile Market, and see a world map of mobile browser use. These graphic are too small to read, unless you can use your browser’s zoom feature (CTRL ++) to increase their size.

Watch the story of how people use the Web today:

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

Share this on your Facebook page

The adverts are based on the fictional supposition that many people are mistakenly going to his dating website ComparetheMeerkat.com looking for insurance advice and he wishes to correct this stupid error and point them to the real ComparetheMarket.com site. He signs off from his corrective advice with the word simples, which has already entered British English as a witticism. There is even a back story – how his ancestors fought against enormous odds to reach Russia. The concept is sheer creative genius.

The company has been wise enough to create various spin-off clips, imagined interviews with Alexandr, a Facebook fan page (700,000 fans!), Twitter feed, etc. Drill into the spoof meerkat site for a number of videos, including supposed out-takes from filming, which you can also find at Youtube, along with tribute clips. Aleksandr has a considerable cult following online.

Why do you think this campaign is so effective? Can we learn anything from it for creative communication and effective evangelism? Add your comments below. (If you want to know more about God’s good news, visit PowertoChange.com.)

Share this on your Facebook page

“… helps you connect and share with the people in your life”.

For many people, it’s the site they use above any other.

Yes, it has its quirky and counter-intuitive features, things you wish you could add to your page but can’t, a sometimes complex way of adding applications, changing your menu items, etc. But as a way of connecting with people – the almost 400 million with Facebook accounts – it is remarkably powerful. It has been translated into over 100 languages: overall usage figures | facts and figures | users by country 2009 | more detailed 2009 demographics slideshow | history. To set this in context, if we exclude China where FB is banned, 30% of web users around the world are on Facebook.

And you can leverage its effectiveness by posting conversation-starting video-clips or other links. (To add a YouTube clip, just copy/paste the YouTube URL for the video in the same way as adding a normal link, and Facebook creates a clickable thumbnail of the video.) A very significant comparison chart posted by Digital Fingerprint shows that there has been a switch in the last two years from creating content to discussing third-party content on social network sites. This ‘Change in Engagement’ suggests that networking people want to chat about things! Very few people use chat rooms these days, and it is more satisfying to discuss issues with those you have some relationship with.

There are many different ways to share the good news in Facebook. Here are some thoughts:

• First, take time to understand how Facebook really works. Read various online training pages, eg time-wasters to avoid | privacy settings
• Be aware that you cannot send many ‘cold call’ messages to people who are not your friends – this is not an ideal route to try and is treated as spam. Facebook has a very low daily limit for these messages, as it does for the number of people you can ask to be your friend.
• Facebook Fan pages have potential too, as they link people around a shared interest.
• You can integrate blog posts (yours or other people’s) directly into Facebook if the blog is first registered at NetworkedBlogs.com. But don’t use blogs that are written entirely for Christians, they are unlikely to be of interest to anyone else.
• There are vast numbers of ‘applications’ to add to Facebook, eg a book recommendation tab.
• If you are much involved in church leadership and have many ministry leaders as friends, you will probably need a separate Facebook page to do evangelism, using a name variant or nickname. Their postings and concerns will not relate to, and perhaps repel, non-yet-Christians. This applies even more if you are a cross-cultural mission person and want to reach out to various ethnic groups within Facebook – for which it is an incredible yet barely used opportunity.
• On a FB profile for not-yet-believers to view, be very careful how you describe yourself. Do not, ever, enter anything in the space for political views, because whatever they are, they will be a stumbling block for the many who happen to hold a different view. Consider describing your religious views as, for instance, ‘Jesus follower’, which bypasses the increasingly negative baggage associated with the word ‘Christian’.
• Use integrity. Don’t treat people as ‘gospel fodder’. Build real unconditional relationships with respect and tolerance. It’s dialogue, not preaching.
• Facebook also offers an opportunity for churches to use social networking. However, as Church Crunch explains, social networking is
  a conversation, not a destination.

This year’s Online Missions Trip has just finished. Here is Tim Schmoyer explaining how it worked, with large numbers of youth group members becoming involved in the intentional use of Facebook and other social media:

Paul Watson, of Reaching the Online Generation, is offering a web evangelism online summer missions training program which will major on using social media:

There are a growing number of conferences which include training in web evangelism, and various training videos, though we have none posted on social media evangelism yet. If you have good ones to recommend, please use the ‘comment’ link below.

Share this on your Facebook page

Try Google Insights for Search. Steve explains at Communicate Jesus just how strategic this tool is.

You can check how people have been searching over past days or years. For instance, look at a search for meaning of Christmas. Then check which country searched most for this – and surprisingly it is Philippines. What this tool does not appear to show is actual numbers of searches.To find these, use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Or you can find out, for instance, what was on the collective heart of China last week, or Poland last year.

These tools give us ways to find bridge topics and areas of common interest for evangelism, both offline and offline. How could these tools help you – add your comment below?

Share this on your Facebook page

“Toto, I have the feeling we are not in Kansas any more”
- Dorothy, in Wizard of Oz

In a rapidly changing world, we need to make frequent conceptual leaps for effective ministry.

A few years back, a European manufacturer of industrial drilling machines was suffering badly with competition from products manufactured in the Far East. Wisely, they called in consultants to help them see a way forward. “So, how would you describe your business,” asked the consultants. “Well, we sell drilling machines, of course,” they replied. “Well, actually, you don’t,” said the consultants. “You enable people to make holes.” This new way of perceiving their role led them to switch to making laser-equipment for cutting holes, with renewed business success.

Lateral thinking is so often a key to success. For instance, food-processing engineers were trying to create a machine that could crack nuts. Problem was to adjust the squeeze according to the exact size of the nut and the strength of its shell. Unless they could precisely calibrate the exact pressure needed for each nut, many were damaged. As so often, the answer was completely different: put the nuts in a vacuum and the shells would just burst off with zero damage or loss. Here’s another example of lateral thnking – The Tale of Two Pebbles.

Often, what we believe to be our goals are in fact merely strategies. We can change strategies radically in order to reach the same ultimate goals, as this cartoon demonstrates:

The world is changing faster than ever. Those of us born in the 50s, 60s and 70s grew up in the tailend of the ‘print communication culture’ that had been launched by Gutenberg’s printing press; and before postmodernism had changed public understanding of ‘truth’ from absolute and universal to relative and personal.

Wired up differently

The brains of people brought up in an oral culture, a print culture or the new digital culture are actually wired up differently. They process information differently. They perceive the world differently. Visual story is becoming integral to effective communication in this new cultural environment. Digital communication culture in fact has much in common with oral communication.

Story is everything, as Daniel Taylor explains in this short video. (View more videos from Professor Taylor, including a longer presentation at the Desiring God conference.)

Even those gifted with an evangelistic apologetics ministry, such as Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel, claim that they must now embed their apologetics material within personal story in order to get a hearing. Does this not sound faintly familiar? Jesus’ primary means of spoken communication to the ‘unchurched’ was to embed truth within visual story (’visual’ in the sense that he painted pictures in words). And, of course, this was in the context of hanging out with people socially. All. The. Time. (See Luke 15:2, Matthew 9:11, Mark 2:16 and John Piper’s comments.) He was building relationships and meeting felt needs.

The question should no longer even be, “How can I embed some short illustrations into my presentation of propositional truths?” but “How can I embed essential truth into a memorable visual story?”

One increasingly strategic way of telling a visual story is a the video short. And it no longer needs expensive equipment and lots of training, as this useful presentation explains:

Traditional story-telling has become a popular movement in many countries. A local festival in our county town always has a story-telling tent, where amateur story-tellers can hold me spell-bound for hours: just the tradional folk story genre we knew as kids.

Our stories can be positioned according to the spiritual awareness of the listeners on the Gray Matrix. There is special value in creating stories that start people thinking and asking questions: check some amazing video shorts. These have growing evangelistic value, not only as embeds in websites and blogs, but also installed on mobile phones.

Share this on your Facebook page

The Joshua Project has expressed progress in world evangelism using a Global Progress Scale. Different colors represent evangelism status.

It would be interesting to create an overlay for this map showing digital penetration in the red (unreached) areas, because many of these have medium to high use of the Web and/or mobile phone ownership:

• web usage stats
• mobile penetration data

This detailed analysis by Ugandan evangelist Kato Mivule demonstrates the current usefulness and growing importance of mobile communication in Africa.

Mobiles are equally strategic in technologically-advanced countries such as Japan, where more web access and emailing is done by mobile phone than fixed computer. There is a growing trend in Africa to use mobiles for web access, because of the shortage of fixed phone-lines.

• Mobiles and email in Japan
• Report from Morgan Stanley predicts that soon, there will be twice as much mobile web access as using fixed computers.

This YouTube presentation explains the opportunities that mobiles offer to missions and evangelists in the non-West (slight sound problem on part of video, to be soon corrected):

Watch a rather long (45-min) secular vox-pop documentary on mobile use in Zanzibar, with introductory article.

As Greg Atkinson has observed, “Think global and mobile.” If you are interested in these possibilities, join Visual Story Network, follow Mobile Ministry Magazine and check our resources about mobiles. We trust that the strategic Lausanne Conference later this year will give full weight to these incredible opportunities.

If your mobile phone will support video clips, store a portfolio of ‘conversation starter’ clips such as these, that you can share when you have the opportunity. (There are many easy ways to download YouTube videos onto your own computer or phone.)

If you have stories to share of effective mobile opportunities, please use the comment link below.

Share this on your Facebook page

Dr Bex Lewis has produced a valuable overview of social networking (she has called it elseshere a ‘cheat sheet’) on her blog Digital Fingerprint. Check out the rest of the blog for many insights into the nature of social networking,

What is appropriate use of social media? What is just plain bad manners – and therefore counter-productive in Christian ministry? Author and social networking expert Tamar Weinberg explains.

Mikey Lynch highlights the importance of your Facebook page not being ‘too Christianized’ if you want it to relate properly to non-Christians. For the same reason, he has two blogs – one with Christian perspectives for a Christian readership, and a second one for not-yet-Christians.

There is a case for also having two Facebook pages. Many of us in ministry have Facebook sites plastered with ministry connections and content, totally unsuitable and off-putting for others to connect with.

Check our guide on using Twitter for evangelism and previous posts on social networking.

Book suggestions:

• Social by Social FREE secular e-book about social networking
• The New Community Rules – valuable secular overview by Tamar Weinberg
• Facebook for Pastors – FREE e-book by Chris Forbes
• Church of Facebook by Jesse Rice – a valuable explanation of how people relate and communicate online

Share this on your Facebook page

Then check the excellent new video resources from Global Short Film Network. These take the same approach – thought-provoking, question-starting video shorts. They are for sale at minimal cost, with free offers. Soon, they will be available for embedding; bookmark this site and use these incredible outreach resources.

Why are these videos so strategic? And biblical? Will you ever forget the storyline of Alma? What lessons did it smuggle into your heart? What dangers might you be more alive to, as a result? (Add your comments below.)

A story becomes a parable, or provides a parallel, only when we provide an appropriate “this is like”. The stories that Jesus told were very culturally appropriate, but without His “this is like”, they would have remained just whimsical stories, with the embedded meanings un-noticed. With that connection, they were his main means of evangelism to the ‘un-churched’ non-synagogue goers.

That’s the power of story.

Share this on your Facebook page
‘

“The last 15 years have changed our world for ever,” claims Tony Whittaker, co-ordinator of Internet Evangelism Day. “Digital media are transforming the way we communicate, behave and even think. If Facebook was a country, it would have the fourth largest population in the world.”

Internet Evangelism Day is a strategic resource to help the worldwide church understand these issues and use the Web to share the good news. It is both a year-round online guide and an annual focus day – to be held this year on Sunday 25 April.

Churches are encouraged to use Internet Evangelism Day resources to create a presentation for their members on or near that Sunday (or at any other time they choose). The IE Day site offers free downloads: PowerPoint, video clips, handouts, drama scripts, music and posters. These enable any church (or homegroup, college, or conference) to build a customized program, lasting from five minutes to fifty.

2010’s focus day will be the sixth to be used by churches around the world since the initiative’s launch in 2005. Over this period, digital media have developed dramatically, with the advent of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and the growing use of mobile phones to access online services. The outreach opportunities have multiplied too.

IE Day’s website is also a one-stop resource covering many subjects, including how to build a church website that is ‘outsider friendly’, using Twitter in evangelism, and blogging. Perhaps surprisingly, you do not need to be technical to share your faith online. There are also many opportunities to volunteer as an email mentor to inquirers with several large online outreach ministries.

Internet Evangelism Day is an initiative of the Internet Evangelism Coalition, based at the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton. It is supported by a wide range of leaders and groups. “I am glad to commend Internet Evangelism Day,” says John Stott.

For more help, visit the website:
www.InternetEvangelismDay.com

Online resources roundup
Internet Evangelism Day online resources include:

• A new guide on how to avoid ‘Christianese’ jargon:
  www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/christianese
• Desperately Seeking Lodgers’ – a short story illustrating the pitfalls of church websites: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/church-evangelism
• Self-assessment questionnaire for church websites with free personalized report: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/design
• How to use popular culture as a starting point in evangelism: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/popular-culture
• Speaker panel offers a range of speakers qualified to address college students, seminars and conferences: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/speaker
• Digital Evangelism Issues – the blog for IE Day:
  www.internetevangelismday.com/blog

All IE Day’s resource articles and blog postings are free to reproduce online and in print.

IE Day is an initiative of the Internet Evangelism Coalition, an umbrella group of online ministries based at the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton. It is completely free and has no fund-raising component.

This news release is also available online in Word format: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/latestnews
Royalty-free photos to accompany any story relating to IE Day: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/photos
Interviews available: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/publicity
More article ideas: www.InternetEvangelismDay.com/free-articles

Share this on your Facebook page

Probably the most important trends in the context of evangelism and ministry are those that already have enormous momentum:

• the growth of mobile phone use (often with web access) especially in the non-Western world. (Africa has more mobile users than any other continent.) Read more.
• Facebook and other social networking sites. If Facebook was a country, it would the fourth largest in the world. Many web users spend the majority of their time on Facebook as a one-stop connection point with friends and family. Social networking sites are hugely popular outside the West. Read more.
• Twitter is everywhere. People love it. Read more.
• Visual story is a key part of our digital communication culture, including the short video clip on YouTube and embedded into blogs and other web sites. Read more.

Looking back at 2009, these were the top 12 of our blog posts:

1. A Thousand Questions video download
2. New research study on church websites
3. The Michael Jackson phenomenon
4. Grab the attention of passers-by
5. YouTube embedded clips on your site
6. Free e-book: Social by Social
7. Free stuff for editors and webmasters
8. De-evangelizing – and what one church did about it
9. Illusion with a message
10. Thinking outside the box
11. Make your own cartoon story
12. Internet usage worldwide and the opportunities for missions

Best blogs

Also turn your eyes to the right of this page. Our ‘blog roll’ is not a list of links to blogs who may have linked to this one. It is a carefully chosen selection of some of the most insightful and strategic blogs available, in the area of digital media, evangelism, and church ministry.

The beauty of blogs like these is that we can connect with the minds of some of the world’s most foremost thinkers in these areas, and consider challenging questions as well as read feedback and dialogue with others.

Hover links to see a preview of their latest posting. Consider using a blog reader such as Google Reader so that you can view all the blogs you wish to follow, in one place.

Share this on your Facebook page