Baltimore-Washington-Northern Virginia Bloggers Meetup scheduled for Thursday evening, March 31st, 2005, in Laurel, Maryland. Jollyblogger and Pruitt are pulling it together. More >>

GodBlogCon 2005 has announced its dates and location: Thursday, October 13 to Saturday, October 15, at Biola University in Southern California. GodBlogCon is the first ever Christian Blogosphere Convention. Stay tuned at SmartChristian.com for more details.

Www.kalosive.com is the website for MyVerses -- "your digital assistant for successful Scripture memorization and meditation." This shareware can be installed into your Palm OS (4.0 or greater) personal digital assistant (PDA) so you can take Scripture verses with you more conveniently than those little cards. Interactive learning tools like scheduling and reporting keep you on pace to hide the Word of God in your heart and mind.

Granted, this isn't an online ministry per se (however, it is using the Web to distribute software), but it is great use of personal technology!

HolyStory.com produces interactive stories from the Bible presented in a friendly way, using cartoon clips and voice. With so many websites designed for an adult audience, it's good to find that there are some that encourage children to learn the Bible online. 

d/votional project is an online, multimedia celebration of Christian youth in the 21st century. The website's tagline is "hope for a digital generation", launched in June 2001. (Macromedia Flash required.)

This Christian Post article, Saddleback Church Launches Website to Support AIDS Initiative, describes the launch of a new website and initiative:

The 22,000-member Saddleback mega church in Lake Forest, California, launched a website earlier this month as part of an initiative to support church-to-church relief, aid and training. The website, www.acts-of-mercy.com, currently includes suggested resources, links, and an invitation to a HIV Awareness Conference at Saddleback Church slated for November 28-30, 2005.

Read the full article online. Also see the PEACE plan drafted by Rick and Kay Warren. (Rick Warren was recently featured as one of American's most influential evangelicals in Time Magazine.)

Be a part of a Lenten Chat Room on Tuesdays during Lent at 10:00 p.m. CST (11:00pm Eastern / 8:00pm Pacific). The weekly chat is titled Conversation on Spiritual Practices, led by Pastor Jay Voorhees of Antioch United Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. (to join the free chat, click on "the conference room" button on the right of the church home page.)

While many have Bibles to read and study, many around the world do not. Two ways you can help online, to give a Bible to someone who needs one: FreeBibles.net will mail a new or gently-used Holy Bible free to anyone who cannot afford one anywhere in the world. Since 1816, American Bible Society has been sharing Scriptures with people in the United States and around the world. American Bible Society is celebrating 2005 as the Year of the Gospel. Share the Good News with someone who wants to hear!

Everystudent.com is an online outreach of Campus Crusade for Christ International. A college newspaper article titled "Campus Christian organization spreads news about Web site" described some of the student-led effort to get the word out about this website. Excerpts below: "A team of students from Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) recently blanketed the IUP campus with posters, postcards, lollipops and cups of hot chocolate during a five-day advertising blitz of their new campaign promoting Everystudent.com."

"Everystudent.com contains explanations on the existence of God, the life of Jesus, "enigmas" of life such as why suffering and death exist and other "life issues," such as intimacy, divorce, binge drinking, eating disorders and racism. From Jan. 24 to 28, a team of Cru students worked to reach as many students as possible with a budget of about $500, donated mostly from local churches. Advertisements ran in The Penn and several students changed their picture on thefacebook (www.thefacebook.com) to the Everystudent.com campaign design."

Read the full article online. Some great ideas for encouraging people to check out your website using a small budget and sweat equity!

www.jesuskeeps.com is an online mission to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Dozens of articles introduce its website visitors to various aspects of the Christian faith, along with an invitation to visit Bible Study Chapel in the Indianapolis, Indiana. This is a simple effort with a compelling opening photo image.

American Bible Society's website recently launched a new redesign (or had a makeover, to use a more popular term). The new design incorporates Macromedia Flash objects to rotate images and messages, and provides easier access to email devotionals and other great features.

Compare and contrast with its previous design, which can be viewed at archive.org, where many Internet websites are archived, even back to 1996. [full disclosure: ForMinistry.com (and this eQuip blog) is part of an Internet ministry of American Bible Society]

John Mark Ministries is a popular website in Australia that serves pastors and ministry leaders around the world, with over 14,000 articles. John Mark Ministries recorded over one million hits in December 2004, according to this press release, excerpted below:

"Visitors to the John Mark Ministries web site during November 2004 recorded over one million hits. 'This may be a record for a non-denominational Christian website outside the U.S.,' director Rev. Dr. Rowland Croucher said today.

Last month there were nearly 70,000 unique visitors making over 92,000 visits, viewing 208,000 pages, and scoring 1,204,762 hits. 'And those visitors,' added Rowland, 'came from every country with internet facilities, including many "closed" to Western missionaries.'

John Mark Ministries began in 1991, to encourage pastors, ex-pastors, church leaders and their spouses. 'Our research found that there were 10,000 ex-pastors in Australia alone, and there was no cross-denominational ministry anywhere at that time to help them. "

www.WorldMethodistPrayerTeam.net is not only the website of The World Methodist Prayer Team, it is a prayer Web portal that allows visitors to join in prayer, submit prayer requests, write a journal, and read praise reports. The website provides a powerful virtual prayer room: start a prayer session to view a prayer request, one at a time, allowing you to pray at your own pace, and then move on to the next request. Prayer knows no boundaries!

Christian Post reported in this article, IBS Teams with Christian Leaders and Churches in Colorado for Massive Scripture Distribution, that International Bible Society and church leaders in the Colorado Springs, Colorado, distributed about 100,000 New Testaments to households, along side of their local newspaper. The associated website, www.coloradospringsbible.org, offers a great way for new Bible recipients to respond, including information about their city, stories of changed lives, answers to Bible questions, and a directory for finding a church.

People everywhere have questions and some even look for answers. Think of the popularity of search engines, and how they're a metaphor of people who are searching. And many documentations now come with a FAQ, which stands for Frequently Asked Questions.

When it comes to spiritual or Bible questions, the question-and-answer format, especially combined with a search engine, is a very familiar way for people to get questions answered. Some great Web ministries using this strategy include:

• GotQuestions.org has over 49,000 Bible questions answered! (by Calvary Bible College)
  
• ChristianAnswers.com (online since 1995, by Eden Communications)
• BibleInfo.com (by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church)
  
• Questions.org has Answers to Tough Questions (by RBC Ministries)
  
• CARM has numerous pages like Questions List and Common Questions dealing with Christianity (Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry)
  

One way to learn is to learn from the mistakes of others. Vincent Flanders has had two books published about bad website design. He recently tallied more than a dozen points to learn in The Biggest Web Design Mistakes of 2004. Here's the first six:

1. Believing people care about you and your web site.
2. A man from Mars can't figure out what your web site is about in less than 4 seconds.
3. Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability, and tableless CSS.
4. Using design elements that get in the way of your visitors.
5. Navigational failure.
6. Using Mystery Meat Navigation.

Read both Part 1 and Part 2 to learn from others' mistakes.

www.creativechurch.org is a website about creative arts and worship in the church. Through their blog and podcast, they share examples of what other creative churches are doing and resources you can use in your creative church services.

While some churches and individuals are in the process of building their websites, some are on the leading edge of innovation with Web technologies. One of the newest ideas is called podcasting (which eQuip blog had mentioned last November). Podcasting can be simply explained as this: making MP3 audios available online so they can be automatically downloaded by listeners into their MP3 players. CreativeChurch.org has an excellent step-by-step audio tutorial that shows you how to podcast your church's sermons.

WhenDisasterStrikes.org is a timely website for disasters like the recent tsumani in Asia. The website makes a simple presentation addressing the concerns people have, offers online prayer support through a Web form, and invites donations to support their efforts in serving those who are just beginning to rebuild their lives. This is a good example of a focused website with a very specific application.

Online education has had a fairly strong adoption rate with the advent of the Internet. Growing numbers of universities and seminaries are offering online courses; in fact, I am auditing an online ed course from Dallas Theological Seminary as we speak.

But the wide availability of the Internet makes it possible for your church or even an individual Bible teacher to provide content online that can be presented as an online course. That certainly can be done by a local church, as it is common for churches to provide Christian education. Xenos is a good example of generously offering online Bible studies.

Here's what David Gillaspey had to say:
Xenos Christian Fellowship in Columbus, Ohio, provides online Bible studies. I distinguish these from the online message archives that many churches have (a few examples of which are listed below) by the inclusion in the Bible studies of not only audio content, but PowerPoint outlines, accompanying testimonial videos, Bible background material, etc.

www.MostImportantThing.com is an inviting website to read stories of people who are followers of Christ. A number of articles address everyday life issues. E-cards make it easy to share the website with a friend. This website sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, and is a great example of creative online evangelism outreach. What can you add to your website to share your stories and to address everyday issues?

Just found 2 excellent online websites where people are helping each other use technologies: MissionaryTechSupport.com and ChurchCrosstalk.com.

MissionaryTechSupport.com is where missionaries can get tech support help via email or discussion forum, on-site training seminars, and if they can help in any other ways, they'll try! ChurchCrosstalk.com is sharing best practices in information technology and communication through articles, case studies, and discussion forums. It's very helpful to know that what we're not alone in what we're pioneering online.

[hat tip to Strategic Digital Outreach and Jon Edmiston]