The Internet has given Christian churches and ministries a brand new opportunity to communicate the gospel in a new worldwide society. Distance in time and physical space is not a major obstacle anymore. Communication happens via e-mail, webpages on the Net with text or graphics with hyperlinks, animation, audio, and video. Internet Relay Chat and Net telephone will enable people to interact directly in real time no matter where on the globe one is connected to the Net.

The Great Commission (Matt. 28: 18-20) give a clear challenge from the Lord of the entire Universe to make disciples of all nations. In the man made virtual world of the Internet the opportunities are legion. The global structure provides a unique possibility for proclamation of the gospel to the whole earth, and the number of virtual inhabitants' will continue to grow. In one sense, the world will come to the gospel!

Yet the Internet provides no guarantee that people really visit the Christian sites.The rapidly growing population of the Internet will make it much more difficult to just “drop into” a site by chance. New “push technologies,” for example, have become increasingly important for commercial users of the Net. How can the gospel then be communicated—in whichever way possible—to the restless, fluctuant surfers of the Net looking for more excitement, new knowledge, new boundaries to explore?

Tens of thousands of churches and ministries are present on the Net. Many of them communicate in various ways with their visitors. A few years ago, I conducted an in-depth international study of some selected virtual and “real” churches from major Christian denominations. The survey revealed several significant findings:

A. The major focus for the churches is to present the gospel. Secondly, they wish to give visitors an opportunity to communicate about faith and life, personal struggles, to have an opportunity for counseling, etc. Thirdly, education on various spiritual issues is important to those who run the Internet ministries.

B. The Net ministries and churches participating in the survey do have a strong commitment to evangelization, and confirm that the presence on the Internet has made their work much more visible. About 44.5 percent positively affirm that the Internet ministry has contributed in leading one or more persons to Christ.

C. The research supports the understanding of the Internet as a participatory and interactive medium with a high level of affinitive openness, and which reveals a great need for pastoral counseling, spiritual education, ethical conversation, etc. There is also a general trend of curiousity and openness on the Net as a whole among surfers who are eager to explore what is out there. This openness can be used in a much more positive way for Christian outreach and witness on the Net, for example in training people to do friendship evangelism in the thousands of electronic discussion groups active in the virtual world.

D. The Internet is a medium suitable for educational purposes. Many important books, texts, and other materials are already available and the hyperlinks make it easy logically to link related material and topics together.

E. Multimedia use on the Internet is growing rapidly and will increase the educational potential of the medium. Seventeen out of 18 participants in the survey either already had or planned to implement audio tools on their website. This shows that Christian sites keep up with important new technological developments on the Internet. Also, video and IRC are now widespread on the Christian Net sites, making is easy for several people to interact directly at the same time.

F. The 18 participants in the survey reported that they have experienced an increase in the number of hits on their website. The overall number of hits shows a considerable interest. A conservative estimate on the collected data reveals that these 18 churches or ministries get between 6,500 - 10,000 hits and 500 - 700 actual responses per month. This means it is reasonable to assume that tens of thousands of people are interacting with Christian sites every month. Although the results show a majority to be Christians, it is also likely to assume that a significant number do not consider themselves believers.

G. Some larger virtual churches, and one of the local churches, actively promote prayer requests through their work. According to the numbers reported in the survey, eight of the churches/ministries receive more than 300 prayer requests per month.

H. Ministry work on the Net does not require many people. Fifty percent of the sites were maintained by one person, and an additional 33,3 percent were run by only two people. However, some of the ministries had other people involved in prayer teams to support their work. The majority of the websites in the survey are updated at least once a week.

What is the bottom line?

One does not have to be a large local church to provide a high quality Internet ministry which may influence the lives of several hundreds or thousands of people worldwide. There are several ways to enhance the effectiveness of your Internet ministry.

First, develop a high quality Internet site, including audio facilities, scheduled opportunities for Internet Relay Chat (IRC), etc. It does not take a lot of extra money to develop and frequently maintain a warm, inviting, and nice looking website! Make sure that your Internet provider also has a good server so that people are not slowed down by technical difficulties.

Second, build a ministry team around you with people committed to prayer. Invite your visitors to share prayer requests as well as other spiritual issues. Remember, ministering to people on the Net is a spiritual commitment and needs also to be supported by a lot of prayer!

Third, start training people for friendship evangelism on the Net. Making new friends in whatever Usenet group or other general discussion group will over time give natural opportunities to share important personal issues like one's faith in Jesus Christ.

Fourth, perhaps you want to facilitate one or more discussion groups as a part of your own Internet site?

Fifth, make sure that your Internet site is properly listed with Yahoo and other major (Christian) search engines.

These five ideas may help you to develop an even better Internet ministry for your church.

Copyright, Arne Fjeldstad. This article is used with permission.

Arne Fjeldstad is president of Gegrapha, which calls all journalists who are Christians—Protestants, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox—at all stages of their career, to pursue integrity and excellence in their workplace, neighborhood, family, and faith community. Arne has been a newspaper journalist and editor for more than 20 years as well as a part-time professor teaching journalism and communications.

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