The eMinistry Letter : December 2007
by Ricky Cain
I realize that there are still many of you out there who feel that trying to share the gospel in Cyberspace is just too difficult … or who believe discipleship via the internet is simply nonsense.
The simple truth is that many are seeking spiritual guidance online today. Christian sociologist George Barna writes in his 1998 book, The Second Coming of the Church, that in the early 21st century “millions of people will never travel physically to a church, but will instead roam the Internet in search of meaningful spiritual experiences.”
This is not to say that people will abandon all face to face interaction. In fact, the same people who spend so much time on the internet engaged in spiritual research are the very same ones who’ll tell you how valuable face to face interaction is to them... and that they do indeed engage in plenty of face to face time with their friends, often, and even in traditional church services.
The difference for these people is that the face to face time, such as Sunday School and small group meetings, is most often for fellowship and group service projects. Study and in-depth discussions are frequently limited to cyberspace. (I am speaking in generalities about a growing segment of teens and twenty-somethings.)
It is certainly true that there are many snares on the Internet awaiting unsuspecting surfers, but many teens find the Internet to be a positive influence in their lives. My 19 year old daughter doesn’t have much time to spend on the internet these days, but while still in high school, she used to tell me that she regularly had much more meaningful Christian discussions on the internet than she ever had face to face with her friends. And she freely admitted that she personally felt freer to share her faith in online discussions than in either small groups or one-on-one conversations.
Apparently, there are many who find the internet the perfect place to share their thoughts and feelings about… just about anything. As I write this article, Technorati states that it is currently tracking 113 million blogs and is seeing 18 new blog entries every second! Additionally, according to Technorati data, there are 175,000 new blogs being started every day. I’m just talking about blogs here. There are, of course, many other ways to share your thoughts on the internet.
Chat rooms and forums are very popular online hangouts. As I write this article, I note that there are 2438 people at this moment at the Crosswalk forums (forums.crosswalk.com). The site boasts 84,645 registered users who have made 1.7 million posts in 63 forums. Forum titles range from “The Bible”, “Christian doctrine”, and “The Church” to “Morality and Ethics”, “Prophecy and End Times”, and “Salvation Issues”. Each of these forums has thousands of posts; many have tens of thousands of posts. And I remind you, these are just the forums at Crosswalk.com. There are many Christian forums on the internet, including ChristianForums.net, forums, GraceCentered.com, ChristianityBoard.com, WorthyBoards.com, and many others.
You can visit any of these forums at any time of day or night and find hundreds of other believers engaged in “discussions” and/or looking for others to “fellowship” with.
According to InternetWorldStats.com, 235 million people in the USA are internet users. That’s 70% of the total population of the United States! Some studies indicate that as many as 1/3 of the total internet population are Christians.
Assuming your head is not stuck in the sand, you’ve noticed that there is a growing segment of Christians who do not attend church… at all. A large percentage of this Christian group did attend church at one time and do still consider themselves to be Christians, but have lost interest in attending church within a traditional setting.
In George Barna’s 2005 book, Revolution, speaking of born-again Christians who regularly participate in the life of a Christian congregation, he finds that eight out of ten believers “do not feel they have entered into the presence of God, or experienced a connection with Him, during the worship service.” He further states that half of all believers say they’ve not entered into the presence of God at any time within the past year.
Is it any wonder then that young believers are turning elsewhere to find meaningful experiences and a deeper understanding of what it means to be a Christian?
Debating whether or not they should be turning elsewhere is not helpful. It is a fact that they are indeed turning elsewhere. What we as ministers need to be dealing with is the question of how we shall respond now that we know this. Will the church be there to reach these online seekers? Or shall we allow them to be devoured by wolves in sheep’s clothing?
It is imperative that today’s church understand how valuable the internet can be in reaching not only teenagers and twenty-somethings, but the entire world. Earlier I quoted InternetWorldStats.com as stating that 235 million Americans use the internet. What I didn’t say is that almost twice that numbers of Asians, 459 million, use the internet. 338 million Europeans and 44 million Africans are using the internet and so are 34 million people in the Middle East! Opportunities for ministry abound.
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I am going to suggest that you, dear reader, consider starting a blog for ministry. But before you start, you need to spend some time reading what I consider to be some of the best ministry blogs already out there. Here are some of my favorites. Read them. Observe what these ministries are doing. Learn the possibilities.
You may know of blogs that you think are better or more effective than these. I welcome your suggestions for “better” blogs.