Web site pioneering
The Internet evangelism that I do is with people all over the world. When I speak to someone online, they might be in London, Bristol or York, but could just as easily be in India, China or Italy. It really is a global village: borders are obsolete and visas and passports unnecessary!
I have enjoyed this aspect of being an online missionary. I find those from other countries interesting, and differing cultures an eye-opener and challenge. It has been fantastic to tell people from many nations the good news about Jesus Christ.
A year ago, in January 2007, I began to use the Internet in a different way, with the launch of the http://www.TalkingFrog.com web site. This was aimed at five thousand 11-16 year olds in secondary schools within 20 miles of our home. Here was a specific audience and a specific way to advertise the web site – through the school assemblies that I did.
I am pleased with how this has gone. Many young people have visited the web site. Some have asked difficult questions; others have asked for advice, and all seem to have remembered the web address!
Talking frog!
When I am in a local town or sports centre it is common to hear shouted from a group of young people, ‘It’s that talking frog man!’ They might not like or agree with what I say, but they know where they can find me if they ever need someone to turn to.
Using the Internet to communicate about Jesus locally is something I would encourage people to do. I believe it is an opportunity too good to be missed.
The Internet Mission’s latest project is to help make it easy for Christians to do this. Our hope is to produce a quality, easy to operate web site, whose design can be made available free of charge to any church, group of churches, or evangelistically minded group of Christians.
We aim to run an example for Ulverston in Cumbria. This would be designed so that, with minimal effort and knowledge, any group of believers could create their own web site for their own local community, and have full control over and ownership of it.
At the moment the new project is in the planning stage. We are grateful to the J. W. Laing Trust and the Roger Sawrey Trust whose donations have helped the project get off the ground.
Matt Rich mailto:Matt@TheInternetMission.com
