Church Army's Online Evangelism Ministry celebrates 4th Year

October marks a double milestone for Church Army’s online evangelising ministry: Word-on-the-web. Firstly, Word-on-the-web has already entered its fourth year. In addition, this month it also achieved 6,000 subscribers for its free daily email service, through which the word of God is sent to people in more than 100 countries.

Word-on-the-web is a ministry with a vision to spread the Gospel through today's most powerful media tool - the Internet. Church attendances in the UK are declining, especially, young Christians are missing from the pews. People are spending more and more time online, and so online churches are being set up to catch these congregations in cyberspace. Evangelists are developing new ministries to offer spiritual food to thirsty souls, in particular to the 'un-churched' or 'de-churched'.

Over the past four years, Word-on-the-web has been sending short challenging Bible studies each day to those who have signed up to the mailing list. The authors of the Bible studies are famous Christian leaders such as Luis Palau, rock bands Delirious? and yFriday, as well as singer Sue Rinaldi. Leaders from the Girls’ Brigade, Boys’ Brigade, YFC, YWAM, Salvation Army, as well as a number of bishops were also invited to write materials.

In view of attracting the interests of young people, the materials on the website are presented in a way that tries to match today's contemporary culture. There are up-to-date film reviews, interviews, Christian CD reviews, a discussion forum, a monthly competition, among other things.

The founders of Word-on-the-web, David and Alison Booker, shared their experience of when they first pioneered the ministry four years ago. At that time, the use of internet was not as common as today, but with a clear vision and absolute faith, they just started to send out the first emails. They shared, “the day the email with the first reading went out we really wondered what the response would be. We’d prayed, talked it through, and really believed it could work.”

They have met a lot of difficulties such as “helping people who were allergic to email and computers to understand what we were trying to do”.

Nowadays, looking at the achievement so far, the couple are amazed at the marvellous works of God and truly give thanks to Him.

"Four years on it’s amazing to know the daily notes go to around 6,000 people, not just in the UK but around the world. More important than the simple numbers are the stories that number represents. Almost from day one a steady drip feed of emails came through from people thanking us for the project. Some had drifted away from Church; others had been thinking about faith and had found us on the web. Through the daily emails they found an opportunity to glimpse God and many moved towards Him," the couple reported.

Share Jesus International’s Rev Dr Rob Frost, has sent his congratulations, “word-on-the-web is an accessible, approachable and appropriate way in which Christians can relate to God’s word for everyday life. In a generation which is increasingly computer literate it’s exciting to see that God's word can be imparted in ways that most people can now relate to. I think it’s great!”

Danny Brierley, another word-on-the-web writer and Head of Oasis Youth Action sends his endorsement as well, “Oasis commends word-on-the-web for making the Bible’s timeless truth so accessible to today’s IT-literate generation for whom the web is not new technology, but simply part of everyday life.”

To subscribe to the free daily email, visit Word-on-the-web website and click the “Signup” link at the top of the page.