Internet Evangelism Coalition push for further advancements

Last week, the International Evangelism Coalition (IEC) Annual Meeting ended in Chicago, USA. Evangelists from different ministries around the world gathered and shared their experiences in internet evangelism.

Campus Crusade for Christ Canada shared its news of victory. Dennis Fierbach, VP of Information Technology of CCC Canada, reported that “the www.TruthMedia.com sites have over 750,000 visits a month, with some 1,000 people a month making a decision for Christ.” TruthMedia is assisted by 350 online volunteers and over 800 prayer supporters.

From Netherlands, Editor-in-Chief of "Why Jesus?" Richard Post, introduced "Why Jesus?" a four-week online Alpha Course based on the Dutch Alpha Course. In the light of high expansion rates, next year, it will be spread to other countries and a youth version will be launched in cooperation with Youth for Christ. Currently, "Why Jesus?" uses over 100 e-coaches who provide support for people using the course.

There are also some websites especially designed for reaching certain groups of people. French web site www.TopChretien.com has had over 7-million visitors in five years.

Eric Celer, Head Manager of the website shared his vision, "France can be considered a "spiritual third-world nation" because of the millions who don’t know Christ. TopChretien is a portal for evangelism in the French-speaking world."

The website www.CreateInternational.com Australia, includes a special site that reaches specific religious groups including Hindus and mystics.

"The strategy of the Great Commission is not that they come to us - but that we go to them," said Dr. Sterling Huston, Chairman of the Internet Evangelism Coalition as he addressed the leaders.

Moreover, the leaders clearly identified the future challenges and direction of online ministries. The discussion was very fruitful.

Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, sharply pointed out some of the existing hindrances in cyberspace which he described as "digital divide". "Digital Divide" includes:

- Age - young people are online more

- Employment status - students dominate the Internet

- Socio-economic status - wealthy people have more access to the Internet

- Disability - many disabled people are not able to get online

- Language - English is dominant on the Internet, but predictions indicate that Chinese will soon surpass English

- Community type - suburban residents are more likely to be online than urban residents

- Parental status - adults with children are more likely to recognise the importance of computers and access to the Internet

- Race and ethnicity - minorities are not online as much as Caucasians

- Personal outlook - the more positive a person feels about themselves, the more they will be online

All of the leaders attending the IEC meeting agreed that online evangelism is still at a premature stage at the moment. Indeed, since the emergence of the Internet, many individuals, churches, denominations and ministries immediately recognised the potential of the Internet and created numerous Christian web sites. However, many of the web sites served only as electronic brochures.

Therefore, the conclusion of the conference was a call from the IEC for Christian websites to reconsider the evangelism potential of the internet, and to think of how to apply the technology better to convey the Gospel to all the world. Missionaries specialising in Information Technology are also in high demand in the face of the estimated one-billion people that will come online by 2005.

According to the report of CyberAtlas.com in December 2003, countries with the most people online were:

- United States - 182 million
- Japan - 56 million
- China - 45.8 million
- Germany - 44 million
- United Kingdom - 34 million
- South Korea - 25.6 million
- France - 21.8 million
- Italy - 19.3 million
- Russia - 18 million
- Canada - 16.9 million

The vision of the IEC first emerged in 1997 when the Billy Graham Centre hosted a consultation on using the Internet for evangelism, bringing together nearly 100 participants from churches, denominations and ministries interested in or already doing Internet Evangelism. Two years later (April 1999), under the leadership of Dr. Sterling Huston, IEC was formally established.