The Bridge Strategy: A way to reach millions

"Use what is dominant in a culture to change it very quickly. It is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender."
- Carved quotation outside Ulazdowski Castle Arts Centre, Warsaw

"Bait the hook according to what the fish likes, not what the fisherman likes." - Hemingway

It is important to understand that the Web is a pull medium, unlike literature and radio which are linear 'push' mediums. Generally speaking, people go online to search for information. The pages which relate to the subject of their search 'pull' them in.

Most people are not searching for Christian material, and so of course will never find it. If they do, by chance, come across an obviously Christian page on a search engine listing when looking for a secular subject, they are unlikely to click on it. If they do, they probably will not stay. The majority of people are at a relatively low position of spiritual understanding on the Gray Matrix – a modification of the Engel Scale.

In any case, the overwhelming majority of Christian sites have been written for Christians, using Christian 'insider' language, jargon, and assumptions, and may be very hard for non-Christians to relate to, even if they do find such pages.

But what are most people searching for online? The things that interest them!
· Sport
· Health
· Sex and relationships
· Advice on personal problems
· Hobbies
· Local information
· Tourism ideas
· Humor
· Films
· Music
· News-related things
· Famous people
· plus a million other things

Writing yet another presentation of the way of salvation is not going to reach many of them, unless we "fish on the other side of the boat", by using . . .

The Bridge Strategy: "Be what they are searching for"

Write pages on these secular subjects or felt needs and we can target any group of people. We can call this the 'Bridge Strategy'. Others may use a different name (for instance 'magnet pages'), but it means the same – identifying with the real interests of people. This does not mean that we make trick pages that are not really about the subject they claim to be. If we write a page about restoring VW cars, or breeding mice, or a favorite musician, the page must truly be 'about' that subject. It must be as good and informative as possible, maybe with many helpful links to other pages on the subject. Bridge pages must be written with integrity. They must be contextualized for their readers: the X-Spectrum helps us to define the level of contextualization a website is using.

Emlyn and the Far Pools is a fishing story which illustrates the challenge and opportunity that the Web provides us.