Communication means

A very good insight on the subject from the member of IECGlobalForum:

God has made us incredibly adaptable at using any means we can to connect with other people whether that is face-to-face contact, MySpace, or even smoke signals. The ministry happens when people connect in healthy relationship and the specific mechanism that enables that connection is secondary. Each mechanism has pros and cons but none is always best, including face to face. For example, people tend to be more likely to share openly online than when they are face to face. That is valuable from a ministry perspective. Also, I can share Jesus with people all over the world via the internet, and that would not be possible face to face. Of course, face to face connections are vital, but we should use all means to share Jesus and not limit ourselves to just one. Instead of pushing for one way, I'd rather that we attempt to optimize the application of all the tools we have to connect with people.

LifeChurch.tv launched a church in SL

Paul Steinbrueck from OurChurch.Com reports on IECG forum that last week LifeChurch.tv launched a church in the virtual world of Second Life. They are not the first church in SL, but they are already having an impact as people from all over the world who wouldn't step foot in a real church are visiting their virtual church.
http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2007/03/12/lifechurchtv-has-a-second-life-church-campus/

If you're not familiar with Second Life, you can read about it here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_life

Of course, sharing the gospel in a viritual world has its own set of challenges, such as a few days ago when a woman walked into their lobby completely naked.
http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2007/03/16/come-as-you-are-just-put-some-clothes-on/

Did you know?

Tremendous post on YouTube about how it feels to live in exponential times, what digital age really is, etc. Many facts and figures. Exciting. No comments.

Powerpoint of this is also available here. Have just finished the translation into Russian. Just in case you need one, it is available here.

Resuming at the new level. First e-vangelism project(s) in RUnet

Well, I am getting back to this blog with the new wave of commitment to keep it alive. Sorry to all who were visiting it lately and saw just 10 months old postings. Some new blood comes into vein. Here is why this new surge of enthusiasm.

The latest news:

1. It finally happened! You might remember me posting the information about the general plan on how to develop e-vangelism projects in Russian language internet (RUnet). There I was mentioning:

The efforts should be made in four main directions:

• Creating the online resources focused on non-believers utilizing the Bridge Strategy; promoting them trough various online and offline activities;
• Creating the online resources focused on Christians who feel a call to serve in the web environment which help to train web missionaries plus organizing appropriate offline activities;
• Creating the informational/analytical online resources dedicated to help the churches and other Christian institutions to effectively jump into the internet ministry;
• Providing for the resources mentioned in 1-3 versions in other languages spoken in the countries of former USSR for easy downloading/printing/distributing training materials, testimonials,etc.

So, it looks like at least few of them are slowly coming into life.
Last week we officially announced the launch of http://www.evangelism.ru/ as a joint project with JesusChrist.ru. It is completely in Russian, though with lots of links on resources in English. Most of the materials are translated from Tony Whittaker's Online Evangelism - A guide to Web Outreach. Thank you so much, Tony! Of course, we do the adaptation of all materials to the realities of post-soviet countries and the local culture. Will be further reporting on the developments.

2. Last year just before Christmas I decided to start a blog on movies and the spiritual issues in modern cinematography named okolokino.ru (which means something like "beating about the movie", if it makes any sense in English). The concept is close to HollywoodJesus.com, although the scale is quite different :-)

Comments as usual are very welcome. Will try to keep all the interested informed.