Useful online converters

A useful website that has a lot of online converters for images, programming languages etc.http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/04/10/online-converters/

Posted on IECGlogalForum by John Edmiston.

Why do the churches "'just don't get it"

Here's a question: why churches 'just don't get it' - i.e. web evangelism.

Here is an interesting opinion on this regard. Since it has been taken from the closed forum, I am purposly ommitting the author's name.

I don't think the average church in the West is interested in reaching the lost, period. They are more interested in maintaining the institution.

The average Western church is said to spend between 80 and 95 percent of their annual revenue on paid staff, building-related expenses, and inward-reaching programs and only 5 to 20 percent of annual revenue on outreach and missions. I'll admit that I have not done the research myself - I am relying on statistics I have seen quoted in Christian Smith's book Going To The Root: Nine Proposals for Radical Renewal and at least one other study which I can't identify off the top of my head.

A few years ago, I did take a look at the budget of the church in which our family participated (a church with a very strong history of missions commitment) and confirmed that about 85 percent of their budget was, in fact, spent on paid staff, building-related expenses, and inward-reaching programs.

If that statistic is true of most Western churches, and if we accept these two assumptions about Matthew 6:20-21 ("where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"):

1) the passage applies not only to individuals but also to organizations; and,
2) the truth of the passage reinforces itself in the hearts of individuals and organizations (i.e., the more we place our treasure in something, the more our heart becomes attached to that something),then we can easily "prove" that the typical Western church is not interested in reaching the lost (because it invests its funds, not in reaching the lost).

If it's true that the typical Western church is not interested in reaching the lost, then neither will it be interested in web evangelism.

Sad, but might be not far from the reality, and not only in the USA.

Promoting IE Day

Just would like to add my lepta to make IE Day better known among those who might be interested. Here's some publicity: http://ied.gospelcom.net/publicity.php

"Looking for God Online" - Friday, Mar 16 Time article

The Friday, Mar 16 Time article "Looking for God Online" caused lately much of debates in IECG Community.

The article indeed makes some serious claims, for instance:

Despite the fact that religion is always in the news, visits to religious websites in the U.S. are declining rapidly. They dropped over 30% within the last year, down 35% the last two years, while visits to online entertainment, in the form of video sites and social networks like MySpace and Facebook, continue
to soar. Does the erosion of online interest in religion translate to a major shift away from spirituality? Are we losing our religion?

Besides these confising tstats stuff there are also some other inreresting facts to be mentioned:

On average, religious websites receive 36% of their traffic from the likes of Google, Yahoo! Search and MSN Search.

... maybe a better question is: what are we looking for when we search for religion? The answer depends on denomination.

Searches leading to Roman Catholic websites reveal a fascination with saints: from the generic query "saints" to the religious ties to what most of us now consider secular holidays, "St. Valentine's Day and "St. Patrick's Day." Contrast that with the search terms used by seekers of Protestant and other Christian sites. The majority of search terms concentrate on bible study ("bible," biblical verses" and "bible online") and evangelical personalities ("Joel Osteen" and "Joyce Meyer"). Information seekers on the Jewish religion are different still, with a mixture of subjects such as Jewish heritage, humor and bio-ethical issues such as "cloning" and "right to die."

Below are some of the interesting facts&figures on thу article's claims:

John O'keefe, founder/designer of ginkworld.net

ginkworld is not the standard "religious site" but we keep growing in hits and bandwith - people are always coming back and new people are always visitint - some month we have a 400% increase in views - and the time they stay on is also longer - so, i am not sure who they are looking at for the decline - and how they define "religious sites"

I'd rather take it as a reason to think more than to fall into despair.