Evangelism
and Education Internetizing Plans
These
plans could be adapted and used by any individuals, organizations and
companies.
Evangelism Background
The religion of Jesus of Nazareth has
been evangelized by Christians preaching Gospel in individual and group
meetings for almost two millenniums ever since Jesus Christ’s “sermon on the
mount.” Ministers, missionaries and laymen alike have propagated the religion in person through churches, assemblies,
classrooms, homes and streets around the world. Telephone, radio and television
have been used since late 19th Century to proselytize people from
other religions and atheism to Christianity. Computer technological inventions
and advancements since 1950s have exponentially grown to where Personal Computers,
pads, tablets, mobile phones and wearable gadgets are now connecting people anytime
anywhere. Today the incredibly powerful multi-purpose “Smartphone” is in the hands
of billions of people everywhere. It is used as a phone, camera, video recorder,
currency exchange and communication device to find/hear/view/learn anything at anytime
from anywhere through the Internet.
It is a perfect opportunity for churches
to effectively utilize the Internet and digital devices as a means to
evangelize Christianity throughout the world. These tools allow ministers, missionaries
and laymen to communicate with literally billions of people beyond the
boundaries of nations’ territories, political ideologies, religious
denominations and church buildings. Several churches and other religious
organizations in Korean, American and other communities have used the Internet for
evangelism in the past several years as reported in New York Hankuk Ilbo http://ny.koreatimes.com/article/900696 and shown in the Shelter Rock Church
website http://www.shelterrockchurch.com/category/exploregod/. Most
religious organizations, businesses, schools and governments all over the globe
use computers, pads, tablets, smartphones and wearable devices with varying
degrees of success. Churches should start using more of these wonderful devices
for the purpose of Christian evangelism.
Education as a
Means of Evangelism
Additionally, in order to
supplement evangelism, churches should utilize these same tools to organize and
implement educational programs based on real life needs. They include English
language training, computer basics, navigating the Internet, health, laws,
business management and other important subjects desirable to Christians as
wells as non-Christians. They could be done locally and worldwide using the Internet
technologies readily available today. Online courses have been offered to
general public for years by educational institutions, religious organizations,
governments and businesses. Korean American newspaper JoongAng Ilbo has
recently started offering useful online courses at www.J-EduCenter.com as part of their public relations
and services campaign. Churches, large and small, should start similar educational
programs to reinforce their missions of spreading Christianity at much faster
rate around the world.
Evangelical
and Educational Program Financing
The costs of propagating
Christianity and education through the Internet are relatively inexpensive at
the beginning. The cost would increase as more sophisticated tools and techniques
are used. However, they could be made not only self-sustaining, but also more cost
effective than the traditional evangelical methods. The Church organized
educational programs could also be sufficiently financed by their subscribers,
advertisements, charitable organizations, corporations and/or governmental
agencies. An example could be seen in www.KhanAcademy.org, which is financially supported by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (www.gatesfoundation.org). If the Korean Community Services
“KCS” Center could recently receive $48,700 donation from Time Warner Cable
company for community computer education (http://www.koreatimes.com/article/921910), there is no reason why churches
couldn’t receive similar grants from the company and like-minded firms and
foundations.
With the hardware and software
technologies readily available today, religious sermons, other worthy Christian
activities and educational courses could be viewed and listened by anyone at any
time from any place on their own PCs, pads, tablets, smartphones and other wearable
gadgets. The sooner they are accomplished, the better for the expansion of
Christianity. Proposed below are some specific plans and steps to that end.
A.
Internetize Evangelism
1.
If they are not done already, upload and update sermons,
worthwhile religious and training activities free of charge to www.YouTube.com, church websites and other media available on the Internet.
2.
Evaluate,
try out free and choose one or two of the Internet communication/teleconferencing
software out of those available in the market (e.g. www.GoToMeeting.com, www.webex.com, www.LogMeIn.com, www.TeamViewer.com, www.Skype.com, www.BlueJeans.com and etc.). The cost of the most expensive
ones is less than $100/Month for 200 participants, whereas that of others is
either free or paid only for phone calls by online attendees. If the participants
could use Internet phones or hear and see the presentations directly from their
own devices, they don’t even have to pay for any phone calls. They allow anyone not only to hear, see and
interactively participate in the meetings at the same time. Additionally, the
sessions could be recorded and replayed by anyone anytime from anywhere in the
world. It would be very much like watching what is in www.YouTube.com at no cost.
3.
Create session links (i.e. URL Universal Resource
Locator) to and from such traditional media as Televisions, Radios, Newspapers,
Magazines and periodicals.
4.
Register
a domain name (e.g. www.iEvangelists.com) through an Internet Domain Name
Service Provider (e.g. www.GoDaddy.com) at a cost of about $20 per year.
Setup blogs with that domain or church domain names through www.Blogger.com at no charge or www.WordPress.com at a nominal charge, and post
sermons and any other worthwhile activities there.
5.
Establish
accounts with popular social media (e.g. www.Facebook.com, www.LinkedIn.com, www.Twitter.com, www.Instagram.com), link them to the blogs (e.g. www.KorAmeNews.com and http://www.toptensocialmedia.com/social-media-social-buzz/the-ten-best-christian-blogs-in-2014/) for the purpose of propagating Gospel.
Setup links there to make as many people as possible to “Like” them. It thereby
enables those links to automatically appear on their social media utilized on
the users’ own handy electronic devices (e.g. PC, pad, tablet and smartphone).
B.
Local and Online Educational
Programs
1.
Organize
and record several regularly scheduled training programs on such subjects as
English, computer basics, Internet navigation, health, business, laws and any
other worthwhile subjects to educate people and support the evangelism. People
would come to church or join the online training to learn what they really need
free of charge, especially if the courses are conveniently scheduled for
participants. If some people could not attend, they should always be allowed to
replay the recorded educational sessions from the church websites at their
convenient time and location.
2.
These
educational programs could be organized and planned to take place before
Wednesday and Friday night services, for example 7 pm to 8 pm before worship
services starting at 8:30 pm. If desirable, they should be expanded to schedule
them, regularly or as needed basis, shortly after weekday early-morning prayer
and/or Sunday worship services. If people could stay a little longer before or
after the services, it would be great for them to take advantage of their
useful learning because they are there anyway. Churches should invite
non-Christians to the offline or online training sessions and worship services
through their own members, advertisements and social media. Some people might
come to Church primarily for that education and possibly join the Church, it is
really wonderful for both the Church and the attendees. If this is not
evangelistic and missionary work, what is?
3.
To
accomplish these objectives, locate and solicit capable volunteers and/or paid
specialists of various educational subjects. It is necessary to find at least a
few instructors on each subject to cover for each other in the event the
instructor is out sick or on vacation or cannot make it to the class for one
reason or another. There are many experts and professionals available who are
willing to volunteer to teach as part of their individuals’ or companies’
business promotional marketing efforts.
4.
When
these trainings are available locally as well as online, they would help create
the church membership growth in and out of church buildings, (i.e. Evangelism).
There is no need to worry about the local church cannibalism from the
standpoint of Christianity as a whole so long as the trainees become Christians
wherever they are. However, most people prefer to seeing and hearing directly, as
opposed to viewing online, Pastors’ sermons.
C.
Funding for Evangelical and
Educational Programs
1.
Churches
could always ask for voluntary contributions to the Christian and educational program
supporters and benefiting subscribers.
2.
The
religious organizations could always solicit and place paid advertisements on
their websites, blogs and wherever else they publicize Christianity and
educational programs.
3.
They
could also request donations and grants to charity organizations, businesses
and government agencies to support, sustain and expand the educational programs
for common good.
4.
In
order to make these payments/donations/grants easy for them, set up bank accounts
to credit online directly to various designated accounts by Credit/Debit Cards,
PayPal, ApplePay, Samsung Pay, Google Wallet or any other payment methods.
D.
Infrastructural Change and
Groundwork
1.
Make
all documents and materials bilingual, Korean and English, so that ALL
generations of Koreans and Americans could understand and follow. The language
translations should be done either line by line, paragraph by paragraph, and/or
side by side for easier recognition.
2.
In
order to sustain and expand both evangelical and educational programs proposed
above, it is essential and necessary to have appropriate computerized systems
in place. It is because those YouTube, websites and social media are not only dormant
and useless but also do nothing unless people intentionally search for
something of their interests and/or they are periodically reminded of the
programs.
3.
In
terms of hardware, churches could easily start with one PC they have already.
If churches have enough funds, they could set up a Local Area Network (LAN)
Server computer system and linked PCs with Wireless Router connected to
Internet. It should have an external hard disk and subscribe to Cloud services
for data backup/restore purposes.
4.
In
software any church could start with the installation of inexpensive Microsoft
Office 365 (Access, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publishing and Word)
costing less than $200, if not there using already. Of the Microsoft Office 365
programs, Outlook is an outstanding software for contact information management
and email services. That is why most companies use Outlook for those purposes. For
less than $10/Month, the entire MS Office 365 data could be wirelessly backed
up constantly in Microsoft Cloud which allows to automatically restore them to
a new PC, LAN Server and/or Smartphones in case they are damaged or lost.
5.
If
Microsoft Office 365 is not good enough, churches could upgrade later to a church
management system and/or to a more comprehensive CRM (Customer Relationship
Management) software.
6.
Create
and maintain a comprehensive database of elements such as Name, Home Address,
Email Addresses, Home/Office/Mobile Phone Numbers, business/job information,
position/job titles, groups, interests, contributions, activities, and etc. of
church members and prospects. They should be categorized in such a way to be
effectively and selectively used for a variety of purposes. It is very
important to include Email Addresses in any church printed/digital membership
directories so that they could electronically communicate directly between
church members.
7.
Grant
limited/unlimited remote access rights of those databases and other application
systems to key personnel so that they could utilize and manage the databases
and programs at any time from church office. It is important to have those key
personnel sign the agreement to keep the certain data confidential and not to
use the Church data and programs for personal use and/or expose them to unauthorized
others.
8.
Someday
these Internetized evangelistic and educational programs could be made
available not just in Korean and English, but also in Spanish, French, German,
Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Swahili, and any other languages around the world.
Then the Christianity online evangelism and education will be truly globalized
reaching every corner on Earth.
E.
Immediately Actionable Tasks
1.
In
addition to their designated functions, these application programs and
databases should be used to periodically communicate via the Internet with the
church membership and prospects for any purposes such as meeting notices,
program notifications, publication distributions, evangelical and educational
service propagation and any other objectives needed for the church.
2.
Instead
of church members carrying the bulky printed Bibles and Hymnal, urge them to
download the bilingual Bible and Hymnal to their Smartphones so that they could
use them to simultaneously learn the Words, Hymns and English anytime anywhere.
3.
Church
staff should regularly (e.g. Weekly) send the Church Pastors’ sermon, training
and other important activity links by email, KakaoTalk and text message to its
entire congregation and prospects in the computer system. And, they should
proactively urge them to forward the links to their own friends, families,
associates and acquaintances to spread the evangelical and educational messages.
The recipients of these links could then forward the messages to their own contacts
on and on without limits to propagate Christianity, like “endless multi-level marketing”. This is truly the way to
internetizing Christianity evangelism and missionary work all over the world.
4.
They
all could view/hear/share evangelical/educational information on their own Smartphones
at any convenient time and place of their choice. It is much less expensive and
fast to use emails, KakaoTalk, text messages and any other electronic
communication tools than the costs of traditional regular mailing that requires
postage stamps, mailing time, effort and materials. It makes religious
organizations electronically and cost-effectively connected instantly at any
time with their congregation and potential Christians.
5.
In
order to run these programs properly, it is extremely important to manage,
control and supervise church staff to effectively manage those systems without
violating individual privacy and secure and protect the databases and systems
from being hacked, damaged and/or destroyed.
6.
Church
management team should periodically take scientific surveys and review the
processes and procedures to constantly improve and enhance ways to deliver the
needed services, programs and messages to spread Christianity to people all
over the world.
7.
To
get these Internetized evangelism and education programs off the ground, a
relatively small group composed of knowledgeable individuals in relevant fields
should be organized. They estimate the project costs, get the budget approved,
plan out the task details, assign responsibilities to different persons/departments,
come up with an implementation schedule and start implementing programs step by
step.
8.
Church
senior management must get directly involved to control, monitor and enhance
the project progress at all times. Otherwise, the project will most likely
fail.
Achievable
Realistic Ideals
These proposals are not reckless
dreams, but ways of the future as well as realistic ideals that could be
accomplished today. They could be gradually achieved in a relatively short
period of time for the betterment of Christian life. They can be accomplished
only if the Church management concurs and pushes for them on an ongoing basis.
Otherwise, they will either never get off the ground or discontinued in
mid-stream. Internetizing Christianity and education is not the question of if,
but when they will be done. If that were the case, it is far better to start them
early than later.
God has given us all the tools and
wherewithal to act today! What more are we waiting for?
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