The Internet in Mission and Ecumenism ... - Reformiert online

The United Evangelical Lutheran Church - http://www.uelci.org/
The churches use the website as a means to inform the public. One needs to appreciate some of
the churches who are developing these websites and exploring new ways of communicating to the
people within and outside the church. As Christians we need to communicate the gospel through
all means without hurting or competing with other religious followers. We need to provide certain
information such as that we are not forcefully converting any other religious followers using money
or any other inducements? This is the first step in our mission which is providing a proper
information about Christians and the churches to the public through the net. Majority of the rural
churches and dioceses do not have a website and do not have access to net as well.
d. Netizens and Missionary Organisations
We need to identify the kind of information that is being sought by people on the net. It
means that our website should be open for people to add their suggestions. It should provide a
space for people to ask questions, and indicate how and where the netizens can meet up with the
churches. Some of the missionary organisations 17 and individuals provide information and publicity
about their activities in order to raise support for them (http://www.iemoutreach.org/). They do not
create any space for interaction for the people in the web. Some of them have even developed
online donation forms 18 . There are not many websites that present the gospel in the people’s own
languages (regional languages) and also in an interactive way. This is one of the major tasks
facing the churches today; to make the gospel message accessible to local people in their own
language. Email is a very good way to reach people who, for a number of reasons, may be living
away from home enabling them to form a virtual community.
e. Christian Institutions
Theological seminaries also have their own websites, as do missionary organisations and
other Christian institutions.(www.utcbangalore.com). They provide basic information about their
institutions and courses that they offer 19 . I have begun to see that the institutions are not in a
position to provide an interactive website because of their effect-centred approaches. Many of
them are told that the Internet is part of globalisation and will widen the gap between the rich and
the poor. They fear that some of the information available will destroy the values of the society, and
that children, and other vulnerable people, might have access to pornography or other undesirable
material. Some of this could be true, but not all use the Internet for these purposes. Even those
who are against this technology in public use it when it becomes essential for them. Such views
have made the Christian institutions sceptical about the use of technology. Also, an unwarranted
fear is being created by a few, who do not know the technology or of ways to protect the system,
that people can intrude into their computer using their websites and infect their computers with
viruses. Frequently, institutions have no clear idea about the copyright of documents and files, and
this creates more uncertainty and confusion in providing online archives and libraries to the web
public.
17
There are number of missionary organisations that send missionaries but do have websites - Diocesan
Missionary Band -http://www.dmpb.org/
Radio Viswavani - www.vishwavani.org & http://www.gospelcom.net/twr/
Voice of Hope - http://www.radiovoiceofhope.net/
Adventist Radio asia - http://www.awr.org/awr-asia/
Other organisations are Friends Missionary Prayer Band, Indian Missionary Society, National Missionary
Society, GEMS, Indian Church Growth Mission (an Indigenous one)
18
http://www.indiaevangelical.org/contrib.html
19
http://hbi.gospelcom.net/home.asp
This is Hindustan Bible Institute’s website.
Serampore College - http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/serampore/serampore.htm
Orthodox Seminary - http://www.otsindia.org/seminary/
http://www.otsindia.org
Gurukul http://www.gltc.edu/history.htm
UTC – www.utcbangalore.com
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