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

differentiate discussions on different topics. We have expertise in areas such as counselling,
ministerial guidance, lay training, and mission studies. With their help we may be able to provide
online counselling or answer theological questions or clarify some questions about Christianity
itself. For example ask any questions related to a group named “God and theology” through which
we can have discussions.
In my experience of certain e-communities, I realised that the participants in the
discussions are not interested in finding out facts about God, or objective information about
someone’s faith, but in listening to stories – stories of life and stories of faith. Many non-Christians
who want to know about Christianity and the gospel should be informed. Even if they do not want
to change their religion we can continue engage with such individuals or communities. We also can
establish e-groups and email lists which are very helpful in terms of networking people. The kind of
pseudo-identity of the participants helps people to ask genuine questions and try to find answers
from others in the groups. The content of the discussion will differ according to the individual or
community’s interest. These discussions can be widened to search for meanings of life and of
religions. We can also establish different groups or communities in order to differentiate
discussions on different topics. To engage in this way we need a website, and text box using CGI
(Common Gateway Interface -Linux)/ASP (Active Server Pages -Windows). Our website will be
interactive if we use the blogging (http://www.pcquest.com/content/technology/103060206.asp)
method to collect information from different parts of the world immediately. Our website can host all
the unedited and unrestricted information about the churches with ‘no-offence’ policy.
c. Serving Christian Community
The churches can cater for their members’ needs by conducting online worship, by holding
discussion groups, by providing information about their members in the website, by placing their
liturgies, sermons and devotional material for others to read. Today the segmentation of individuals
and communities is increasingly becoming a reality in which the church can play a role in bringing
people together virtually and thus establish a virtual Kingdom of God. We also need to place
Christian educational material in our website so that it can be useful for others. For those who
cannot come to the church the virtual online worship might enable them to worship along with
others, even though virtual worship does not replace real worship. Our mission is to bring
separated people together in order to establish a community of God where broken relationships
are restored and communities reconciled. Of course we can make use of the modern technology of
convergence such as video on demand or online radio that cost less than analogical broadcasting
or even the narrowcasting. New liturgies, attractive sermons and new songs can be placed on the
churches’ website so that others can use them. Many children are taught to use computers in their
schools. When they come back they try to play with the computers, we can also produce
interactive animated Bible stories and value oriented songs and stories and place them in our
websites. As most of these are available in English we need to consider producing in one’s own
regional language.
d. Training Pastors and Missionaries
We need to train mission workers, pastors and theologians to use the Internet as an
interactive tool for communication. Our approach to mission in using the Internet should not divide
us; rather we need to be in a position to accept other types of mission and evangelism along with
our present efforts to carry out God’s work. These tasks require both the expertise of software
engineers, and experience in the field of mission, leading to an inclusive strategy of mission and
knowledge of using the net. For this we need to train the ministerial candidates and theological
students to have knowledge of web publishing and hosting. At the United Theological College we
offer the courses (Word - Desk Top Publishing – Web designing) to our students so that they might
use them in their ministry and mission. We would like the seminaries to encourage the pastors to
continue their education using Distance Online Learning (DOL) which is used by many universities
to promote their higher education for those who are in jobs. It is also essential for the pastors to
become aware of certain issues and methods of communication in the Net.
It is essential to promote Net-Literacy which means to make the net-users critical readers
(literate) of the net. The problem of pornography should be addressed at all levels from the
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