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

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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 20
government, NGOs, churches and parents. In order to enable the children to use the net properly the churches need to provide interesting, creative and imaginative websites. The websites should be interactive and open ended to ask any question to anyone, and the content should be edutainment and infotainment oriented so that the young people, and others, will visit and use our websites. If such is the case we will certainly be able to transcend our doctrinal, denominational, religious and national boundaries and do a holistic mission and ecumenism in the net. Training pastors and missionaries online is a good attempt. With the help of Senate of Serampore we are planning to provide an interactive learning for the D Min distance education students. Such attempts are already made in India by the Secular universities. e. Ecumenical Net It is essential to engage in the Internet is to network people, organisations and churches who share different interests. Ecunet 33 is an example which brings together the churches ecumenically. Our Mission is to network and serve churches and also to initiate an ecumenical dialogue among the churches. In urban areas the networking of the church members is also possible. Lists of the members may be drawn up. Such attempts can help a lot in terms of ministry. Establishing the churches’ websites will also help them to provide information about the churches, membership and the activities. They can be identified as credible centres for information. Many ecumenical issues can be discussed and an ecumenical union might happen first at virtual level, and then in reality. This could also help us to transcend our borders and establish relationship with each other. One of the major questions that is being asked today is why the churches in the west are losing their members whereas the churches in India and other developing countries are growing in numbers. I would suggest that congregation-to-congregation networking and pastor-to-pastor networking could be done. Even online video conferencing facilities are possible to make congregations to speak to each other in any language with a proper translator. Networking can also help the churches to work together in the Internet and to learn from each other the way to do mission. Even constructing a website together with another church needs courage and a radical step. When the net helps people to break their barriers of language and border, then it can also help to eliminate the denominational barriers and other types of blocks that would hinder us from coming closer to one another. f. Networking different Communities Networking can go beyond the process of bringing together the churches of different traditions, it can also attempt to bring together different religious communities. The net provides a platform, and also the space, for people of different faiths to express themselves openly in a way which might not be possible otherwise. In certain contexts people of different faiths cannot come together because of their doctrinal or ideological affiliations. Seeing a leader making a statement publicly about religious dialogue can be misinterpreted or misunderstood by followers of the same tradition; whereas the interactive nature of the net allows concepts to be freely expressed. The networking of NGOs will certainly help in the sharing of experiences, or best practice, from one area to another. When I do refugee networking the information is very important because next day it becomes part of a published newsletter for many NGOs who are working among the refugees. As this message is spread to the top-level leaders some kind of action is taken either in its favour or against. Recently we ended up pressurising the Indian government to talk to the Bhutan government regarding the return of their Nepali Refugees. Networking Christian NGOs is important because many of them do not know what others are doing and repeat the same development programmes, which is a waste of resources. Mission is more effective if ideas and resources can be shared. Through networking, and information sharing, the sponsoring agencies would know what progress NGOs are making and of any problems to be addressed. 33 Ecumenical Net can be seen in the website - http://www.ecunet.org/ another ecumenical site - http://home.wizard.org/eocc/eocc1/front.html 21
Page 1 and 2: Evangelische Landeskirche Evangelis
Page 3 and 4: 1. Program of the Consultation "Mis
Page 5 and 6: communication and learning - and we
Page 7 and 8: 3. Input 1: “Implementing Multicu
Page 9 and 10: 2. Mission and Ecumenism The words,
Page 11 and 12: Critique In such an instrumental pe
Page 13 and 14: offices and improving the services
Page 15 and 16: A few years ago one of our visiting
Page 17 and 18: gap between sender and receiver is
Page 19: 6. Internet and Mission: Possibilit
Page 23 and 24: i. Net as Alternative Media Net can
Page 25 and 26: Appendix FTP - File Transfer Protoc
Page 27 and 28: Here the Internet seemed and seems
Page 29 and 30: studies on the New Testament compil
Page 31 and 32: 6. Working Groups on the three Inpu
Page 33 and 34: Other Preconditions: - Cultural dif
Page 35 and 36: Topics that were not selected: �
Page 37 and 38: 7.3 Results of Working Group 3 Tech
Page 39 and 40: 7.5 Results of Working Group 5 Advo
Page 41 and 42: 8.3 Results of Working Group 3: Dif
Page 43 and 44: Annex 1: Power Point Presentation b
Page 45 and 46: Virtual Learning Community • Cont
Page 47 and 48: Different communication styles •
Page 49 and 50: Layout of learning environments •
Page 51 and 52: Virtual collaboration -Groupware -T
Page 53 and 54: Annex 2: Power Point Presentation o
Page 55 and 56: Jesus’ Mission and Communication
Page 57 and 58: Mass media Networking Churches and
Page 59 and 60: Annex 3: List of Participants EMS S
Page 61 and 62: Resource Persons Dr. Joshva Raja, A

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