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

Here the Internet seemed and seems to be the only feasible way to distribute this information and
keep it up to date. In comparison to the book, the range of information was noticeably widened with
the result that the outcome of the concept was a comprehensive collection of knowledge concerning
Reformed Protestantism, which was to be presented, indeed has been presented, in the following four
languages: English, French, Spanish and German.
The World Alliance of Reformed Churches was very soon convinced by the concept and its claim to
be an international system, now officially called "reformed online"; after all, the interests of Reformed
Protestantism were clearly promoted and the internal cohesion of the Reformed Family strengthened.
The Johannes a Lasco Library was therefore appointed to be the official information service provider
of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Geneva. Since then, "reformed online" has been
taking on many assignments – especially the publication and distribution of documents.
The "reformed online"-team, especially in the beginning, had to tackle the technical and organizational
problem of international websites being multilingual. Apart from the occasionally difficult technical
implementation of large multilingual systems the following rules apply:
* the less languages in which subject matters are made available to users, the more users are
excluded due to lack of knowledge of the languages
* the more languages offered to users, the more effort and thus expense involved, for besides the
technical difficulties the subject matter has to be translated also.
Besides these difficulties, each piece of information has to be reliable of course, that is it has to be
examined and, more important, an editor has to choose which subject matter is to appear when and
where. Even if there are translators, he has to possess a basic knowledge of the languages with
which he is dealing.
The third difficulty, which I would like to address briefly, is the acquisition of information, its
processing, or, as the case may be, its set-up. While almost every institution or church has a public
relations department in reality it is decidedly difficult and tedious to get included in any of the so-called
press distribution lists, which make sure that an appropriate press release is distributed to the
recipients, or rather, if a news service is involved, it proves to be very expensive. However, it is just
these press distribution lists that are so important because they actually deliver the information
directly (usually via e-mail) gathering the information ourselves on the Web is impossible due to the
abundance of pages and different languages. It becomes even more problematical when it's a
question of putting together articles or even material for further education (courses, lessons). In
practice one hardly finds people who have the time and ability – whether voluntarily or for a low
expense allowance to draft subject matter, or as the case may be, only to examine it. Even updating
our address book means that, of our own accord, we have to get into contact with every church and
institution, a very tedious and also expensive process which often doesn't lead to the desired results.
These difficulties can, of course, be avoided or moderated by our own employees if the financial
situation allows for their contribution.
I have already suggested various possibilities regarding information and communication given by the
system "reformed online", and these, I would now like to briefly demonstrate to you.
Press reports
In the section "Latest Developments" you can find the chronological list of various press reports. By
clicking on the arrow you will be guided to the relevant full news text. In addition, the press archives
can also be found here, in which you can find press reports by means of a full-text-search or also a
date-search.
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