Bad Rumor

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On Sat, 14 Sep 1996 CDSTERRE@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU wrote:


Sorry, but I must respond to this one too! :)


> The real benefit I see from the internet is the e-mail.  Quicker
> and cheaper than the optional snail mail.  We can live without the
> rest of the internet.  We have for many years before haven't we?  
> Does it really matter what the world thinks of us?  I thought the
> only thing that mattered was whether or not we were living 
> righteously for God?  

You are looking at this from a "living" point of view and not an
"outreach" point of view. Let's examine the case of effective outreach: 
Suppose I write a track and I want everyone to read it. I will propose two
options: Using the Internet and not using the Internet. Without the
Internet, I must design the track, take it to a printer, and then have
them printed. From there, I must distribute the tracks to everyone I see. 
This would be a laborious process, since there are millions of people
throughout the local area and getting tracks to people indivually would be
very tedious. Hmmm... I wonder if there were a way that I could somehow
make this same information available to a lot of the users on the
Internet. Although I know there are many people on the net, I do not know
every individual person's e-mail address. I need to have some form of
"bulletin board" in which I could keep this information for everyone to
see. A perfect solution to this is the World Wide Web. So although you say
that only e-mail is useful, I beg to differ. Using every tool for the
growth of outreach is essential, not just using one tool and thereby
hindering your ability to outreach. See where I am coming from? It is much
cheaper to write one web page and store it somewhere than it would be to
try to accomplish the same mission without using this network. And-
(*BONUS*) it is environmentally friendlier and Al Gore will love you
forever for saving the earth by killing less trees! :)  (A bit of sarcasm 
here)


> Another point I would like to bring up is, How did the fathers
> of the Apostolic movement bring revival?  Word of mouth, prayer,
> fasting, etc.  They didn't have internet, television, etc to
> broadcast the "movement."  They did it by good ol' fashion
> revivals and tent meetings.  The next question would be,
> did Jesus use the internet?  Did Jesus use television?  Jesus
> did not even have a P.A. system to preach to the thousands.
> Look what he accomplished?  Look what we have accomplished
> without the internet.  Notice we, oneness Apostolics, are the
> fastest growing faith at the moment.  Notice we did it all
> without tv, or internet.  God gave us an ability to spread
> the gospel and we have been using that ability.  Word of mouth.
> The Bible says that the word will be spread throughout the land 
> before Jesus comes back.  Will it be by internet, television, or
> evangelism teams traveling to the lost?  

You raise an interesting point here. Having "old fashioned" forms of 
outreach are essential. Nothing can replace the personal attention given 
to a sinner than a saint going out door-knocking, inviting people to the 
house of God. But consider this: what about for an employee of a company 
who is in his or her office and is surfing the net on their lunch hour. 
They come accross your web page with the flyer on it and you have just 
put that track in their hands! Imagine this process repeating many times 
over, all around the world. That is why I think it is *FOOLISH* of us not 
to use the web. Yep! I said it. It is downright stupid of us not to use 
these fantastic tools of digital communication to reach out to the lost!

On a similar note, I don't know that I remembered to tell you all about 
an on-line bible study that my pastor and his son wrote about a year ago. 
The name of the bible study is "The Seven Steps of Salvation" and it is 
available from our church for a price of $2.00 each, to cover printing 
costs. To order see the very bottom of this e-mail message. HOWEVER- I 
have made this entire bible study a small web site. For you to see. 
Anytime you want. And it is *free*. Yes, that's right. It is free. Same 
content as the published virsion, only this one is on a "web" page and 
not on a "printed" page. All you need is a web browser and an IP address. 
(Don't know what an IP address is? Don't worry about it- just a fancy 
techie way to say that your web browser should work! :)  Too see the 
bible study, go to:

   http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~engleae/kht/seven/

...and enjoy!


God bless each of you


Andy