With a small camera like the one in the photo (under $200 with the camera, 8 gig memory card, flexible mini-tripod that will grip to just about anything, including an empty front row pew, you can record sermons quickly and easily, along with devotions, inspirational messages, and anything else your imagination comes up with the disseminate the Word to that portion of the world that surfs the web. Once you have recorded the information, transferred it to a modern laptop (older laptops and desktop computers can't handle the programs and don't have the storage space), you can edit your material and upload it to a free service such as YouTube for storage and release. Now pastors, for sermons longer than 15 minutes, you'll need to break them up into at least 2 parts since there is a 15 minute time limit and 2 gig size limit to free video uploads (we can't have everything). From YouTube, you can add your video to your website or blog and your message begins to find an audience. Don't expect big things quickly. It takes time for a piece to be found online among the millions of other voices out there. But remember, we are the sowers who scatter the seed and move on. Let God handle the rest. Just keep sowing. The job is easy with this equipment.
A number of sites offer free website and blog platforms with professional templates ready to use so you don't have to have a great deal of tech savvy to get started. These relatively young forms of communications (compared to the 2000+ year history of the Christian Church) provide all sorts of offerings and options that will attract those seekers and young adults who live by their electronics communications gear and who, under a certain age, haven't used a phone book in seven to ten years! If you decide to go this route, and since you're reading this blog I imagine you are, you'll need a source of royalty free imagery such as the ClickArt package you see here. Blogs and websites today tend to be image driven media and search engines cue into pictures as well as text. People expect to find vibrant images in these formats and programs like this put hundreds of thousands of such images at your fingertips, which is particularly useful if your church does not have a photographer.
While there is no substitute for one on one evangelism and mission work, today's technologies allow churches to harness the modern media to help deliver the good news of God's love to the ends of the earth, adding one more dimension to the effort and support for everyone in the field. This is another way to honor Jesus' great commission from Matthew 28: 16Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” You may not be able to baptize electronically, but you can teach, inspire, encourage, ...
For an example of electronic evangelism, following the ABC USA guidelines to speak with joy and to witness to your faith through personal story, see: http://extoncommunitybaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2011/01/ecbc-voices-1.html
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