Preaching on the Internet
There are three main ways in which Christadelphians can use the Internet to preach; putting pages on the World Wide Web, contributing to the gospel-discuss mailing list and reading and posting to newsgroups.
The World Wide Web
The vast majority of people who have used the Internet have used the World Wide Web, the easy to use "point and click" face of the Internet. It is surprisingly easy to put information onto the Web. Most companies that supply Internet access also provide some space on a Web server, enabling anyone to put pages onto the Web. Although relatively simple, the technical aspects of this process are beyond the scope of this article. I can, however, provide guidelines about how to use a Website.
The information you provide must be relevant. A site produced for your ecclesia should provide contact information for the ecclesia, as well as times and dates for talks and similar events. If you set up an ecclesial site it should be advertised, alongside lecture advertisements if possible. As well as advertising your site you should register it with some search engines. Most search engines have a 'submit site' option on their main pages. Sites that are about Christadelphian beliefs in general, such as What Christadelphians Believe, should not concentrate on purely local matters. You should remember that anything you put on your site can, potentially, be seen by anyone in the world.
If you want to contribute to a collective preaching effort on the Internet, the Christadelphian Internet Project will be delighted to hear from you.
Gospel-Discuss Mailing List
There is a mailing list, [email protected] that has been set up to allow discussion of Christadelphian beliefs among Christadelphians and non-Christadelphians. It is a relatively low volume list but it provides stimulating discussion. To subscribe to this list send an e-mail to [email protected] with the word 'subscribe' in the subject line.
Newsgroups
Newsgroups are public electronic discussion groups. There are many thousands, covering every topic imaginable. Unfortunately with so many it can be impossible to find the group that discusses your favourite topic. Fortunately there is a Web site that makes this much easier: DejaNews.
DejaNews is a search engine that keeps a copy of every message posted to more or less every newsgroup. It is possible to search through this vast database to find, for example, every time the word "Bible" has been used on a newsgroup for the past six months. Due to it's vast size, however, there are usually hundreds of references returned for such a search. Rather more usefully there is an Interest Finder, which is also accessible from the DejaNews home page. This makes it easier to find newsgroups that are discussing your topic. I frequently use this facility to check where Christadelphian beliefs are being discussed, and add comment when relevant.
Having found a relevant newsgroup, the next step is to read it. The easiest way to do this is simply to use DejaNews' My DejaNews facility. However, you can also read newsgroups by using the 'News' facility that most Web browsers have. The details of how you do this vary considerably and for more information you should consult your technical support department. It is also possible to get newsreading programmes that are not part of Web browsers. You can try clicking here to launch your newsreader and read uk.religion.christian.
Some people only read newsgroups. It is also possible to add messages to the group, or 'post' to the group. Again, the technical details of how you do this can vary. The Internet has its own system of etiquette, sometimes called Netiquette and it is important to understand these informal rules before posting to a newsgroup. DejaNews policy page has some links to pages that deal with Netiquette. Rules For posting to Usenet and Emily Postnews answers your questions on Netiquette are essential reading for anyone new to newsgroups.
Some Newsgroups are better for discussion than others. The group uk.religion.christian, which I read frequently, is excellent with a high level of serious discussion. Other religious groups I read are soc.religion.christian, bit.listserv.christia and alt.religion.christian.biblestudy. Some of the other groups can get very unpleasantly aggressive; alt.religion.christian is a particularly bad example of this.
Always read a newsgroup for a few weeks before posting to it for the first time. Sometimes a particular topic is discussed very frequently (for example, the Trinity is discussed every six weeks or so on uk.religion.christian) and it is usually better to join a discussion as a newcomer rather than try to start one. I would recommend that your first few posts are on relatively neutral, minor, subjects, such as whether or not locking your door to prevent burglary contradicts Christ's command in Matthew 5:39. If you are an established contributor to a group you will get substantially better responses when you talk about specific areas of Christadelphian belief.
There are some topics that, through experience, I instinctively avoid on newsgroups. Some topics generate nothing but heat and lead to no profitable discussion. Experience will show you that there will always be topics where the discussion is high quality and it is much better to concentrate on these.
Newsgroups are an excellent forum for the discussion of our beliefs, and strongly encourage everyone to use them.
