Angelos Blog #2

The article I read is found on ChristianPost.com and is titled "Scholar: Churches Can Use Internet to Reach Non-Seekers." I found this article under the "Missions" tab at the top of the page and the headline caught my eye instantly. After reading the article, I found that it is all about the need for Churches to become more technology savvy and to use the World Wide Web to spread the Gospel around the world. A scholar named Peter Fischer-Nielsen has been researching church communication on the Internet and believes the Internet to be a great way to reach people in both believing and non-believing countries. It is noted in the article that many churches has seen successes from evangelizing online.

This article was written very newsy, and the angle seems to be just to give a general and informative synopsis of the topic. The lead is basic but captivating. It is as follows: "The Internet is not only useful for churches in communicating with seekers, but it can also be harnessed to reach people not actively looking for answers, says a Danish scholar." It is not really a direct quote, but it refers to what Fischer-Nielsen said.

This article was very informative and interesting, but it was not very colorful and descriptive. Of course, since it was clearly written in hard news style, it was supposed to be this way. I think it wold be interesting, however, for this article to have been written more like a feature because that could have made for a potentially even better article. I do believe that the strongest part of the story was the topic in general. It is not often I have thought about using the Internet to evangelize, but in this day and age it is one of the most popular ways to communicate. Churches can definitely use the internet to their advantage. I also think the factual/statistic information that is included adds a great deal of strength to the article.

The writer, Jennifer Riley, interviewed scholar Peter Fischer-Nielsen and GMO founder and chair Walt Wilson. Riley probably asked these two gentleman their opinions on the Internet and how it relates to the Church, how evangelization can be done online, what websites should be targeted, how successful the World Wide Web has been so far in spreading the Gospel, etc...

I believe that Riley wrote this story because it is about Missions, which of course Missions are important to Christians, but it also defines a 21st century way of delivering the Word of God. This story is very relevant to a large group of people, including Churches and Church goers, people who use the Internet, Christian scholars, organizations that are involved in evangelizing, and Christian people in general. It is a very interesting concept and is a good idea for Churches to get involved. The importance of this article is summed up in the this quote from Fischer-Nielson, "The Internet has come to stay and the Church must continually be in dialogue concerning how the Internet can be used to serve its mission.”