Posts Tagged God
Googling the Gospel
Posted by phil in God, Technology on October 28th, 2009
so i’ve decided, as i’m sure like a million other people out there have, that the internet is a beautiful tool that we have to share the gospel with other people. i mean what an impact we can have on the world in mass quantities by simply putting information out there and allow those who are searching to find it. we are literally entering into their homes and lives daily but i’d have to say we as christians are dropping the ball a bit.
there are so many legit christian sites out there, i know it. so many beautiful church websites, God centered social networks, whatever; all in beautiful web 2.0 or retro-texture glory, but i think we are missing out on a key demographic when we create things: those searching to find God.
here is the issue, a basic web search for “who is God” retrieves over 100 million responses and i’ve yet to find a page that i’d ever actually spend more than a few seconds on, because the majority of them look more 1992 than 2009. we have people searching for God and from what i’ve seen and heard, not finding what they’re looking for in a format they are used to. we need to work on making God and his gospel more visible. you see, it’s not about making the message “relevant”, because we all know how important it is to keep the gospel holy (even when it’s truths aren’t always so popular in our world)… it’s about using the mediums we have in a relevant way to portray God’s grace. you wouldn’t try to show someone a new band on a cassette tape, so let’s rethink how we do this.
now i must concede that there are a few organizations trying to make it happen. i went to orlando to visit the campus crusade headquarters last february and heard a bit about global media outreach, which is basically a ministry of campus crusade focused on internet evangelism. someone accepts christ through that ministry every nine seconds. wow! that is exciting, especially when its followed up. so things are being done, but there is still so much untapped potential.
think about the average person. they sit on their computers checking facebook/espn/email/twitter and…REPEAT. what if one day they stumbled upon a page that clearly explained christ in a way they were familiar with. how might this change their life? how can we (through God, most importantly) change people’s lives?
one of the leaders on my campus here asked me to help them to use the internet as a tool, and i currently find myself stumped for resources. does anyone have any ideas as to a site that someone searching for a relationship with God could go to?
You’re Beautiful
today I took pictures for a friends dance capstone. i’d say this dance by far was my favorite, because it represented God in an amazing and artistic way. i think it’s so amazing how the lord can use people’s talents and passions to serve Him. it reminds me that we simply don’t have to worry about all the pressures of God throwing us in a direction that we’ll hate, because so often of the time he uses what we already love and do.
here’s a few more.
thanks for stopping by
a week in
alright so i am now feeling pretty acclimated to everything burtigny has to offer me.
i can’t believe i am here, and living this dream. everything here has truly been amazing. it’s weird because i remember exactly how i felt a week ago. completely and utterly unaware and a little scared of what this place was going to bring me, and God has blessed me so much.
let me recap a few of the experiences i’ve had. i’ve gone from not knowing anyone to knowing a ton of people around the base. i have friends! it’s been such a blessing to be able to meet all these people from literally dozens of countries. the ywam base here is crazy because people are from all these different cultures and upbringings and it’s ridiculous. i mean my roommates are from uganda, nigeria, and washington (haha) so it’s like the freaking un in my room or something.
things i’ve got to do.. coming in i was a little scared because it seems like burtigny is a bit.. secluded from the rest of the world. it’s only twenty minutes out from geneva but it has that feel like you are stranded like when you are in northern small town minnesota, and this feeling only increases because we don’t have very good access to vehicles and if you haven’t noticed i don’t really speak a lot of french. nevertheless, i have managed to get out a ton, which is weird.
on sunday i had the best adventure ever. it started in lausanne, which is this epic swiss city. a friend of one of my new friends came and picked a bunch of us up. we went to this church called c3 which was really crazy. the whole thing was translated in french and english. the vibe of the church was very like.. youthful. it felt like a hillsong concert mixed with a game of ddr if that makes any sense at all. it was surreal but pretty excellent. and THEN the real fun began. we went up in the freaking alps! very. very. high. and i am prettty scared of heights but the epicness overweighed the fright. we took gondolas way way up and i was a bit terrified for my life but we got up there. and then proceeded to hike down half the mountain.. in my tommy hilfiger super sketchy, not very athletic, shoes. it worked out though, we made it. john from switzerland is the best ever for hosting us. oh and.. best story every happened at mcdonalds.
let me set the scene, i’m at mcdonalds and i want to order a chicken nuggets meal with fries and a shake because i’m feeling a bit sick of real, actual healthy food. so john says he can help us but he is occupied at the time so i walk up to the counter and proceed to say “no palevu frances.” (sp) which i THOUGHT meant “i don’t speak french” and she said something along the lines of WHAT?! in French and I repeated it again.. but john later informed me it actually means “no, do you speak french?”. it was very confusing.
i also went to france tonight.. like.. we drove there, and it just took like twenty minutes, and we went to some random pub and i drank french water out of a french cup delivered by a french waitress. we drove with this crazy guy named timatu who lives there . he was an insane driver, let’s just say i’m glad i don’t understand how to convert from kph to mph.
tons of experiences. many to come. i’m actually going to LONDON this weekend. flying over there to visit my friend Katlyn who has been there for the last year and is spending her last weekend there. i cannot wait to see that crazy place. UKKK i’m so excited. get it?
i also learned some interesting facts about switzerland.
1) phil collins lives seriously like 10 minutes from where i’m at in village land switzerland.
2) ants are a protected here so it’s illegal to kill them.
3) it’s really hard to watch american tv shows here. fox.com/24 does NOT work to watch 24 thats for sure.
4) mountains are awesome.
5) applesauch (sp..) is the best drink ever. It’s like sparkling water + apple juice
6) you can’t mow your lawn until july here.
for work here, i’m working on the ywam burtigny website. it’s been AWESOME. i mean i sit there from 8:30 to 5:30 everyday (minus a lovely scheduled coffee break at 11 pm) working on freaking websites. the time seriously FLYS for me because i enjoy doing it so much. it’s nice to feel like an asset to the team, i do a fair amount of technical stuff in php world. i’m also learning wordpress much much better and enhancing my skillz all over the board. this is truly the perfect opportunity for me.
i’m so pumped for everything that is happening here. so blessed. so excited to see what happens next.
philip
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