NetCasters

Craig von Buseck

• Publisher: B&H Books
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780805447842
• eBook ISBN: 9781433671746
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Like the industrial age before it, the information age has changed our lives in monumental new ways, including how a lot of us are learning about spirituality. Research suggests fifty million people will rely solely on the Internet—indeed the new Roman Road—for their faith-based experiences in 2010.

In NetCasters, Craig Von Buseck, director of CBN.com for the Christian Broadcasting Network, discerningly profiles those who are doing the best job of spreading biblical Christianity online. He encourages the church at large to follow their lead and fish for souls in these same rich waters—from blogs and chat rooms to Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and beyond.

---

Chapter One

---

Casting an Electronic Net

I am in the habit of staying up late at night, talking to friends on instant messenger, and checking e-mail.”

Kristi is one of the 1.7 billion people in the world who currently use the Internet on a regular basis.¹ Like millions of young people, she uses the Web not only for information but primarily as a way of staying in touch with her friends.

When Kristi first encountered God on the Web, she was a smart, successful young lady, beginning her college career at the prestigious University of Virginia. She loved to chat with friends on the Internet—and she had little time for church or Christianity.

“I didn’t think that organized religion was an important thing. It wasn’t necessary and I had no interest whatsoever.”

Like so many others, Kristi had been disappointed by overzealous believers in the past. “I had some bad experiences with people saying, ‘Oh, you’re going to hell.’ I would have been very turned off if someone would have come up and tried to evangelize me on the street.”

But despite her suspicions of organized religion, she did have questions about God and the meaning of life. “I was too scared to find someone at a church to ask questions.”

Kristi was lost, yet she sailed through her existence, ignoring the nagging questions within. That is, until she began seeing “the T-shirt message”—an ad for an Internet evangelism site promoted by young believers on college campuses.

“I went to visit James Madison University where my best friend was attending. When I was there, I saw a lot of EveryStudent.com posters in dorm room windows and on dorm-room doors. I had seen the EveryStudent address many times. My friend, Adam, actually had an EveryStudent.com T-shirt that he would wear.

“So I just decided, ‘Why not—I might as well go to this site.’ I read one article after another. I have no clue how much time I spent the first time I was on the site—an hour or more.”

Kristi read about issues relevant to her life and concepts she struggled to understand. Her heart was touched. “It really spoke to me as a seeker, someone who was searching. It was directive, right where I was. And it answered very real issues—things that had been troubling me.”

Like so many young people, Kristi was asking the big questions:

• “How can there be only one truth?”

• “How does religion and Christianity impact my life?”

• “Is there hope for a lasting marriage?”

“I also went to some of the articles that were more intellectual, discussing the differences between other world religions, and why I should choose the God of the Bible.”

Then she found the prayer to invite Jesus into her heart.

Up to that point, Kristi had never known that a person could pray such a prayer. “It was something I had never thought about, that God could be living within me. I was blown away that I could actually have a relationship with God.”

And so, sitting by herself in her dorm room, staring at a Web site on her computer, Kristi invited Jesus Christ to be her Lord and Savior.

“I remember sitting there in my pajamas at my desk chair, just praying and crying. I was so happy.”

A Virtual Tidal Wave

Today millions of people like Kristi are active Internet users around the world. Remarkably it is now possible for any Bible-believing Christian to potentially reach one-fourth of the world’s population from their dining room table.² And someone with a mobile phone, PDA, or another portable digital device is now linked electronically to half of the people living on planet Earth.

The world is connected like never before.

The Internet is a new and dynamic tool for bringing the Good News to the masses. The world is now meeting and talking on the World Wide Web—and so the potential to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with seekers like Kristi is enormous.

Some of the recent breakthroughs in the Internet and digital technology paint an exciting picture:

• Microsoft and other leading computer experts have called the social network explosion the second phase of the Internet’s development—or Web 2.0.

• According to Alexa Web Search, Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, MySpace, Twitter, and WordPress—some of the leading social networks in the world—are among the top twenty most-viewed Web sites.³ They are now more popular than eBay, Amazon, AOL, and Hotmail.

• According to Reuters, approximately 80 percent of the U.S. population is online.⁴

• According to a May 2009 report by The Radicati Group, there were 1.4 billion e-mail users in 2009. That number is expected to rise to 1.9 billion by 2013. The same study found that approximately 247 billion e-mails are sent each day.⁵

• Nearly 100 percent of college graduates are online and 90 percent use e-mail daily, according to a study conducted by the Pew organization.⁶

• More than 81 percent of teens are online (Pew).⁷

We are witnessing an explosion of social networks online—Web sites that allow people to post a Web page for free (or for a minimal cost) and connect with people around the world.

• Facebook is the fastest-growing Web site in the world according to the Web traffic tracking site hitgeist.com.⁸

• News Corp., the giant media company owned by Rupert Murdoch, acquired MySpace in the fall of 2005 for $580 million. Industry experts say MySpace was worth $6.5 billion in 2009. Facebook was valued at $10 billion at the same time.⁹

J. C. R. Licklider, one of the pioneers of the Internet, peered into the future in 1960 and made this remarkable prophetic observation: “In due course [the computer] will be part of the formulation of problems: part of real-time thinking, problem-solving, doing of research, conducting of experiments, getting into the literature and finding references.”

While this first part of Licklider’s quote predicted the initial stage of Internet growth, the second part predicted what has come to be known as Web 2.0: “And it will mediate and facilitate communication among human beings.”¹⁰ His amazing prediction is coming true today in ways that Licklider likely never dreamed possible, drawing the world together into one electronic global community.

Into God

This new connectivity could not have come at a more strategic moment in history. Around the world people are moving from the countryside into the wired megacities—and they are hungry for God like never before. The terms God and religion continue to rank in the top five Web searches (sex and pornography topics are usually number one).

People like Kristi are eagerly logging on to find answers to their questions about God, religion, and spirituality.

• According to Pew, 64 percent of Americans are seeking spiritual information on the Internet.¹¹

• George Barna believes that currently fifty million people may rely on the Internet to provide their faith-based experiences.¹²

• Heidi Campbell, a Texas A&M professor who studies religion on the Internet, said, “Almost two-thirds of people that go online at some point have done so . . . to seek out religious information, or to get involved in a religious conversation or for other [religious] purposes.”¹³

There have never been more people yearning for spiritual truth in the history of the world. The time is ripe for Bible-believing Christians to go online with a compelling, professional presentation that greets these seekers with biblical truth.

The gospel message never changes—our presentation of it must evolve and adapt constantly to the ever-changing culture.

Spirituality is in—but not necessarily Christianity. In this postmodern era, it’s cool to be a seeker, but the exclusivity of following Jesus Christ, “the way, the truth and the life,” is more difficult for postmodern thinkers.

As this new era dawns, people are flocking to the Internet to learn about spirituality. Reggie McNeal wrote in The Present Future, “Although intrigue with institutional religion is down, interest in spirituality is up. A 2003 Gallup poll indicates that a vast majority of Americans say that religion has an impact on every area of their life.”¹⁴

What’s Up Ahead?

In his book The Road Ahead, Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft, explained, “We are watching something historic happen, and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• More From Author
• Notes