ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA
E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com, Web Site: www.assistnews.net


Saturday, September 6, 2003

CYBERMISSIONS HELPS MISSIONARIES REACH CLOSED COUNTRIES SAFELY

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

MANILA, THE PHILIPPINES  (ANS) -- Missionaries like John Edmiston, an Australian missionary based in Manila, are using the Internet to enter closed countries that conventional missions find difficult to reach.

Edmiston has found 43 nations that are most suitable for cybermissions as a main missionary strategy because they have a sufficient number of users and are places with persecution or other restrictions on mission.

These include places like Brunei, China and India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Turkey, Russia, Japan, Oman, Cuba, Thailand and Bahrain, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia. China with 45.8 million Internet users (Nielsen survey) is a massive harvest field open to cybermissions.

"Apparently a country needs only to have a few thousand users for cybermissions to start making a difference," Edmiston said.

"In these cases the missionary seeks out a 'man of peace' -- someone seeking the Lord, who is connected to the Internet and who is often a leader or a person of influence.

"Once this person is contacted and becomes a Christian they can download material and spread the gospel in their land. A group of twenty or thirty good online contacts in a given people group can then form the basis for a house-church and the start of a church-planting movement. This can all be done from the relative safety of the missionaries' home base and integrated with more conventional approaches."

Edmiston has been online since 1991 with Australian BibleNet, the Prayer Page, Eternity Online Magazine, the Asian Internet Bible Institute and now Cybermissions.Org (www.cybermissions.org) which aims to be a web portal supporting cybermissionaries and web evangelists with articles, forums, blogs and a 12 week online training course Training In Cybermissions.

Cybermissions.Org can be found at http://www.cybermissions.org  and is a division of the Asian Internet Bible Institute (http://www.aibi.ph/). The Training In Cybermissions course can be found at: http://www.cybermissions.org/training/ and commences on October 6, 2003.

Edmiston says Cybermission "is the use of the Internet to facilitate cross-cultural evangelism, church-planting, discipleship, training and networking for missions.

"Cybermission can be sharing Christ in a chat room, designing an evangelistic web-site, running an online Bible college focused on Third World pastors, or helping missionaries strategize in an egroup."

"Some great articles on cybermissions and how you can get involved can be found online in: our articles section. (http://www.cybermissions.org/articles/)."

Edmiston explained that Cybermissions is the front-line use of the Internet for cross-cultural evangelism, church-planting, missions, discipleship, teaching, networking, counseling and mentoring. Cybermissions.Org is a website dedicated to building a professional community amongst those involved in cybermissions and Internet evangelism. 

The website says: "We offer articles on cybermissions, a wide variety of forums, free webmail, and even the ability for cybermissionaries to have their own blogs detailing their ministry and their learnings, trials and tribulations.

"By the way Cybermissions.Org is highly interactive so you can comment on, rate and feedback on just about everything!"

"We have just added a 12 week course -- Training In Cybermissions! The course covers the nature and theology and missiology of cybermissions plus online evangelism and community-building, how to reach closed countries, web site design, networking, publicity and off-line partnership and a whole lot more!

The course starts on the first Mondays in October, January, April and July but you can enrol at any time for the next available cohort. See Training In Cybermissions Home Page (http://www.cybermissions.org/training/) for the course details."

Enrollment is a three-step (about 5 minute) enrollment process -- just read the course details, fill in the form, log into the classroom area. Click on any of the "Training In Cybermissions" links to start.

The Asian Internet Bible Institute is an interdenominational (evangelical/charismatic) ministry based in Manila, Philippines that seeks to use the Internet to edify, equip and train Asia's Great Commission Christians.

The AIBI is a member of the Philippines Missions Association, and is incorporated with SEC in the Philippines as a non-stock, non-profit religious association, Company Registration No: A200208256.

John Edmiston can be contacted at: johned@aibi.ph. The Asian Internet Bible Institute website is at: http://www.aibi.ph 
** Michael Ireland is an international British freelance journalist. A former reporter with a London newspaper, Michael is the Chief Correspondent for ASSIST News Service of Garden Grove, CA. Michael immigrated to the United States in 1982 and became a US citizen in Sept., 1995. He is married with two children. Michael has also been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station. E-mail: mireland55@cs.com.
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