e-Church

How does the idea of sharing Jesus Christ with everyone you know sound to you? Well I think a powerful opportunity has been revealed to me that will enable us all to share Jesus with everyone we know. You see, e-fellowship started with 3 or 4 guys sharing Christ with each other through weekly emails. Now, e-fellowship has grown so much that we all are starting to search for ways to take this whole thing a little further. Well today I want to reveal to you what was revealed to me during my 28 hour drive out west to spring training. How does the idea of "e-Church" sound to you guys? Here's how we do it:

Congregation - Everyone who wants to be involved makes a list of every single person's email address that they have access to. We then combine all of the email addresses into one mass email list which is our congregation.

Church Leaders - We have 4 to 6 people volunteer to be the speakers of the e-Church. The church leaders will alternate weeks in which they deliver a message through email to the congregation. This means if you choose to be a church leader then you must be responsible enough to save the mass email list to your email account (this is not a simple "reply all" format) and be prepared to deliver your message each time your week comes around. Also, you will be called on to deliver your personal testimony for your first message so that the congregation will get to know you and how you came to know Jesus. Each message that the church leader gives will need to be in a specific format (i'll explain) so that each week the emails' appearance is consistent and neat. Also, since none of us are educated Pastors we are going to maintain a limited criteria. This won't be the same as e-fellowship because its not a small group. It's going to be a congregation full of believers, unbelievers, men, women, children, and adults so we are not going to be teaching and preaching. We are going to stick to the same criteria that the disciples stuck to when they started the christian church. We are simply going to share what Christ is doing and has done in our lives. Each week is just going to be a real life testimony of our lives with Christ.

Service - The service will be a simple email from a church leader to the congregation one day each week. Just like church, everyone in the congregation will basically just have access to read a message once a week. There will be no pressure for the congregation to respond or make comments about any of the emails. Each email will simply conclude with an invitation for anyone with questions to reply to the church leader who sent the message that week. This is where it can get deeper because if someone does reply with a question or comment then now the church leader can expand on his message with a one on one relationship with a member of the congregation. The one on one relationships that can be built between church leaders and members of the congregation are crucial when the opportunity arises. This is why the church leaders need to be ready to take on the responsibilities of being a leader. Think big. If we have a congregation of hundreds of people then hopefully 1-5 people will be led to reply one day. If you as a church leader are building one on one relationships with 5 different people then chances are you will stay pretty busy and this needs to be recognized before volunteering to lead.

So this is a breakdown of e-Church. It is basically a church through email since we will have a congregation that hears a message once a week from a church leader. I had tons of things running through my head while all of this was coming to me during my drive but I couldn't write everything down. Therefore, I know I may have left some things out so please feel free to ask a bunch of questions. I came up with a few questions below that I thought might be popular with everyone. Let me know what you guys think and lets try and get this started as soon as possible. I'm hoping that if we work hard enough then we will have a mass email list ready and our first testimony given by the first of April. What do you guys think?

-Terry


FAQ:

How do we compose our individual list of email addresses to add to the mass email list?
- I will compose a general message briefly explaining what we are starting and then forward it to everyone in e-fellowship that wants to participate. You will then forward the message to every single person that you have email access to (christian and non-christian). When I say everyone, I mean everyone. Don't leave out anyone. In the email we will ask people who wish to not receive any more emails from us to simply reply and say "no thanks". This will weed people out and finalize your list. Then you send your finalized list to me in alphabetical order. Alphabetical order so that it is easier for me to eliminate duplicate email addresses when I compose the mass email list.

Won't people who don't know the church leaders be confused when they start receiving random emails from them?
- Once we have gotten the mass email list I will send out a message or two explaining what this thing is all about. Then the church leaders will take turns sharing a short biography and personal testimony so the congregation will come to know each of the church leaders.

What is the specific format mentioned above for the message each week?
- Basically, we want this to be a well-oiled machine. One reason the Apple company has been so successful is because of the incredible presentation of their products. This is why each email we send each week needs to look consistent and clean. If the emails look random and thrown together then people will begin to lose interest because the email won't be appealing to read. Once all of the church leaders are decided I will share more details on the format.

How do we get this thing started?
- We need everyone who is in to start getting their email list ready and we need volunteers to step up and be church leaders. The hardest part of this whole process is getting the list together. Getting the list together, I admit, will take a lot of time and effort but the payoff will be more than worth it. Once we have the mass email list and all of the church leaders save it to their email accounts, it will be a piece of cake from then on. I will take the responsibility of being a church leader and I will keep this whole operation organized. I will be responsible for keeping the church leaders informed on when they are supposed to speak and will make sure everything runs clean. If a church leader writes a message one week that differs from our format then I will keep them accountable. I will begin work on the introduction message that all of you will forward to your individual email lists and then we can go from there.