Tens of Thousands Search for God at Rejesus Website Over Christmas
Thousands have entered and visited the rejesus.co.uk website throughout December, making it one of the most successful months for the site, which aims to allow non-churchgoers to find out more about Jesus.
Almost 82,000 people visited the rejesus.co.uk website during December, with 2,412 of these going online to search about Jesus on Christmas Day.
A rejesus release has said, "As well as being able to explore Christmas, sing karaoke carols, say a prayer and look at the Nativity, surfers were able to click on how they were feeling. The most popular Christmas feeling - perhaps surprisingly - was "seeking God" and the other top feelings people selected were feeling 'sad' and feeling 'tired'."
During the first three days of January, with almost 10,000 people visiting the site, figures show that people are now feeling firstly "tired", then "seeking God", followed by feeling "sad", "a failure" and "worried" (in order according to number of hits).
"It is intriguing to discover that people at Christmas are wanting to explore where God fits into it all. We are excited to see so many people looking for a deeper meaning to their Christmas, and exploring the person of Jesus", says Robert Freeman, Archdeacon of Halifax and Chair of rejesus.
Widespread publicity for rejesus.co.uk at Christmas included a poster campaign on buses in Preston, and on 150,000 mince pie serviettes printed and sold by the Christian Publicity Organisation. Forty-three per cent of people who used a search engine arrived at the rejesus.co.uk website by entering the words "Jesus" and "Jesus Christ".
www.rejesus.co.uk is a UK website designed to resonate with British culture and provide an open, exploratory framework for people who don't go to church to find out about Jesus. It also offers churches a quality and trustworthy place to use for information and for recommending to others. The site brings together the mainstream denominations and other agencies in the UK, although it is not aligned to any one group.