|TOP|The 11th European Christian Internet Conference (ECIC) will be held June 14-18 in London this year, with the theme "The Challenge of Convergency for the Church.”

Hosted by Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth, ECIC President Juha Kinane noted that the aim is to exchange experiences about working with the Internet. The president also said the steering committee invites web-pastors, editors, webmasters and other new media professionals, especially from Europe to contribute their quota toward making the event successful and memorable.

"We also seek to arrange co-operation in the area of this "new media" and past conferences have proved to be very fruitful and to fulfil a vital role for the Christian Internet presence," he said.

|AD|The ECIC Steering committee, he further said, in a press statement made available to Champion Infotel, extends an open invitation to all those who play a role in the Christian Internet presence in Europe, and hopes that the key personalities in the Internet field would be able to attend ECIC conferences.

As "working conferences," the number of participants is limited for each conference, he asserted.

According to ECIC, one important field of church activity is education, ranging from the traditional religious education or the teaching of catechism to e-learning. As knowledge and education become more and more important in the information society, the church must fully explore the potential of the Internet.

Stressing, "If the digital divide is the border between the educated elite and the information-poor, then media education becomes an important task for the church.”

In addition, ECIC urged that the church needs a ‘holistic approach’ in the time of media convergence to deal with such challenges as integration of television, mobile phones and the internet and location based services.

President Kinane noted that the conference will explore these challenges and try to search for answers.