On 1st-2nd April 2005, an international conference entitled "Internet Evangelism for the 21st century" will be held at the Liberty University in central Virginia, USA. Sponsored by the Liberty University’s MA Communication Graduate Department, a group of communication professors in the Missions Department organised the meeting.

Through workshops and seminaries, the conference aims to explore the new method of evangelism through the internet. Rather than focusing on theory, practical advices will be given for beginners.

"This is a conference unlike any other internet evangelism conference," commented organiser Professor Dan Henrich in a press release. "Many of the workshops will benefit the Christian who feels called to be an evangelist using the Internet, but doesn’t know where to start."

Internet Evangelism emerges as quite a fresh idea over recent years while the churches have failed to keep their congregations by old-fashioned ways of doing mission. Liberty University founder Jerry Falwell shared his vision, "About 500 years ago the world was changed by the printing press. In the past 20 years the Internet has basically changed the world again."

The conference has been drawing more attention from the Christian leaders or evangelists in America and beyond. 8,000 people ranging from students to pastors and leaders, are expected to join the conference.

In the latest press release, it was announced that the conference is getting more participants from overseas. There have been more than 1048 visits from the USA, 52 from Canada, 18 from the United Kingdom, 14 from Singapore, 13 from the Russian Federation, 11 from Germany, 16 from Australia, 11 from and a number of visitors from other countries including Israel, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, New Zealand and Oman.

Furthermore, six new workshops have been added to the conference schedule:
- Evangelism on Usenet Newsgroups by Rev. Dr. Rowland Croucher (Australia)
- Reaching the Connected with Blogging by Steve Knight of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association along with co-presenters
- Podcasting and Internet Evangelism by Nick Ciske
- The Church, Evangelism and Interactive Virtual Reality Worlds by Professor Todd Smith of LU
- Using Chatrooms and Internet Evangelism
- Reaching Women on the Internet

Each of the 19 one-and-a-half hour workshops will be video and audio taped and offered, technology permitting, streamed live from the conference website. According to the news release, visitors will be able to stream the audio versions and download them as a "podcast" for later listening.

In fact another event on internet evangelism is also scheduled on April. A Worldwide Internet Evangelism Day (IED) has been arranged for 24th April 2005 by Internet Evangelism Coalition (IEC). IEC is a group of evangelicals including the Billy Graham Centre, Campus Crusade for Christ, Christian Broadcasting Network, Christianity Today, Gospelcom.net, Mission America and etc.

The importance of internet evangelism is reported by many, as going to be revealed more clearly this year. To know more about the two events, please visit the official websites.

Internet Evangelism for the 21st century

Internet Evangelism Day