Web Evangelism: Target the Pre-Christian Audience

PATTERSON, CA (November 1, 2000) - It wasn't a calling from God, but a word from Billy Graham that inspired Covenant pastor David Bruce to recognize the powerful potential of the Internet as an evangelistic outreach tool.

At a 1997 Billy Graham Crusade in San Jose, Graham challenged attendees to use the Internet as a prime tool for evangelism. Shortly after returning from the crusade, Bruce decided to follow Graham's advice. Within one year his new site www.hollywoodjesus.com had generated one million hits and today is one of the most visited Christian web sites in the United States. The site has received acclaim from respected media outlets, including ABC World News Tonight, the Christian Science Monitor, Christianity Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Dallas Morning News.

Bruce's primary calling until recently was as pastor of Patterson Covenant Church in Northern California. Unlike some web sites, hollywoodjesus.com is not focused on generating revenue. Its purpose is to present Jesus in a powerful way around the world. And reach it does – the site has generated more than 12 million hits since March 1998.

What makes this site unique? It eschews traditional evangelistic approaches that push the Gospel message in a direct way. This site reaches people more subtly, offering a wide range of reviews of current and classic films and videos of interest to a broad range of individual tastes. That approach is not without its critics, however.

Some have charged that reviews of secular movies on a Christian site, in effect, condone secular movies. Others question if Bruce goes too far in drawing spiritual parallels from movies that seem to have little to do with spirituality.

Bruce disagrees. He says the evangelism part comes as he interacts with those who email him – people, he says, who are searching for answers to life's deeper questions. Bruce thoughtfully responds to each one, offering a Christian perspective. He includes a separate link that offers individuals an opportunity to come to know Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Bruce says the opportunity to share the gospel message makes it worth his time, even though his methodology may not be accepted wholeheartedly by some in the Christian community.

"The email pours in every day and even though I get some hate mail (from some in the Christian community), that's okay," said Bruce. "I want people to know that some Christians are culturally minded. There's a link to hollywoodjesus.com from Muslim sites, from New Age sites, science fiction and horror media sites and from secular movie sites," he noted. "I even was getting hits from a site that wants to legalize marijuana in Canada. It excites me to be able to talk to the world . . . through (Internet) media," he continued.

"Some have told us that it is better to stay away from the Internet because of the enticements that take us away from the spiritual life," Bruce observed. "And there are some that fear something new. But the old way of doing things is over. The church has failed to speak to the culture. And where is the culture going to go to find the answers to the questions? To popular media. The church is out of the loop."

Besides movie reviews, Bruce believes the gospel of Jesus Christ can be communicated using other interest areas like sports, classic cars, model trains, history, etc. There must be some way to integrate one's faith within the context of each interest area, however. One site he found, for example, integrates faith with basketball and rap. Bruce believes the potential is unlimited.

Describing the Internet as the most powerful communications tool since the invention of the printing press, Bruce sees the Internet as the communications standard for the future. It provides a relatively inexpensive and seemingly limitless supply of space for Christians to communicate the Good News. As one example of its rapid growth, Bruce points out that America Online already has 22 million subscribers, more people than major newspapers reach on a daily basis. Recent studies also show that 67 percent of young people ages 18 to 24 use the Internet to gather information - the majority said it is a more effective medium than television or newspapers. It is because of this increasing popularity that Bruce believes the Internet is the next great frontier for Christians to explore.

"Why not have Christians in the media discussing media-related issues or Christians in the political realm discussing the latest presidential race," Bruce says. To him, healthy dialogue via the Internet is a viable way of being in the world, but not of the world. "In Philippians 2, Christ said that we should be as they are and we've got to interact with the culture. If we don't, we make no gains for the kingdom," he said.

Bruce believes more religious sites should incorporate material designed for what he calls the pre-Christian audience. "Christians have used the Internet . . . to talk to the choir, not for evangelism," he believes. His survey of other web sites yields few with links geared primarily for pre-Christians.

Most Christian film sites, for example, provide parental guidelines instead of dealing with Christian perspectives within a film. They might tell parents which films are unsuitable for a Christian audience, for example, but may not tell pre-Christian audiences what Christian themes or values were communicated within the film. In his reviews, Bruce says he adds a Christian perspective to subject matter inundated with secular voices. To him, this is crucial, as people watch movies of all types, whether considered wholesome or not. It's the dialogue about the films that ultimately allows the gospel message to seep into the lives of pre-Christians, Bruce believes. It is this dialogue that leads to what Bruce calls pure evangelism, a look at the God story within the culture story.

"It wasn't long ago in the Covenant church that you couldn't worship in the church if you watched motion pictures," Bruce said. "Maybe there was a good reason, but we made motion pictures evil. We didn't learn from Martin Luther. We closed our eyes to the lessons he had taught the church. We should use whatever media tools we can use, whatever media communication we have, and never demonize it," he continued. "Martin Luther took the existing media of his day - the printing press - and printed tracts and distributed them. That started the Protestant Revolution. Since then, the world has not embraced a media communication tool like that."

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