'Geraldo' Gives Away Church 'Battle Plan':

I just now had to write a self-introduction for an egroup I joined... summarizing who we are and our proposed change-strategies for the Church today. Decided to draw it all out here, 'in the sand', for anyone to see as well...

I wish internet evangelism sites could single-handedly save everyone everywhere. **wink** But believing the web alone is not (yet?) 'compelling enough', I'm very into integrating various strategies God has given us a vision for... such as fishing the net with a net and hauling 'em into local relationships where the community's 'Church' can best do its job... face to face.

So I'm a firm believer in evangelical Christian web/real portals per city, to help organize the tapestry of Christians more closely together for collaborative efforts as practical... in hopes of fishing our city together with a net when practical, rather than only fishing with poles. Let's lift up the ONE name of Christ together in our community. The networked strategy can conceivably bring a "web of services", neighborhood by neighborhood... whereas a myriad of 'silo' churches have been unable to so far. So we're trying to model the concept here via http://IndyChristian.com .

Very recently, we've actually touched down from cyberspace, creating a centralized "Urban Collaborative Center" here in the heart of the
city... a warm, welcoming, (NEUTRAL), tech-adept place from which to push the envelope faster. Partially as a result of such efforts (and no doubt a lot of prayer from all over the city & state), an initiative called "Transform Indiana" has taken off... hoping to network Christians around the many cities in our state, and to network the neighborhoods therein... to facilitate Christians wanting to reach their communities. You could test-click through our (obcured) network of counties/cities/neighborhoods at... http://IndyChristian.com/transform_index.htm . Its purpose is to start building the web of Christian leaders per neighborhood geo-zone (Did I say "precinct"?) [We'd welcome your comments.]

We work somewhat closely with CityReaching.com (Lighthouse Movement / Mission
America), and we'd gladly work with whatever evangelicals have a goal of making it 'hard to go to hell from Indy'.

We have a number of web-sites with integrated purposes...

http://DoYouKnowForSure.com - Gospel message and local testimonies
per city.

http://WhenYouNeedSomeone.com - Sticky-site to advertise & reel in to
the site above. Hope to someday soon offer a network of 24x7 prayer, care, and share from there. Imagine WhenYouNeedSomeone.com bumper stickers in your city! Billboards?

http://LiveChristian.com seeks to promote the more personal side to
the web. If you looked deep enough in it, you'd find we envision a well-organized 24x7 chat network (168 trained chat-guides sprinkled
among the 24 time slices around the globe), to serve as the Church's 'friendly greeter', with ready access to other Christians
available to help (either regionally, or topically).

Currently, LiveChristian.com functions as a meta-blog for now, toying with a "blog blurbs" concept, to 'personalize' the local web by
getting bloggers such as Rudy, Andrew & Rachel seen at these Christian city-portals (hopefully more & more local bloggers). RSS/XML syndication may well provide a better mousetrap -- I'd be interested in your
comments. [That reminds me, has anyone enlisted "Mean Dean" for this discussion?]

Imagine now a prayed-for city, with well-promoted 24x7 prayer, care, share available in your city... with well-trained phone workers &
chatters tied to the net index per city, and well connected Christians in every neighborhood therein. What's keeping us???

And last (and least)... "Got Change for a Blog"... my online journal
behind the scenes. http://NeilCox.com/gotchange.htm

Ok, so we gave away the strategy. Better an open 'offensive' strategy, than quietly deploying no unified strategy at all.

I say, "Let the devil play defense"! ["We are not unaware of the devil's schemes."]

YBIC
Neil
http://NeilCox.com