Internet Beat

Johnnie Jordan

Finding God Online

In the Information Age, many of us have had to learn to do all sorts of things online. We find maps online. We play games online. We find educational information online. We even meet others online by email or chat. Recipes, music and books are easily found online and some people are even completing their college degrees online. Considering all of the time we spend online, shouldn't we expect to find God online, as well?

Recently, I used the search engine at http://www.google.com to search for web pages relating to some common Christian terms. I was astounded to find that there were over 607,000 matches to the words "Jesus Christ." The word "Christian" netted 1.42 million hits. "Church" resulted in 1.86 million matches, and a search on "God" matched 2.62 million web pages. You certainly could not expect more information than that.

With all that information available, the question becomes: How do you sort through so much information to get to what you are looking for? The answer to that question depends on what you are looking for.

Finding a congregation online

People who are new to an area or just looking for a new church home often turn to the internet to find out information about churches in the area. Others may want to find their own church online to keep up with news and events in the congregation.

If you already know the address of the web page you are looking for, such as http://www.axs4u.net/home/emanuels for Emanuel's Lutheran Church, your work is simple. Just go to your web browser, such as Netscape or Internet Explorer, type the address, and press enter. That's all there is to it.

Your task may not be so simple, though. Maybe you know the name of the church you are looking for, but not the web site address. You could try a search engine, but you may find it easier to visit a more directed site. For example, if you know that you are looking for a Roman Catholic church in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, you could visit http://www.archdiosa.org or if you are trying to find a church that is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America you could go to http://www.elca.org to find information on congregations that are members of that body. These types of sites will often have links to lists of congregations and their web sites. At the very least, they will provide contact information such as the address and phone number of the church office.

Search engines are always available if you need to find more general information or if you don't have anywhere else to start. Some of the more popular search engines include http://www.yahoo.com and http://www.excite.com. The important thing to remember when using search engines is to be as specific as possible when choosing the search criteria. Who wants to have to weed through 2.6 million web pages to find what they are looking for? More importantly, who would have the time?

One way to approach deciding how to limit your search is to ask yourself a couple of questions. First of all, what city are you looking in? Secondly, are you looking for a specific denomination? With this information, you could limit the search criteria. For example, if you were looking for a Baptist Church in New Braunfels, your key words might be "Baptist", "Church", and "New Braunfels". Armed with that information, you could go to your favorite search engine and the key words as your search criteria. In Yahoo, you would type Baptist + Church + "New Braunfels". Yahoo will find a list of web sites that include all of those words. Google works a little differently. In Google, you don't need any punctuation. Just type a list of words: Baptist Church New Braunfels. With this search you will only find a list of sites that contain all of those words.

Another way to find churches in a specific area is to visit the home page for the specific city that you are searching for. Some examples would be http://www.seguin.net , http://www.san-antonio.net or http://www.city.dallas.tx.us . Frequently, these sites will contain links to many different community sites, including churches.

Finding Christian information online

Finding answers to your religious questions online can be very rewarding. You can always use the popular search engines to help, but you may find Christian search engines more helpful. With any search engine, the more concise your search criteria, the more fruitful your search will be. Here are several Christian search engines that I have found:

In addition to search engines, you may find answers to many of your questions on church congregation web pages or on church organization web pages.

News groups are another way to get answers to your questions. News groups are bulletin boards that contain discussions about specific topics. They give you the opportunity to interact with others by posing questions or reading conversations and providing input. Most internet mail programs, like Outlook Express have the ability to view news groups. If your email program does not have that functionality, you can still get involved by visiting news group web sites like http://www.dejanews.com. Some of the more popular Christian news groups are:

An important thing to remember about news groups is that they will tend to contain more opinions and less facts than other internet resources. They may also contain advertising and are seldom monitored for content. Because of this, newsgroups may not be a good resource for children. Nevertheless, they can be a very useful tool.

Finding Christian fun online

Everyone likes to have a little fun. Whether your interests are in playing games, building web pages, or reading scriptures and devotionals, there are plenty of web sites that might interest you. Here are just a few examples:

It is my hope that you will find this information helpful. It is important to keep in mind that the links I have listed here are just a few places to start. There is a world of information at your fingertips on the internet. The only limit to it is your imagination.

Johnnie Jordan lives in Seguin, TX and is a co-designer of the Emanuel's Lutheran Church web site. He works as a computer system installer for AutoGas Systems, Inc. in New Braunfels, TX.

To contribute to the Internet Beat column contact Gloria R. Rivera at webmaster@seguin.net