GREETINGS METRO NY SYNOD “CYBER-FRIENDS”

Today, when I went to the church , I discovered that the shipment of the Christmas Lutheran New Yorker had arrived. I was eager to see it because I was interviewed a few weeks ago by Wendy Healy, and she told me that the article would come out in this issue.

Right in the middle of the issue is the article she wrote. Three pastors are highlighted—Pastor Many Derr from St. Peter's in Manhattan (Citicorp), Paul Milholland from St. John's Lindenhurst, and me.

    The article was written to encourage pastors and congregations to make a serious effort to use the internet as a means for contacting the "outside world," as well as keeping in touch with church members and supporters. Perhaps you are one of those who read the article and are reading this as a way of figuring out what is possible for you to accomplish.

    I give credit to Pastor Derr for the idea of publishing the ANCHOR NOTES weekly (more-or-less) electronic newsletter. Pastor Derr shared with the internship cluster (pastors and seminary interns) last spring about what he was doing. I looked at Microsoft Publisher and found templates for publishing e-mail newsletters and used the mailing list I had accumulated in my Microsoft Outlook program as a starting point. ANCHOR NOTES goes out to those who request it, as a form of e-mail, but it can be viewed by interested people on our church's website (www.hopeluth.com) where it is displayed as a pdf file each week. Its name is derived from the monthly newsletter we publish at Hope, the "ANCHOR" and from the weekly 4-page newsletter we hand out on weekends called "ANCHOR LINES." All of these have the goal of keeping people connected (anchored) to their church.

    The blog came about as a result of signing up on blogspot.com. They provide the basic elements of putting a Blog together. I recently added a new one for our Peconic Conference called "Peconic Postings," (www.peconic.blogspot.com). Our goal is to open up a channel for pastors and laity to share information about their churches and the activities and programs that may be of interest to others. Now since our conference is very large, it is not likely that there will be many who will travel to another parish for a local event, but the principle is sound. Conferences that are more geographically compact should discuss how they could use this means of communication to advance their mission.

    As for websites, there are many ways to get started. Often an Internet Service Provider will offer free website space and provide templates to get going with. Verizon does that and others do too. I use Go-Daddy because they are a bit outlandish in their approach to the internet. And they're cheap. They also provide templates for a small fee. The Total ministry concept is at the heart of the site: www.totalministry.net. On that site I am able to add photos and papers I've written as well as resources from others. Another site I am working on is for the Commission for Evangelical Outreach, www.mnysceo.net .

    Anyway, I don't spend a lot of time of this work, but I've been very encouraged when people visit our church and tell me that they checked out our church website before coming. Thanks to Art Stahl, who is a retired Math teacher, we have been able to keep the site up to date and make improvements to the site as we learn more and more about what we can do online. Nearly every new family that has come to Hope in the past couple of years checked us out on the internet first.

    If you have any comments, you can add them on this blog site or you can mail them directly to me at rohill@optonline.net. If you have questions, I'd be happy to answer them or point you in the right direction. Happy surfing.