A community is a group of like-minded people. You are probably part
of several different communities – the town/village where you live, the place where you work or study,
a group of friends with whom you play sport or other hobby activity, and your church fellowship.
A community of people usually has most of these characteristics:
- shared interests
- shared values
- shared problems/enemies
- mutually supportive
- intimacy
- physical face-to-face interaction at specific times
A virtual online community shares most of these characteristics except the last. Time and location
are no longer relevant. And because you are online, you can share as much or little of yourself
as you wish, without being judged.
The Web's unique properties – a pull medium with interactive
two-way capability – gives the opportunity for this sense of belonging and relationship which
is a deep human need.
Community online within evangelism
Some evangelistic websites lend themselves to creating this sense of community. The
Gospel most easily flows when there are
shared interests.
To have a sense of community, a website needs to be welcoming and non-condemning. It must meet
people where they are, and demonstrate an understanding of their feelings and problems. They must
feel that they somehow 'belong' to the site, and can also offer their own feedback and opinions as well
as receive advice.
In other words, the website must be sticky and encourage return visits.
Belonging
Options which help visitors to feel that they belong:
- The webmaster must not be anonymous, but a real person, with picture and personal story online. Then visitors feel that they know and can identify with him or her.
- A regular newsletter can keep people in touch –
Women Today Magazine produce one specifically for non-Christians..
- Two-way discussion lists or online bulletin boards give people the chance to share opinions with others in the circle of influence of the website.
Note that there are practical minimum and maximum sizes for these options. A discussion list
on which there are less than 20 people is unlikely to generate meaningful discussion.
A discussion list containing more than about 200 people can generate so much discussion
that its size will be self-limiting because people will leave when the email load becomes too
great. On the other hand, bulletin boards do not usually generate significant discussion
until site visitors reach about 2000 a day.
A chat room
may require an even higher number of visitors to be a viable addition to a site.
Letting them contribute
A site which permits visitors to contribute content is potentially building community and a high
level of trust.
Reality Check
explains more of this strategy.