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 back to January 2009 |
Monasteries in decline, social network evangelism on the rise
13/01/2009 12:15:00
| The Observer reports that monasteries and convents in Britain and Ireland are having problems finding new recruits - see Monasteries in drive to recruit more novices. A variety of recruitment initiatives are being adopted, for instance: |
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| The paper did its bit to reverse the situation with a feature in the travel section, The best retreats, along with a 'review' of Christmas and New Year spent at a Benedictine monastery: 'Spirituality beats flaming sambucas'. |
| Those wanting to find out more about local retreat centres can find plenty of useful links via the Retreat Association website, whilst the Good Retreat Guide has a different selection. Not all retreat centres seem to be listed in these - locally, for instance, we have Abbotswick House of Prayer which seems to have evaded detection. |
| Meanwhile some other forms of spirituality appear to be on the increase. As an example - young people are set to evangelise their peers via Facebook and other similar sites over the next few months by participating in an "Online missions trip" (subtitled "Sharing Christ through social media"). Christian Today has a report. Over 800 people have signed up on the Facebook page so far. The scheme is the brainchild of Tim Schmoyer, a youth minister from Minnesota, who in a video describes the initiative as "a two-week opportunity for all of us to bombard Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, whatever social places you go to online, with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” |
| For those wanting to evangelise online but less keen on the "bombarding" approach, a page on the Internet Evangelism Day website explains how Christians can share their faith on social networking sites in a "non-preachy" way: How Christians can use social networking sites in relationship building and evangelism. |
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