I recently received a Facebook message from a student in our ministry.
I’m just wondering what the best websites, clips and/or links that you know of are in terms of evidence for the existence of God. I’d like to share them with a couple of people.
Observations
Clips – he wants video, at least that’s what is preferred.
Share – he won’t be be marching down to his friend’s dorm room to share what he’s found. It will likely be a Facebook wall post or message, or a text message with a link to the website that he’ll be passing along.
Facebook – the preferred method of communication.
Web Content – he is eagerly desiring to consume content on the web.
Marketing – Obviously none of our current web properties are meeting his needs or he doesn’t know about them. An involved student, who would make use of content, doesn’t know where to get it without me showing him.
I see tons of opportunities here to resource students in our ministry with relevant and engaging content so they can help others wrestle with the question of God’s existence.
For the record, here’s what I responded with. Only one of the three sites I recommended is really video-based.
www.jesusfactorfiction.com
www.everystudent.com
www.ultimatequestions.org
doublederivativeca 
I am meting more students on campus who label themselves as atheists so I send them to commonsenseatheism.com because they have an archive of over 400 theist vs. atheist debates. Specifically, I tell them to check out the page dedicated to William Lane Craig that says no atheist has ever defeated him in a debate and encourage them to check out those debates. They all love watching the debates.
http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=392
LikeLike
Thanks for the post! This is such a great example of what student’s want! Perfect for my use. Keep it up my friend.
LikeLike
russ couldn’t agree more.
just spent literally the day talking about how to optimize youtube channels for ministry. it’s very exciting.
my thought is that a youtube channel will be more important than a campus website in the next few years.
LikeLike
someone shared this w me about optimizing video content for search engines.
http://mashable.com/2010/02/01/web-video-seo/
LikeLike
One thought that came to my mind was that perhaps marketing may not be the issue for finding information, but that students don’t know how to determine if the information they have is theologically sound, philosophically and apologetically tight, etc. Sure, we want to have CCCI materials pop up in the earliest Google Search results, but the more comprehensive approach is to teach students how to determine for themselves if content makes for good apologetic evidence (more than simply looking for a CCCI copyright at the bottom of the webpage). Perhaps this student was going to a source he trusted (you), not because he couldn’t find info on his own, but because he (or she) didn’t know how to determine if the information would be useful.
Hmm….I’m afraid this comment sounds harsh. It’s not intended to! Your post just made me think of another perspective.
LikeLike
That’s a great point and totally possible. I would say we need to focus both on marketing and helping our students know what it theologically sound.
LikeLike
One observation…the student’s email did not zero in exclusively on videos. That was a false conclusion. Read it again: “I’m just wondering what the best websites, clips and/or links that you know of are in terms of evidence for the existence of God. I’d like to share them with a couple of people.”
The student wants Websites, or clips (videos), or links – for the existence of God. So, basically, anything that’s on the Internet that would be helpful to share with his friend.
We have revamped a lot on EScom to speak better to atheists, and I am in the process of collaborating more with Dinesh D’Souza, at his initiative. (And yes, we will soon add clips of Dinesh in debate.)
LikeLike
Good point Marilyn.
My point was mainly that the student went out of his way to ask for video clips by specifying it. He didn’t just ask for “sites”.
LikeLike