That\’s it!

I often hear this question:  How is web teaching different than postal and email WBS?  It’s a good question, because there is a change in the way the gospel message is communicated in a web-based, social network environment.

The best way I can explain it is to draw you a picture.  Then, after you look at the picture, post some comments and let me know your questions. Then we can visit about it. I hope you like what you see!
~Kit

INTERNET IS A GREAT WAY TO SHARE THE GOSPEL
An excerpt from “Focus on Asia” by Charles Cook, SIBI

Many are taking advantage of the incredibly effective and astonishingly inexpensive way the internet can be used for mission work. More and more it is being used successfully to reach people with the gospel. Studies show that a large percentage of search engine requests are religious in nature, people in many remote places are surfing for truth.

One Family’s Journey

Right here in Singapore we recently experienced this. A couple with a teenage son while surfing the net found the World Bible School correspondence course offered online for free. They enrolled, studied with the WBS people who afterward recommended they contact the Pasir Panjang Church to find additional answers to their Bible questions. They did and after further study all three were baptized. We need to take notice of this,

The Internet as a study tool works!

Skype, Google, Yahoo and other internet services offer online audio/visual person to person exchanges (groups can also participate). Internet Bible study can delivers results, and it can deliver those results in places where we cannot get to by conventional means. To use a slogan often heard: “If it works – do more of it!” We plan to do just that.

To all our readers and supporters….Thanks and God bless,

Charles and Tamara Cook

SIBI Singapore
Focus On Asia – http://focusonasia.wordpress.com/

More of the story of Desiree’s baptism as told by Mike, who baptized her:

“Desiree showed up to Wednesday night Bible class about 15 minutes early and it gave our members time to meet her and talk to her. It was the first time she had been to our church so we told her our Bible class times and how our Wednesday worship service went. She told us about what she learned and was learning from the WBS courses and knew it was time to be baptized. She also told us about her Catholic background and how her decision to be baptized has caused controversy in her family.

“After Bible class we have a 5 minute devotion with an invitation song and our minister walked with Desiree to the front. I asked her if she believed Jesus Christ was the son of God and she replied; ‘Yes.’ After her confession, one of the ladies of the congregation went with her to the changing room to help her get ready. When she was ready, I met her in the baptismal and she was ready to be baptized before I had a chance to open the baptismal curtain for the congregation to watch. I held her off long enough to open the baptismal curtain and said the words; ‘Desiree, based on your confession, I now baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’ When she came up out of the water, I hugged her and welcomed her into the family of Christ and my wife said when she came back to the changing room she stood for a couple of minutes crying tears of joy.

“Afterwards, the members of our congregation came over to Desiree and hugged her and welcomed her into the Church and congratulated her. Desiree was very gracious and said she really enjoyed the Bible class and looked forward to Sunday Bible class and services. We gave her our bulletin and told her about our Sunday morning and evening services and the meeting times. Desiree is a new Christian and we will have to continue to study with her and encourage her to help her grow in her Christian life.”

I’m a Christian and live in Dallas.  I enrolled in your course because I am looking for the best available online courses for people in Dallas who need to hear the Gospel.

I have a couple of friends who could use such a course. I have always known about the work WBS does, but had not seen the web course.  It is very well done and I know it has been effective.

Thanks again, I’ll let you know if my friends use it.

In Christ, John

Some of you know what Twitter is. Some of you don’t.

Twitter is a social networking site that let’s users send a brief message in real-time to let friends (called “followers”) know what is happening right now. Each brief update is called a “tweet”.

Want to follow World Bible School and keep informed about what’s new? Sign up for a free Twitter account and get the WBS news in real time. It’s real fun!

http://twitter.com/FollowMyWBS

Every day the staff of the Internet department of WBS gets to experience something that is exciting, inspirational, or humbling. Yesterday, we had all three.

Our programmer recently activated the ability for a myWBS user to upload an “avatar”.  An avatar is a little picture that serves as an icon to represent the user.  Traditionally most users post a picture of themselves.  Some use a picture that represents their interests or personality in some way.

During our staff meeting yesterday, we looked to see if any of the WBS web students had uploaded an avatar to their profile.  What we saw excited, inspired and humbled us.  Over 100 students had uploaded images that instantly put faces and personalities with their names and ID numbers.

Yesterday, the web students came to life.  With over 1,000 web students enrolled in the first two months, we were reminded that these are real people seeking God.

Here is what we saw. God is good.

WBS web students – real people.

On February 23rd, Desiree, a 49 year old cake decorator from the state of Iowa (US) enrolled in the WBS web courses.

On Saturday, April 4th, at 6:31 PM she requested baptism.  Desiree wrote:

Desiree has completed the Intro, God Has Spoken, This is Good News, and Knowing Jesus courses.  She has had no interaction with a study helper since she enrolled. The Word of God presented through the WBS courses convicted and compelled her.

1 – General Stats via the Web

http://internet.wbschool.net/Stats.php (may take a few seconds to load the page)

2 – WBS Top 20 Countries Enrolling for Postal via the Web

http://internet.wbschool.net/CountriesPostal.php

3 – WBS Top 20 Countries Enrolling for Email Courses

http://internet.wbschool.net/Countries.php

4 – WBS Top 20 Countries Enrolling for Web Courses

http://internet.wbschool.net/Countries09Web.php

This Spring, WBS released 7 blogs for students.

Each blog is centered around the topics and spiritual concepts presented in one of the Master Series courses.

The purpose of the blogs is to:
- help the students understand and apply what they are learning in the courses
- keep them involved with Bible studies longer
- support the good work WBS teachers are doing as other Christians encourage the students
- experience love and faith within a Christian community.

Ultimately, our goal is to communicate the Gospel and transform lives.

A blog environment is similar to a Bible class at church. When a student clicks a link,  he finds a discussion on a Bible topic with a small group of people.  The exciting thing about this group is that it is made up of people from around the world.  The student realizes, “Hey, I’m not alone!” and he finds other Christians, besides his study helper, who are helping him come to know Christ.

Links to WBS Course Blogs

The day after the February newsletter was sent, my inbox was filled with responses – all of them upbeat and encouraging. I opened Bill Martin’s message, “This sounds exciting! Even to an ‘old dog’ like me. I’m ready…” Mary McKinney put it this way, “I’ll do whatever it takes to win souls. I will do like Paul and be all things to all people that I may win some!!” Pat Stamps responded with, “This sounds so good. Just let me know what I need to do. I am excited and ready to go.”

What do you need to do?

Before I answer the question from one “old dog” to another, I would like to reassert the point that the new myWBS will be a seamless application for all WBS users. Postal, email and web – teachers, students, follow up workers and churches. So, if you are reading this message, myWBS 2.0 is for you and your students.

For Postal Teachers who are myWBS 1.0 users. Your students’ records will be migrated into the new system for you. We are currently building your Postal Teacher & student pages. When the pages are completed, we will notify you that your students are being moved into the new system. At that time we will also give you instructions for how to login to the new system as a teacher.

For Email Teachers. The email teacher & students will be released following the Postal system in myWBS 2.0. Your system is a more complex with all of the auto-generated emails associated with your processes. You too will be notified when your system is ready and your students will be moved into the new system for you. We’ll give you step-by-step instructions so the migration will be easy.

For Follow-Up Workers and affiliated churches. The two systems – the one for follow up workers, and the one for WBS affiliated churches is scheduled for release in 2010.

So, what do you need to do right now?
1 – Watch for the notification with instructions about your system and your students.
2 – Keep giving us feedback and asking questions. Your opinions not only influence our path, they also encourage us! Lance and I have set up a couple of blogs to make it even easier for you to communicate with us.
3 – Read Lance’s technology blog and post your technical questions to him.
For now, that’s it!

~ Kit