An agnostic, a Muslim, 2 Hindus, a Jew, and a Christian walk into a bar are about to land on your blog. They’ve never heard of “Yeshua”, and the probably think of the Masons when they hear the term “Messianic”.
If you were to provide them with a link explaining who Yeshua is, and what this Messianic thing is about, where would you point them? Is there a good landing page for Yeshua the Jewish Messiah?
Here’s why I ask: Chavah, the best darn Messianic radio on the web, is about to get a wave of traffic. I’m writing an article about the Chavah software to be published on a popular software developer website. Once published, I expect Chavah will get several hundred to a few thousand hits from a diverse audience, mostly folks who’ve never heard of Yeshua, and whose exposure to religion consists primarily of napoleon trolls on internet forums.
With that in mind, the first thing that comes up when running Chavah is the Chavah logo:
I’d like something in there, perhaps the word “Yeshua”, to link to an explanation of who Yeshua is, and what the Messianic thing is.
I’m not fishing for sneaky conversion tactics – the point of the article is a description of how the software was built, it is not an evangelism effort. Instead, I’m looking for a page that explains for the curious who Yeshua is and who we are, and it’s gotta be in language that makes sense to normal, non-religious people. (Light on the Bible-ese, please!)
Any suggestions?
My first suggestion is, since you discovered the issue, that you write the one-page "blurb" describing Yeshua. Depending on who you ask, (and with your readership, you're asking amidst significant theological diversity), you're going to get quite a few different answers.
ReplyDeleteMy guess, based on the audience you describe, is that they may not care much for an explanation beyond "Yeshua is the original Hebrew name of Jesus". The split second they see the word "Jesus", they're going to stop reading, anyway, at least most of them.
If part of your intent was to share the Good News, you might want to put more, but relative to your audience and your stated parameters, I don't think more will do much good.
Just my two cents.
I would agree with James. You could search and easily come up with many sites that define Yeshua and some probably are pretty good, but most will come with their own perspectives and agendas, rather than paint a broad picture that I think you would be looking for. Others, like wikipedia, for example can easily get too detailed. Still others can be rather dated in appearance and function.
ReplyDeleteI think you want something that is a broad overview of who Yeshua is and what a disciple of Him would be recognized as. I think you would be very qualified to provide that general, quick and broad overview, especially with your way of bridging many different views and finding common ground.
A final thing to consider. If you create a page with this information, you have control over not only the content, but also the look and feel. For as long as you run the site. If you link to another page and the owner there changes the content, the look or feel or even the URL, you can end up with something that does not look right or work right and that immediately reflects upon you, even though you are not in control of that external link.
Anyway, excited for the traffic you are preparing to receive.
I think anyone that is curious, will look further than a click or two. This may not me many, but something is better than nothing. Personally, I stumbled on Dereks site about 8 or 9 months ago. From reading all the comments in his blog, I now follow yours, James's, and Benzvis's blogs. A few others here and there. Hopefully Gene gets one up and running soon.
ReplyDeleteThe diversity has enriched me greatly. I don't know if someone else would benefit as I have, because everyone reacts to things different.
So I guess my answer is, 'landing' on a page in this blog 'club' or whatever it is would not be a bad thing!!
One liners are the best:
ReplyDelete"Believe or your going to hell", this should win many converts...
:P
Medabrim for Israelis:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.medabrim.org.il/
dunno about for anglos, maybe this book:
http://www.christianfocus.com/item/show/1224/-
Philip. 2:10-11.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.messianic.com/yeshua-hamaschiach.html
ReplyDeletehas some nice material that could either be helpful in constructing your own or linking directly.. if that helps at all.
@Zion/Jeruz, LOL That's so terrible, it's funny.
ReplyDelete