wfn.org | Re: United Methodist Daily News note 552

[owner-umethnews@ecunet.org (United Methodist News list)]

Reply-to: owner-umethnews@ecunet.org (United Methodist News list)
"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (558
notes).

Note 554 modified by UMNS on Jan. 20, 1998 at 17:18 Eastern (2265 characters).

CONTACT: Linda Bloom							27(10-71B){554}
	    New York (212) 870-3803				 Jan. 16, 1998

This story may be used as a sidebar to UMNS story #26{553}

Houses of Worship Project
allows free access for churches

	NEW YORK (UMNS) -- A new project which allows any church member who can use a
word processor to become a Web site editor will be highlighted during the
"Dancing on the Web" teleconference.
	Houses of Worship, a project supported by the American Bible Society,
Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation and OnTV, has a goal of helping churches
"begin to talk to each other," according to Mike Maus.
	Maus, the society's director of communications, spoke about the project
during the Jan. 15 meeting of the New York chapter of the Religious Public
Relations Council here.
	Growing from an idea raised in 1996 during a Pittsburgh-area Sunday School
class, Houses of Worship (http://www.housesofworship.net) links more than
300,000 churches in North America through the Internet.
	The American Bible Society has pledged $5 million over an 18-month period to
support the project, Maus said.
	To become active in Houses of Worship, a pastor or church member need only
search for its church name on the Web site, "click" on that name and complete
an online application to become an editor for any or all of the four pages
available to each congregation.
	Those are the pastor's page, church events page, youth activities page and
needs and offers page. A link also can be established with any existing web
site the congregation might have.
	Once the application is approved, free software will allow the editor to
easily update the church pages from any computer. One pastor in New Jersey,
Maus said, uses a computer at the public library.
	An official launch of the Houses of Worship Project is planned in April.
Currently, about 9,400 churches are actively involved.
	United Methodist Communications executive Judy Weidman praised the Bible
Society effort.  "We are still trying to find our way in this new world of
computer technology," she said.  "This Houses of Worship project will prove to
be an important link for churches across the spectrum of the denominations as
we find it both necessary and desirable to share our resources more and more
in the future."
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