Worthy Christian Forums -> Worthy Chatter Discussions

"Ten Commandments of On-Line Witnessing"

By permission of Daniel Allen

From http://www.spurgeon.us/forums/index.php?a=topic&t=112

Commandment #1

Thou Shalt be Humble.

Upon this one commandment do most (if not all) the other commandments hang. Humility is the key to reaching out to others. If arrogance fuels your witnessing, people take note and very rarely desire to listen to more than two sentences from you. If you are struggling in this area, pray for help. God will listen.

Proverbs 29:23- A man's pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.



Commandment #2

Thou Shalt Not Pick Fights.

Thou shalt not fight with thy neighbor, nor they neighbor's friends, nor thy website admins. This one should go without saying, but how often do we find Christians actually trading verbal blows with unbelievers and believers alike! What unChrist-like behavior to exhibit. If you feel the onset of AIMrage, step back and cool it. Go take a shower or have a run though the park. If it feels like people are being more unruly than normal, give the internet a rest for a day and come back to it. Doing nothing at all is better than ruining your Christian testimony online.

Proverbs 15:1- A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.



Commandment #3

Thou Shalt Listen.

Don't cometh crying to me when people don't want to hear you because you won't heareth them!! You want to make an impact right? Well so does everyone else online (well okay, maybe not everybody). But everyone at least wants to be heard or they wouldn't be online in the first place. Give them that respect and open your ears and mind to what they say. Many people are driven to the online world because of stress, depression and loneliness. Reach out to them and hear their cries of desperation. When you hear them out they will return the favor in kind.

Proverbs 1:5- A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels.



Commandment #4

Thou Shalt Use Thy Bible Search Engine With Great Fervor and Diligence!

How canst thou take on the forces of the Evil One without thy sword? The answer is YOU CAN'T!! The internet has one huge advantage that witnessing in real life will never even come close to comparing to- Bible search websites. Twenty years ago if you were witnessing to a person and they produced a difficult question you had no answer to it might take a week or longer before you could get back to them. Not anymore. Drop the question into Google and have your answer. Type some text into a Bible search engine (like Blueletterbible.org) and have a verse in 5 seconds. What an amazing tool! Don't waste it!

Hebrews 4:12- For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.



Commandment #5

Thou Shalt Avoid Chatroom Arguments

What? Know ye not that nothing is resolved by arguing in chat rooms? Think back for a moment. Was there ever a time you were in a chat room and were just hit with an amazing spiritual epiphany? No? Me neither. Why's that? Because there are 20 other people in there talking which distracts you and whoever you're talking to from getting the message. Chat rooms should primarily be used for one purpose in regards to witnessing- meeting people to talk to one on one. Which is the more ideal witnessing situation- on a loud, profane, crowded bus, or in the quiet of someone's living room? The same principle applies here. Leave the witnessing for instant message and watch your results change drastically.

Acts 8:31- And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.


Commandment #6

Thou Shalt Begin With the Gospel Always

Remember that it is not by thy strength thou doest what thou doest. The Holy Spirit is the person that does the work of bringing people to an understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He's going to have a time of it if you're always butting in with different doctrines/beliefs/religious discussions. From the outset, your best bet is to present the word of God and see how it registers with the person. The Bible is the most powerful tool to use with unbelievers because it can say so much more than you or I can. It is the water of life, and people are thirsting. Keep the Romans Road and other great verses handy at all times (even memorize them if you can).

1 Corinthians 1:17- For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.



Commandment #7

Thou Shalt Not Ignore Questions

Wouldst thou like to be brushed off? In Commandment #6 we realized that our first approach should be the gospel, but what if people have reservations due to skepticism in matters of the Bible, theism or any other aspect of Christianity? Answer their question if you are able. That is what Pre-Evangelism is all about: breaking down all the barriers that prevent the person from accepting Christ. Start out with the gospel, but if a person wants to challenge all that the gospel is based on, don't ignore this challenge. Study up now before you meet it and when it comes have an answer to every person of the hope that you have in Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 3:15- But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.



Commandment #8

Thou Shalt Be Reasonable!

The worst thing thou canst possibly do in a conversation is reducing yourself to being beyond reason. Many skeptics will only listen to you if you sound like a reasonable person. Realize this and think about it while you talk. Don't waver from the truths of the scriptures, but also don't dismiss everything an unbeliever says just because they are an unbeliever. Skeptics are fully capable of rational thought and treating them any less than rational normal people will only result in a bitter end to what could have been a useful conversation.

Isaiah 1:18- Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.



Commandment #9

Thou Shalt Not Waste Time

Art thou called to preach Christ unto all people? Then why are you spending all of your time browsing entertainment and shopping sites? Sure, those things are fun, but are you really willing to be used of God to reach people? If you can't pull yourself away from mindless activities like games and quizzes, why even bother witnessing at all? You are there. Unbelievers are there. Do what you know you should be doing!

Revelation 3:15,16- I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth.


Commandment #10

Thou Shalt Be Kind at ALL Times

Is not a believer in Christ a new creature? Sometimes we forget who we represent and what God has done for us. We get distracted and taken in by the cares of the world. We begin to get afflicted by the same things that rob unbelievers of their joy such as depression and anger. When our minds are set on the cross and what Christ has done for us, our hearts are able to reflect that love onto other people. Kindness is simply a demonstration of love and can go a million miles towards showing an unbeliever you really care. Don't hesitate to love people. Don't hesitate to be there for them. Put your differences aside when they grieve. Never beat them over the head with the message you bring. Ultimately when you present the truth in love, they will listen, and many times you will see the fruition of your labors for Christ.

Psalms 126:6- He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

Hey, maybe we can post some FYIs to common questions/issues we frequently address?

Some FAQ are here: FAQ

Administrators are the ones with their names in either blue or green and are there to help.

All the codes to the smilies are found by clicking “DigiChat” in the upper-left corner of the chat window. Then click on “Emoticons,” which will open another page in your browser (the program that displays the pages of websites on the internet) or you may view them here: emoticons

The first room you enter into, “Upper Room,” is like a lobby with various discussions. To change rooms, you will see a “Rooms” tab… click on that tab with your mouse. A room listing with the # of chatters in each room will replace the default “Nicknames” list under the “Users” tab.

If you have a profile on the Worthy Boards, you may adjust this profile to be displayed when you enter chat, or you may enter it each time you come into chat under the "Settings" button. You can view Worthy Chat Profiles here: http://www.worthychat.com/profiles/

By clicking the “Settings” button you can change sounds (if your browser supports this), scroll speed (if the room is moving too fast you can slow it down), avatar (the picture displayed by your nickname), fonts, etc.

The buttons under the Users and Rooms tabs allow certain features when a person’s nickname is highlighted in the list of names. The “i” button will display the information the chatter entered in their profile. The “p” button brings up a smaller private message window for that particular chatter. (If someone sends you a PM, you will see a special indication in the regular chat window, click that message once and the PM window will appear after a few seconds). The “flag” button highlights the messages from a particular chatter- this makes tracking a certain conversation much easier when a lot of chatting is going on. The “circle with a slash” button is to ignore a particular chatter- whatever an ignored chatter posts, you will not see until you push that button again.

If you close or change the worthychat.com login page while in chat, it may log you out. You may also be automatically logged out if you have been inactive for 20 minutes or if you “flood.” You can get booted out for not abiding by the TOS. Don’t assume someone has kicked you out unless you have a message window that specifically says that you have been.

In chat there are “broadcasts” that will be displayed to a particular room or all the rooms for various reasons which may or may not directly be addressed to you… these must be clicked before they disappear and you can continue chatting.

The Bible verses with the lightbulb icon are automatic… they are not chatters … you can talk to the bots as much as you want, but they won’t answer! Heh. (unless a chatter chooses to have their name appear like them- but 99.9% of the time you can count on it being a bot)

Typing in ALL CAPS is considered shouting, so please don’t.

You cannot copy text from chat, but you may paste. This is useful when in a study or discussion to paste a Bible verse in context rather than just typing the reference to it.

The GIG is temporarily out of service until further notice, which may be tomorrow or never.

Can anyone else think of some helpful tips???

Y’all are welcome in chat… just join in the conversation Hope to see you in chat and I hope you enjoy your time there.

The Plan is in place - see:

Schedule and more are here


Occasionally, someone comes into chat, and after a few minutes, abandons us because we are not Christian enough for them. It is true that we spend lot of time talking about food, politics, or rehashing topics that we have been over umpteen million times. In an effort to change the environment slightly, add something new, and try a litle painless self improvement and growth, I propose:

Omegaman's Bible reading plan
This is for those of us, who have become complacent in our Bible reading habits. Just after the first of the new year, I will begin a systematic schedule of Bible reading. If anyone is interested, I invite you to join with me. This is a very slow paced read, not agressive at all. My goal here, is to make the pace easy enough, that busy people can find time, and if you miss a day or two, it is easy to catch up. Even slow readers should not find this difficult.
I have divided the plan in such a way, that one or two whole chapters are done each day, so we leave off at 'natural' stopping places. This averages out to 53
verses per day.
Now, I just read the first days objective at a pace equivalent to what I would if I were reading aloud to someone and wanted them to be able to follow what
was said, and not be too bored from the pace being too slow - just a medium speed read, I guess. It took only 7 minutes. Can you spare 5 to 10 minutes a day to read the Bible?
My thinking is, that this will get some of us into the habit of reading the Bible again, for some, it may be the first time that you have read the Bible habitually.
If this goes well, we will go through the entire Bible this way. Many of you have never read the Bible all the way through, and most of you, will discover passages you never noticed before or forgot existed.
If we do this, then those of us who participate, will have recently read the same passages each day, and this will give us things to discuss in chat as questions
arise or insights are gained.
I'd like to know what you think about this, so please feel free to answer the survey questions, so I can rearrange the plan to fit with most peoples desires. Now the survey would only let me ask 3 questions, so, I am asking another one here:

One the assumption that you think this is a good idea and would like to participate, would you rather see this start sooner than beginning of next year?

If so, would you want to take a break from the plan over the holidays of November and December?

If you would be so kind as to repliy to these questions in a post, I would appreciate it - thanks a lot.

Let me tell you how to become a Christian if you have not already made that commitment.
1. We are all Sinners
Ecclesiastes 7:20 For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.
Romans 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God

2. The punishment for our Sin is Death
John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

3. CHRIST died to Save Sinners
Isaiah 53:5-6 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Romans 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
1 Timothy 1:15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

4. CHRIST will save us IF we ask HIM
Romans 10:9-10 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Romans 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

If you have not become a Christian, today is the day God has made for you to know Him. Please feel free to ask and one of us will be happy to share how you can also know and have a relationship with God.

Hello all,

After helping someone finally get into chat, there may be another solution to the headaches of trying to log in.

Before logging in, BE SURE that you have JAVA installed on your computer.

Go to -- JAVA TESTER -- and click the link in the middle near the top!

Chances are the reason that you cannot enter is because of a JAVA problem. Follow the solutions on that page.

If you DO HAVE JAVA installed, but it's not showing up in IE -- I suggest downloading FIREFOX -- an alternate FREE browser.

For some reason the person I helped today had JAVA installed on their computer but it wasn't working with IE, so by downloading FIREFOX she was able to log into chat.

I hope this helps others enter into the chat room,

Your brother in Christ with much agape love,

George

Hi,

On March 17th, 2005, I started this thread about what is going on in Worthychat Bible Studies. The idea was to have a place to go, where people can see what topics are planned, scheduling, archives of studies which have been done etc.

A Bible Study is planned for Jan 6th, 2007 - The beginning in a series of studies in the book of Romans. You can click here to see when it is scheduled in your own time zone.

Past Studies: See post #6 below for updated link info

Study #1 Matthew 24 part 1, March 19, 2005, click here
This page is a transcript of a expository Bible study on events, signs and sequences, as described by Jesus. It generated enough curiosity, that I put an ask a question form on the page. Several questions were sent in, and many of them answered, they can be seen on another page, get the link to that page on the bible study page.

Study #2 Faith vs Works, March 26, 2005, click here
This topical study was titled Grace, Works and Salvation, Help Please. It investigates numerous passage in an attempt to clarify how faith, grace, works and obedience work together in the lives of Christians

Study #3 Judgment and Discernment, April 10th 2005, click here
This study looks at a trail of verses concerning judging. There are different types of judgement, these are examined in this study. What about Jesus instruction not to judge others?

Study #4 FlashBack to the Future Part 1, April 15th 2006, click here
A pre resurrection day study. Was Jesus lacking faith when He said from the cross: "My God, my God , why hast Thou forsaken me?"?

Study #5 Investigating the Identity of the Restrainer of 2 Thess 2:6&7, November 11th 2006,
I am having problems with that website - will provide link after the server is changed

As more studies are done, I will attempt to add their links here as they are archived. If you know that one was done (by me) and it is not shown here, you can check the archive page on my website.

In the future, there may be times when it will make sense, to publicise notes which users can print out, so that they can have a hard copy in hand, during the study, so they can look at a passage, even if it scrolls of the screen in the study. This will also give the user a chance to become familiar with the passage before the study.

I did not create this thread for the purpose of discussion, and I ask you to refrain from using it that way. I want the thread to remain short, so that it is a simple place to get information about studies, without it growing into a multi-paged monster that no one wants to read through. Replies shoult be limited to queations not answered here, and perhaps suggestion for improvment, and other relevant things. Please, do your socializing and comedy routines in other threads.

I would also like to ask those of you who attend the studies, not just mine but those of the other admins, to be respectful of a bible study in progress. You know enough to not strike up a conversation when you arrive at a church service late, please extend the same courtesy in the Bible Study Room when a study is in progress. If you come late, do not expect the leader to catch you up, they usually have a lot to say and are trying to keep the time down to a reasonable period. Each leader will have his own style and expectations, please be responsive to them.

Finally, I would like to extend an offer, to the other chat administrators, to have space of their own on my server, to archive their own studies or articles or theological resources. I will make this available shortly, after I migrate my 17 websites to a new server. If interested, contact me for details. Before you ask though, no pictures, blogs, songs, etc. If you have some ideas for content that will be helpful to our worthy family members, i am open to suggestions.

Hello,

If you are having trouble logging into Worthy chat, it may be because your account was not validated. Before we didn't require a validation process and you may have entered into chat with your status as Awaiting Authorization -- but we've recently changed this.

If you are having trouble getting your account validated please send the ministry an email and we'll look into your account and fix it ASAP.

Your brother in Christ with much agape love,

George

Greetings to all. You can view worthy chatter profiles by using this link and submit your own profile. Enjoy

Click here Worthy Chatter Profiles Link

http://www.java.com/en/download/download_the_latest.jsp


Download java from this link if you do not have java or java is giving you trouble.

Hey there,

Good morning everyone!!! smile!!! Hope you have a wonderful day even though if we are going through so much, Just praise the Lord for that.!!! Smile.


DC

Self explanatory

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHIEF!!!!

You should really celebrate on your birthday.
Take TWO naps today.

this is an apology for everyone who i've met in chat. i just left there so frustrated and feeling pretty low of myself. i've always had a problem with anger...and as a result i've been alone for most of my life. yes, even after coming to know Jesus...i've felt so inadequate of His love and grace. never could make the grade ya know. i realize that a lot of my anger comes from being "put down" and/or rejected. that's how i'm feeling now...rejected. oh sure i realize that people can talk to whoever they like and ignore anyone else...but that just don't make sense to me here...if anything,.. i would think the annonymity would be a plus. i know i'm probably overreacting, and as someone once told me...well, your just not getting a reply, don't think that means they ignore you. that confused me. i've been involved with clickish christians before and it never turned out well, and that's on me. not them. i don't know, maybe this worthy site is only for christians who are in good standing with God or something. or just maybe it's that i feel i opened my mouth one too many times.
i've met a few very wonderful christians in the chat room...and it's those times that i should be remembering now...thinking of the good things. but i'm so angry and so alone now that even that dosen't seem to get me out of this.
before i came here i was involved with another program that deals with addictions...specifically the alcohol. and you know...i found the same thing there...i could never measure up to most everyone i met. i was always lacking. i would leave those meetings before they ended most of the time...they would talk of love and tolerance but that's really all it was....just talk unless you were in the click. then everything was aok. like i said...i'm not much of a clickish type person...maybe i am and don't even know it...
you know, if it was something i said that offended someone...i would wish they would of just told me...then we could of sorted that out...i guess...with how the chat works....it could simply be easier not to say anything and sort of let it just ride...that's pretty much what i've done in my personal life...just let it ride.
at this moment i really don't know if i'll be back...well yeahh i will later tongiht. i told someone that if they wanted to talk...i'd sure sit down with them and share a bit of what i've learned in the past couple months...concerning adddiction. oh well, i'm probably not the right person to do that but i'll be there as promised.
i read proverbs 10 and james 3 this morning...i had hoped to talk about what i read with someone earlier this morning on the chatroom, even the moderater of the room was too busy doing something else...looking back now...i wish i would of read something else...