Introducing “OPC.ORG”
Larry Wilson
Extracted from Ordained Servant vol. 4, no. 4 (October 1995)
During the time of the Reformation, God used the new technology of the Gutenberg movable-type printing press to spread the true gospel and help promote reformation. Today we have available technologies for communication and information that go far beyond Gutenberg’s wildest dreams. Will God use them to promote reformation today? Not if we don’t use them!
The Committee on Christian Education of the OPC has just taken some significant steps to (1) develop an easy-to-use, low-budget E-mail network for OPC committees, ministers, and congregations; (2) develop a low-budget internet information service for education, outreach, and promotion; (3) promote the use of these in the OPC.
An E-Mail Network
At first we argued about whether we should try to get everyone to sign up with Compuserve or America Online, or another provider. Finally, we discovered a solution that made this irrelevant. The solution was to register the OPC on the internet as OPC.ORG and to use a company called Cyberpro to provide the services we want. This means it doesn’t matter which provider you use.
Introducing OPC.ORG
Cyberpro will provide a “postbox” service. This means that each minister or contact person will have this E-mail address, [name]@opc.org. This means that you can even change providers and your address will still work. OPC.ORG will forward mail to whatever your current address is.
(By the way, kids, don’t try this at home...yet! The OPC.ORG addresses on these figures are just examples, not working addresses.) One exciting possibility of this technology is that one letter can be sent to an entire group and it will be forwarded to each member. For example, the members of the Committee on Christian Education or Foreign Missions could exchange information on a committee basis at any time (see Figure C). It will also be possible to keep such things as the address list of our Churches and Ministers up to date. And, at the same time, it will be possible for people interested in the testimony of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church from almost anywhere in the world to obtain useful information through the internet which now spans the globe.
No doubt many of you who read Ordained Servant can think of other ways in which OPC.ORG can serve the life and witness of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. If you have suggestions to make please forward them to the editor, who has been appointed as coordinator for this project by the Christian Education Committee.
The Committee on Christian Education plans to sponsor an information booth at the 63rd General Assembly next year at Geneva College, with computers on line to demonstrate the use of this resource. We hope that Sessions will appoint someone in each congregation as a contact person (who is on line) so that our entire denomination will begin to profit from this service in the very near future. Your Session may also want to consider recommending to your congregation a budget item for this under Office Expenses. When you consider the potential for savings in postage, telephone, and travel expenses, you might consider it excellent stewardship.