Cowboys can use computers for a lot of things, good and bad. The Internet and E-commerce give you access to the entire world in all of its aspects. One of the good things is the use for E-vangelism. This word was used by one of the many magazines I get every day to express the growing use of the Internet for evangelism purposes.

Another magazine, Business Week, had a cover story, "Religion in the workplace". Their research found that 95 percent of workers believed in a God and 48 percent had discussed their religious beliefs in the workplace. I wonder how this survey would have found cowboys? What their research discovered was that companies who encouraged religious activities within the company had much higher productivity and less turnover of employees. I can believe that. Early in my career, I left a company after eight months because they required me to work on Sundays, which I found unnecessary and counterproductive.

Of course, some encouragement can get out of hand. One company had an employee who insisted he was Christ and another had a witch who wanted to be given Halloween off. That would have worked this year, but Halloween doesn’t always fall on Sunday. Chick-fil-A doesn’t open on Sundays because of the religious principles the company’s founder, S. Truett Cathy, established when he began the company. He holds Monday morning prayer breakfasts for the corporate office for anyone who wants to attend.

My evangelism magazine is called Christianity Online and has a website at www.christianityonline.com. One column in the magazine, by Rich Doebler, suggests some guidelines for scriptural surfing on the Net: Distinguish between what is helpful and what is harmful and take responsibility for your choice; stick to the task and decide before you log on what you want to do.

It is easy to spend hours wandering around. Of course, sometimes I like to do that, just as I like to browse a library or bookstore. But if you know what you want to achieve before you log on, you will get through much faster. Don’t waste your time, which is easy to do. Learn to be content. God can transform our desires and addictive behaviors. These ideas will help in using the power of the Internet.

There is some good on the Net. You can e-mail me at crodenberg@aol.com.