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CopticWorld.org
I got this in an email:
After four years in the making, CopticWorld.org, a global effort to unite all Coptic communities in one place online, finally lauches! To sign up, go to http://dev.copticworld.org/
The three missions of the project are:
Study and present statistical analysis on Coptic Christians in the world making available to the global Coptic Church a census of Coptic Christians in the world by their locations according to country, states, cities and churches they attend.
To harness the energy from our numbers in the world to enable and empower the church to achieve, local, national and international goals.
Provide an online environment for Coptic Christians to communicate and convene in spiritual and community affairs.
The benefits of uniting in one place offer potentials for our people that are enourmous. CopticWorld.org assigns a community board for every Coptic church in the world and allows you to look at bigger communities such as entire cities, states, countries and even the entire Coptic world.
CopticWorld.org streams any service in the world as long as there is a camera on site! It will be possible to watch any liturgy or sermon live from anywhere in the world all in one place. Perhaps you can attend a youth meeting in Texas and vespers in Australia all in one day! Want to know what youth trips or sports events are happening in your home town or anywhere in the world? Now you can!
Imagine a worldwide business directory. CopticWorld.org provides a global geotagged business section that enable users to network on many levels. Looking for a Coptic physician, attorney or accountant in a specific state or city? Now you can. In addition any Coptic user can advertise for what it is they do for free!
But what makes CopticWorld.org REALLY powerful is what its capable of on the backend. CopticWorld.org formulates a global census of Coptic people broken down by country, state, city and church. The first step to being a body of people is to be counted. Being counted enables your church leaders to be heard at all levels in all countries. The best thing you can do for your church is to join and strengthen our community.
CopticWorld.org enables our church leaders to reach their congregations with the click of a button. For example the papal account can reach all Coptic users in the world with the click of a button! A bishop can reach his entire diocese or even pinpoint the congregation of a certain church in a certain city! Priests can do the same for their congregations!
This is an incredible and powerful program. With your help, we hope to launch this monumental effort and pass a revolutionary milestone in our Coptic history.
After four years in the making, CopticWorld.org, a global effort to unite all Coptic communities in one place online, finally lauches! To sign up, go to http://dev.copticworld.org/
The three missions of the project are:
Study and present statistical analysis on Coptic Christians in the world making available to the global Coptic Church a census of Coptic Christians in the world by their locations according to country, states, cities and churches they attend.
To harness the energy from our numbers in the world to enable and empower the church to achieve, local, national and international goals.
Provide an online environment for Coptic Christians to communicate and convene in spiritual and community affairs.
The benefits of uniting in one place offer potentials for our people that are enourmous. CopticWorld.org assigns a community board for every Coptic church in the world and allows you to look at bigger communities such as entire cities, states, countries and even the entire Coptic world.
CopticWorld.org streams any service in the world as long as there is a camera on site! It will be possible to watch any liturgy or sermon live from anywhere in the world all in one place. Perhaps you can attend a youth meeting in Texas and vespers in Australia all in one day! Want to know what youth trips or sports events are happening in your home town or anywhere in the world? Now you can!
Imagine a worldwide business directory. CopticWorld.org provides a global geotagged business section that enable users to network on many levels. Looking for a Coptic physician, attorney or accountant in a specific state or city? Now you can. In addition any Coptic user can advertise for what it is they do for free!
But what makes CopticWorld.org REALLY powerful is what its capable of on the backend. CopticWorld.org formulates a global census of Coptic people broken down by country, state, city and church. The first step to being a body of people is to be counted. Being counted enables your church leaders to be heard at all levels in all countries. The best thing you can do for your church is to join and strengthen our community.
CopticWorld.org enables our church leaders to reach their congregations with the click of a button. For example the papal account can reach all Coptic users in the world with the click of a button! A bishop can reach his entire diocese or even pinpoint the congregation of a certain church in a certain city! Priests can do the same for their congregations!
This is an incredible and powerful program. With your help, we hope to launch this monumental effort and pass a revolutionary milestone in our Coptic history.
Comments
At the very least may they use genuine Coptic letters to write a proper Coptic word, not for decoration!
I used to not like that one time... but seriously who cares... It looks good the way they done it, it's just for the title or "logo"... it's not like you don't see any funky logos that do the same thing with different languages letters! If it was for a lot more than just the logo then I'd be just as worried.
I know someone who used to write their homework in their school diary in coptic letters for practice and so that the teacher wouldn't read it and understand when they checked it weekly lol.
Well, I think it's a cool site, not sure if I like the idea much... but it's cool... I just signed up (yay) :)
Cheers
I'm sorry but that argument doesn't win me over. Think about websites that for instance use this as a logo: "3'ofran el 5ataya" or "Yasoo3 al masee7 abouna". To me these are really jokes and the websites displaying them don't deserve that I take them seriously. I hope you can see where I'm coming from
I clicked on the link. It turned me off to see the Logo. I definitely won't sign up because of that factor alone. It tells me that the sponsors and originators, although well-intentioned, are a bit in need of guidance.
I just thought "Coptic" written as "Soris" was beyond my usual descriptives of disagreement.
I think you would be a wonderful mentor to them. [I mean that seriously]
That was my reaction exactly and I did take that very same stance as yours. I don't think I'll sign up on that website either...
I actually didn't even get as far as Ioannes did... maybe someone else could add to what he pointed out if they watched that clip...
I kinda felt bad for what I said. But it just seems like such a waste of time, how many Copts really want to partake in something like this? I mean four years is an awfully long time to spend on a website that nobody will probably use besides kids.
The narrator does not introduce who he is or where he is located. I watched the intro for about 8 minutes.
He has not identified who commissioned this work.
The site has pictures of His Holiness, Bp David, Bp Youssef to try to frame legitimacy.
I don't know if I would trust any place with my info unless I knew more facts.
Be cautious of the internet.
Since when has the Church ever needed numbers to have the power that matters?
Father Peter
I can see the benefit of a global directory, but it is the stress on having power in numbers that confuses me.
Since when has the Church ever needed numbers to have the power that matters?
Father Peter
Fr. Peter, this is another great point. It makes me feel as if these people are operating completely independent of the church trying to give us and others a false idea of what Coptic Orthodoxy really is. Should we stay away from it?
Father Peter
I created this thread without even visiting the site. I just clicked the link now, and I agree with Ophadece (btw what does 'ophadece' mean?) about the use of Coptic letters as decoration. I'm not signing up either, not for that reason, but because I have no idea what the purpose of the site is. Copticworld.org is advertised on Bishop Youssef's suscopt site. So my guess is that he's organizing this (or at least attributing in some way).
Since I don't care for "regular" Facebook, I wouldn't think I would sign up for this even if I were a Copt. There is a lot of novelty to be enjoyed here (the idea of perhaps finding Coptic linguists to learn from/with does tickle me, though I notice that's not an option...yet), but then I remind myself that the Orthodox faith stands strongly by its resistance to novelty. Novelty ultimately proves a poor substitute for experience, which you won't get sitting behind a computer.
For instance, while I would probably watch streaming videos from any church available, that is only because at present I am not within a reasonable distance of a Coptic Orthodox Church, so I hunger for it because I cannot have it. If someone were to propose to me "Jeremy, you can sit at home and watch videos of Coptic liturgy, or you can spend that same time going to an actual Coptic liturgy", I know which one I would choose! Every time I would rather go to the Church. So too with time outside of liturgy, it seems to make more sense to me to build connections in real life and not on the computer.
... :-[
Not that I am not eternally grateful for websites like Tasbeha!
It's just important to keep these things in perspective. CopticWorld.org, or Tasbeha.org, or anything that isn't the Church is at best a small reflection of the true glory and salvation to be found in the full practice of the Christian faith. It seems like things like this website could be (not necessarily are, but definitely could be) a distraction from that reality.
Please pray for me.
[quote author=Father Peter link=topic=10278.msg125399#msg125399 date=1293399842]
I can see the benefit of a global directory, but it is the stress on having power in numbers that confuses me.
Since when has the Church ever needed numbers to have the power that matters?
Father Peter
Fr. Peter, this is another great point.
No, it's the only proper point that was made so far. (I agree that it's a bit weird using the coptic letters for "decoration" but that shouldn't drive you to boycott the site.)
When we were trying to get the rezoning for our new church land, the City needed to see numbers. I'm guessing there are other occasions where we might need this. This does not mean that we are not relying on God, but we are simply doing our part which we are capable of, just as Jesus himself taught us.
[quote author=ilovesaintmark link=topic=10278.msg125410#msg125410 date=1293401606]
I think the anonymous nature of the presentors, collaborators, designers, and administrators bothers me. They allude to help from the hierarchs but there is no tangibility in that claim.
"Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven." (Matthew 6:1)
[quote author=Ioannes link=topic=10278.msg125402#msg125402 date=1293400268]
It makes me feel as if these people are operating completely independent of the church
Do you have any proof? I doubt it.
[quote author=Ioannes link=topic=10278.msg125402#msg125402 date=1293400268]
It makes me feel as if these people are operating completely independent of the church
Do you have any proof? I doubt it.
I have proof that they are not and that this is NOT a joke and that it IS supported by the pope and a lot of bishops and priests.
It seems that people are misunderstanding the purpose of the website. Please watch this:
English: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4317069715064085179#
Arabic: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1850890050947644721#
When you operate a business and you are looking for investors, or even trying to appeal to your target market, you have to be professional and present what exactly your goals are and how you plan to achieve that. If you have a product you are trying to sell, you have to tell your demographic exactly how it works and why it is worth our time and money. This website has failed in every single aspect. We are told that it is "revolutionary", how? Why tell us that? Let us make the decision based on what exactly it is! We are told that its going to "connect" people but again, how? You see, we are given all these adjectives ABOUT the website, but not HOW it is going to work.
The way in which these people talk, it seems as if the website has some sort of underlying agenda. It seems much more political than religious. The horrible layout does not help anyone feel otherwise. This idea was poorly presented and that is why everyone is so confused. We are told how great and wonderful it is, but literally know nothing as to WHY it is so great and wonderful or HOW this website plans on accomplishing its "goals".
So dont be arrogant and start pointing fingers at us, nobody in their right mind would invest in a project so void of explanation. I was not planning on giving my information to this site in any way, but you have reinforced my insecurities about this website, BIGTIME, and I hope that everyone else follows suit.
The presentation shows that the Indians, Chinese etc have global sites, and then says that even the Greek Orthodox do. But these seem to me to be different things. The GOARCH website used as an example is a religious site for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, it is not a site for Greek people.
And when the detail of the site is shown it makes me even more confused. There is a relatively small section for 'Church' and then everything else seems to be business oriented. Are we saying that if we want to buy a house we should only go to a Coptic real estate agent? Or if we want our hair styled we should only go to a Coptic hair stylist? I find that rather racist. Am I wrong?
I can understand entirely that I might use a friend at Church who was Coptic for such services, but it would feel odd to seek out someone for a business transaction purely on the basis that they were Coptic. What about using an Armenian Orthodox, Indian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox etc hair stylist? If we are creating a community based on our Church then surely we must consider that before we are Coptic we are Orthodox. If this is a community based on ethnicity then am I excluded?
So I remain confused.
Now a global directory of all Orthodox Churches would be a great benefit. I am just not sure about a business and services directory.
Father Peter
and secondly I agree this site is in someway influenced politically, but why is that such a bad thing?
The website's main goal is to unify copts, which we can really use right now. (considering how people in Egypt kill us for sport)
Since copts are so wide spread over so many countries having a way to gather numeric data on them would be very useful in getting us recognized on a bigger political scale.
I think this site has a great goal and can be very beneficial to the Coptic community.
also.... posting statuses on my church wall is really fun!
I have a comment on your previous post: The reason why he looks so young is because it took four years to set up this site. That's the way he looked when the project first started.