MINISTERS FIND NEW FRONTIER IN CYBERSPACE : EVANGELISTS USE WEB PAGES TO REACH LAPSED CHRISTIANS.

Byline: Gregory Jordan The New York Times

The marriage of evangelical Christianity and cyberspace is updating the goal of Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation - to make every man a priest - by making every priest a potential publisher.

Smaller, computer-savvy congregations attracting more active Internet audiences than sites for evangelical giants like Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network are using the latest technology to try to convert lapsed Christians and newcomers who either seek or stumble upon hundreds of evangelical home pages.

And, since national boundaries are incidental on the Internet, the scope of evangelists like the Rev. Dennis Finnan extends from his 143-member St. Charles Bible Church in St. Charles, Minn., to converts as far away as Finland.

``I get 15 letters a day every day from individuals seeking guidance in spiritual matters from all over the world,'' said Finnan, who maintains a small parish despite the current trend toward megachurches and huge congregations that hold extravaganzas to fire up worshipers.

On his home page, the Rev. Finnan posts ``a suggested prayer of faith.'' Next, he calls the person who has just prayed ``a Christian regardless of your past life, age or position.'' Then he invites his disciple to contact him on line.

One of his requests came from a Finnish student, Tapio Tukiainen, who credits the Rev. Finnan with converting him to Christianity.

``My friend suggested that I search interesting home pages,'' said Tukiainen, who replied to questions by electronic mail from his hometown of Kuopio, 200 miles northeast of Helsinki. ``So I found the home page of the Reverend Finnan. Before I wasn't into Christian activities. Normal church gave me nothing, just boring and long divine services.''

Quentin Schultze, author of a monthly newsletter called The Internet for Christians and a professor of communications at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., said that, while the better-known evangelical churches tended to stick to more familiar technologies like television, smaller groups found their way onto the Internet first and in greater numbers.

``The small and conservative evangelical groups - let's call them fundamentalists - are often seen as backward technologically and culturally, but when you look closely, you see that they're the leaders on the Web,'' Schultze said.

And Mark Kellner, author of ``God on the Internet'' (IDG Books, 1996) - a profile of the various religious groups that have gone on line - agreed that although the mainstream denominations were bountiful on line, the greater aggressiveness of the smaller evangelical groups continued a trend in American religion.

``The smaller evangelical groups were the first to get on line,'' Kellner said. ``But they have to be more aggressive than large denominations like Episcopalians and Methodists, which already have large numbers.''

The Rev. Finnan has evangelized on the Internet for more than 16 months, but Trinity Broadcasting Network, a large television evangelical conglomerate based in Dallas, opened its Web site only seven months ago. Like Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, Trinity's site focuses more on providing supplements to current television broadcasting - program listings, requests for donations and catalogs of gift items - than on evangelizing.

``Their sites have been designed to cultivate existing audiences,'' Schultze said.

The director of new media for Robertson's network, Thom Dennis, said it had 157 people assigned to its television productions and ``probably has four or five people devoted to our Internet project.'' The site, he added, ``will evolve into being another presentation for `The 700 Club,' '' Robertson's television program.

On the other hand, visitors to an Internet upstart, Gospel Communications Network in Muskegon, Mich., can browse through topics ranging from Our Daily Bread to the Bible Gateway. Among the headings on its home page are ``weariness'' and ``loneliness,'' which draw visitors into a conversation with a minister devoted to counseling and, ultimately, converting.

``We are taking our message right into where people are in their everyday lives, but it's at their convenience,'' said Gospel Communications' director of marketing, Duane Smith. ``You can interact with us in the office; you don't have to turn on a Sunday morning program every week.''

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Photo: The Rev. Dennis Finnan stands outside his outpost in St. Charles, Minn., from where he serves his congregation through a home page on the Internet.

The New York Times