Background and Purpose.
Christians in GIS is a community dedicated to fostering fellowship and collaboration among individuals who share both a passion for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and a commitment to Christian values. Our mission is to build meaningful connections and support members in integrating their Christian faith with practical applications of GIS technology.
We have focused on connecting Christians leveraging GIS since the mid-1990’s. We can trace our history back to the 1996 Esri User Conference (UC) when three Christians met and talked about how GIS was being used to help share the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ around the world. Nearly every year since, the Christians in GIS has met at the UC or virtually to exchange experiences, celebrate successes and address challenges together.
Christians in GIS have been blessed with multiple servant leaders who have facilitated communication in the group. This included managing our email list, maintaining our website, and moderating in-person and virtual meetings. These activities led to the creation of a steering group with multiple committees tasked with various responsibilities. We welcome people who would like to come along side and support this work.
Webinars have been a frequent avenue of communication with the group. God led us to do our first webinar in January of 2020, just weeks before COVID-19 spread around the world. This opened the door to a series of webinars that enabled us to meet virtually throughout the COVID-19 years and right up to the present. The webinars included presentations from prominent Christian organizations on their innovative applications of GIS to advance their mission objectives. You can find the webinars here. The webinar series is ongoing, and we invite people to propose their own presentations on how they are using GIS to support sharing the Gospel.
Through the years, many people have benefited from participation in the Christians in GIS community. We have seen projects shared, lessons learned, ministries collaborate, and we have all networked and learned from each other. If this group has helped you, please share your experiences and we will consider it for future Blogs.
If you have not participated yet, you are welcome to be part of the Christians in GIS community and meet at the UC each year and virtually in our webinars. The guiding principles of this group are reflected in the Apostles Creed. We actively encourage fellow Christians to take part in our activities. We also welcome people who do not adhere to the creed themself but are willing to respect the principles of this group.
You can receive updates on our activities by subscribing to our mailing list here, and joining our LinkedIn group (unlisted) and Facebook group (private).