Calling All Digital Missionaries
A friend forwarded me a video made by a professor named Dr. Michael Wesch who teaches at Kansas State University who is studying digital ethnography. He is watching how humanity and technology meet on the web.
In case you have not noticed—the web is changing things. This video shows how much the internet is even changing on itself, even short 12 years that the web has been in broad use.
Where does that leave us?
Many (myself included) have begun to strategize on how online ministry might take place. How can we connect with this HUGE audience. I think I am realizing I am missing the point. The key here is that we don’t need to think about how to connect with the audience but that WE need to BE the audience. I like the point in the video where it highlights that each of the 100 billion times a day internet users post, update, categorize, tag, comment, or participate with content on the web WE are teaching the machine. We are defining the values and priorities we hold to be dear and true.
The bottom line is that we need to be there. We need to live among the digital natives in order to minister there. By doing so God will help us redefine the long list of values seen at the end of the video according to His inspiration through us in order to be more and more relevant.
The day of the digital missionary is on us … in some ways we have already missed it! We need to be “sent out” to the digital mission field. We need to spread this vision to our your and young adults….especially our young adults.
God is moving!
It was 2005 when I learned how to develop websites with the use of different tools such as Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Flash. That time I prayed and asked the Lord why I learned these computer skills. I never thought that God will use me as a missionary not in Africa, not in Somalia, not in any place in this world but in the world that has two signals only – the World Wide Web (WWW).
March 25th, 2008 at 9:58 pm