Melissa Quintero | Contributing Writer
In the past, religion and technology did not mix well. However, the 21st century has started to change that norm. Even though several churches and missionaries use technology as a part of their ministry, there are still questions about the motivations and effectiveness of using digital tools to enhance their work. Missionaries especially have to address this issue and answer the question: does technology help or hinder mission work today?
Bill Chesley, a missionary who has worked in Bible translation and linguistic survey in places like Africa, believes technology has helped the missionary field expand tremendously. He sees technology as a universal tool that can fix multiple areas in mission work.
In Chesley’s experience, audio recordings have proven to be a successful method in the missionary process. Translators begin by translating different Bible stories, then trained language teams take over, checking the recordings. Recordings are then taken out to villages. From there, the native people could either learn the stories from recordings, or they could actually go out and play the recordings for other people. Many of them went from village to village sharing stories with those who were illiterate.
“The word of God is distributed much more rapidly now. Audio and video presentations of Scripture stories have been very valuable both in producing accurate translations and being more accessible,” Chesley said.
Translations are also downloaded and placed on the web. The publication process has been sped up, and time and money are saved by missionaries and translators alike. Previously bad conditions or locations of language groups made it difficult to share the Gospel, but if the Bible is made available online, people groups who have access to the Internet now have access to Scripture, perhaps in a safer environment.
“Websites give people the opportunity to engage in discussions about the Gospel in the security of their own home,” Chesley said. “Where they might be afraid to go to a public gathering of believers or to be identified openly as a follower of Christ, they can still have interactions with other Christians through web technology.”
New translations of the Bible are essential so that other groups can have the same access to the Scripture in their native language. However, there can still be some downsides to making technology the main source of communication in this field. Technology will never completely eclipse the work of missionaries. According to Chesley, you cannot entirely eliminate the human element of ministry.
“I don’t think there’s any substitute for face-to-face ministry, and when you have the opportunity to live with people and share God’s love with them during a time of need, that’s just such a remarkable experience,” Chesley said.
Beyond the Internet, specifically Christian digital tools have been developed for missionaries through- out the world. Sophomore Christian ministry major Amy Bonds experienced how technology is used by missionaries in Cambodia on her APU action team trip this past summer. A missionary that Bonds’ team worked with, Glenys McDonald, explained to Bonds and her team how she learned of the organization, Call2All, while at a conference held by Youth With a Mission (YWAM). Call2All distributes small, solar-powered MP3 players containing recordings of the Bible in several different languages and uses them as evangelism tools in their mission work.
“There is all this technology coming [out] that will help reach un- reachable people groups, like groups that don’t have a written-down language,” Bonds said. “So even if there isn’t electricity you can still listen to it.”
This type of “audio Bible” saves missionaries the time and effort of learning the various languages of the cultures they are trying to reach.
“If you are going to go to an un- reached people group you have to first know the language—which takes time. If it is written down, you have to learn how to read it, to figure out how to communicate with them and also you then have to do the work of Bible translating, which is not easy,” Bonds said.
Another digital medium Call2All uses is the “Jesus Film” which translates the story of Jesus into hundreds of languages so people can watch and understand the story in their own language.
In Cambodia, Bonds also learned that missionaries who attempted to reach the isolated cultures were often persecuted for their beliefs or for not properly communicating the word of God.
“You have to know the context in which you are trying to teach to really be effective and not offensive,” Bonds said. “Information can be given to different people in a lot faster and more efficient way.”
In several areas, missionaries are using technology to enhance their work or make their jobs easier. The image of missionaries carrying Bibles and crosses to a rural village is starting to change into an image of a missionary with an iPad and some audio players. Christianity is not the only major world religion that embraces technological advantages.
The Church of the Latter-Day- Saints has begun to incorporate social media and other digital tools into their mission work as well. The development of specific programs such as Latter-Day-Saints Technology (LDS Tech) has enhanced Mormon evangelism. LDS Tech allows men and women, who for various reasons could not serve on a mission abroad or away but still have the de- sire and passion, to do so online.
Reasons such as family, work or distance can be crucial in deciding to pursue missionary work. One could conveniently serve a mission online by coding, designing, testing, communicating or organizing. LDS Tech has eliminated extensive traveling as a requirement in mission work, and Mormon mission workers can serve using their skills online.
Technology in the mission field has its pros and cons, but regardless of its consequences, it has revealed religion to new countries and people previously isolated from the Gospel. Even though technology has opened the mission field to reach more people, the main focus of the Gospel is still best communicated through believers sharing their own stories.
“People need to see the Gospel lived out in people’s lives and that[s] one thing that can’t be communicated through a website,” Chesley said.