Technology Around the World, Part 1
In Brazil, families along the Amazon River listen to radio programs on radios powered with car batteries.
In Germany, young people stroll the streets with iPods, listening to programs downloaded from the Internet.
From Brazil’s Amazon jungle to Berlin’s urban jungle, Nazarenes are studying how people access media-based messages, to develop new strategies to reach beyond borders and barriers.
Through a three-part series, Transmission explores the many ways the church in World Mission regions uses technology to share Christ.
South America Region
Missional leaders at the regional and local levels are leveraging almost every major technology.
Radio
• Airing on thousands of radio stations throughout Latin America, Mujer Valiosa, “Valued Woman” equips women with business and family skills and introduces them to Jesus Christ.
•Charlie Cardona, the former lead singer of a world-renowned salsa band, Niche, joined the Church of the Nazarene after accepting Christ. Now he produces the Christian radio show Gracias a Dios Salsa “Thank God for Salsa” for a secular radio network in Colombia.
• In the Andes Mountains where telephones are rare, radios are commonly used to share important information within and between communities. Churches broadcast information about events such as district assemblies, evangelistic campaigns and conferences.
Throughout South America, people use Nazarene radio programs in innovative ways:
• A 5,000-student high school plays the region’s radio programs for teens over the public address system during recess and lunch.
• Every weekend, a Nazarene church in Ecuador performs a lip sync to a Nazarene radio program for about 600 children in a school gymnasium.
• Women’s discipleship groups use the radio programs for women as discussion starters.
• In the Bolivian Andes, people hear Nazarene programs on shortwave frequencies.
• Pastors use recordings of radio programs in visitation ministry.
Television
• The regional team has posted several Spanish-language testimonies of changed lives on YouTube.com, including Charlie Cardona’s story.
• Nazarene programming is included on Bolivia airports’ closed circuit TVs, and has recently been added to the closed circuit TV in buses throughout northern Peru.
Telephone
The Brazilian broadcast team gathered discarded answering machines for a ministry called S.O.S. A team records new spiritually-themed messages on the machines every day. The phone number is widely distributed on stickers and cards that ask: “Need hope? Facing a difficulty?” Between January and November, 80,000 people called S.O.S. Those who leave messages asking for help receive counseling, prayer, and direction to the nearest Church of the Nazarene. Thousands of people have joined the Church of the Nazarene in Brazil through S.O.S.
Eurasia Region
Communication Coordinator Simone Finney outlined how “new media” is being combined with more traditional forms of communication as an emerging tool in Europe.
Telephone
• A voicemail ministry based in Lebanon offers short devotional recordings and follow-up for those who leave messages asking for prayer, counseling, or more information.
• A new ministry in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland involves several people at the Church of the Nazarene in an outreach program that calls people in the community each morning, just so they have someone to talk to.
Television
An Arabic-language Nazarene television program is in development in the Middle East, and hopes to find viewers on multiple continents.
Internet
• The Arabic-language Web site Ajwiba.com “Answers”, features common questions and answers about Jesus Christ, the Bible, Christianity, and Nazarene doctrine.
• People use social networking Internet sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and LinkedIn to talk to each other about events such as the Nazarene Youth Congress and regional and leadership conferences in Europe.
“People on each of the seven fields in Eurasia are on Facebook now,” said Finney. “It seems to support connections that people make at events, and enables them to maintain those friendships across time zones.”
Radio
In spite of the proliferation of new media, radio still reaches the widest audience in the Eurasia Region, inclusive of both rich and poor, educated and preliterate.
• Kiev, Ukraine – a daily 5-minute devotional airs on a Christian FM station in Kiev.
• “Rev. Tushar Manna continues to manage Swarger Shidi (“Ladder to Heaven”), a 15-minute Bengali-language radio program that airs every Thursday morning at 7 a.m. on two short-wave channels (25 and 41) in East India. Listeners include Bengali speakers throughout India, Bangladesh and Nepal. The ministry team follows up with listeners by writing letters, calling listeners and visiting different areas where they’re invited to share more. They’re also training new believers to continue follow-up in their localities,” Finney said.
In the future, the Eurasia Region may try podcasting videos and sermons or Christian discussion programs, but it’s still in the idea stage.
“If you’re not using that kind of thing to communicate, especially in Western Europe, you’re behind where a lot of people live,” Finney said. “Before we commit to a podcast, we want to come up with concepts that we know are sustainable and are going to be useful for people. We’re spending a lot of time talking about it and bouncing ideas around.”
---Gina Pottenger, Coordinator of Global Research and E-Communications