Technology Around the World Part 2

Standing on the commuter train in an Asia-Pacific country, a missionary tried to start a conversation with another woman nearby.

The woman smiled and held up her cell phone. She’d typed a message on the phone explaining that she was deaf and couldn’t verbally respond to the missionary.

The missionary typed a greeting on her own phone. The two women chatted via text messages for several minutes, then exchanged e-mail addresses before they went their separate ways.

The missionary had prayed for a ministry to disabled people. Now the woman she met on the train instructs the missionary in sign language.

Technology, such as texting, is a vital tool for ministry in the Asia-Pacific Region. As people use various technologies to seek spiritual truth or to build human relationships, the church is developing new strategies to meet these people at their point of need.

World Mission Broadcast Asia-Pacific

Communication Coordinator Doug Flemming and Managing Director Daniel Pape explained how Nazarenes throughout the region are reaching their communities through technology.

DVD Films

Increasingly, Nazarenes are inviting neighbors and friends to their homes to view DVDs such as the JESUS film, Magdalena: Released From Shame, Rob Bell’s Nooma series, local films in vernacular, and even Hollywood films that promote spiritual discussion, such as Evan Almighty.

“We’re hearing more and more reports from people who God has given them opportunities to do evangelism, and it’s usually been through showing some kind of video media in a home or small group setting,” said Pape.

Internet

Nazarenes use social networking Web sites as ministry tools.

• In one creative access country, house churches are using Facebook.com to meet for online fellowship and discussion continued from Bible study meetings.

• In the Philippines, a pastor blogs on Multiply.com, which enables her to have two-way communication with church and community members.

TV Broadcasts

In Melbourne, Australia, Nazarene pastor Takas Manetus co-produces an evangelistic and inspirational Greek language television program called Zontas 100% “Life to the Fullest”. The show can be viewed on http://zontas.ca.

Radio

Throughout the region, radio is still the most widely accessible technology for both low- and high-income brackets, and preliterate, as well as literate, people.

• A Nazarene youth-oriented radio program produced in Taiwan is transmitted nightly from Guam into a creative access nation through shortwave radio frequencies. (Shortwave radio is advantageous because receivers are inexpensive and easily portable in regions where Internet is not accessible or affordable.) The program is also posted to the Internet in MP3 files. (See Creative Access Radio.).

• Nazarene youth in East Timor for the past three years have broadcast on a local FM radio station, Radio Voz, in Dili, focusing on topics relevant to East Timorese youth such as education, relationships, the future, as well as peace and refugee issues.

• In the Philippines, five officially sponsored World Mission Broadcast programs air throughout the country and internationally via podcasts. The programs range in focus from family and parenting to children’s concerns. One program, Life in a Minute, has been nominated for a national radio award.

• World Mission Broadcast training for Nazarenes in Melanesia has made possible three local Nazarene programs airing on nine AM and FM stations in Papua New Guinea. The programs include one focused on women and one focused on children.

• Several locally produced Nazarene programs also air in Thailand and Indonesia.

As Nazarenes throughout the region creatively minister through new and old technologies, WMC-AP sees its role evolving, Pape added.

“Rather than being the content-developers, we want to be the resourcing tool through which our churches and creative people are basically being equipped to do what God is giving them vision for.”

---Gina Pottenger, Coordinator of Global Research and E-Communications