Where are we going?

I’ve been thinking recently about where things are going. Our media landscape has radically changed with the recent surge of new technologies and social media innovations. I was excited to hear that social media Web sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter have now become the #1 activity on-line, taking the spot from pornography.

So, what does this mean for our church? How do we continue to build the kingdom of God in light of what is happening?

Americans have access to more than one trillion Web pages, yes, that’s correct, 1,000,000,000,000! There are 75,000 iPhone applications currently available. As you read this, that number has probably crossed 100,000 if not doubled. Americans have 10,500 radio stations to choose from. With the new iPod Nano, they can now tune into FM radio stations right on their iPod. There still exist 5,500 magazines in the U.S.A. We have grown to more than 200 cable television networks. There are currently 240 million television sets in the U.S.A. Traditional media still serves the masses, and radio has never been more popular in its various forms.

How does our message – the message of love and hope – break through?

More video was uploaded to YouTube.com in the last two months than if ABC, NBC and CBS had been airing content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year since 1948 (the year ABC signed on).

How do we channel new media delivery to spread the message?

Consider these facts:
The average American teenager sends 2,272 text messages every month. Ninety-three percent of adults in the U.S.A. own a cell phone. The mobile device will be the world’s primary connection tool to the Internet in 2020. The computer in your cell phone is a million times cheaper, a thousand times more powerful and about a hundred times smarter than a computer at MIT in 1965.

How do we channel new media to build community in the local church and outside the walls of our local church? How do we shift our paradigm into an integrated media strategy to make the largest impact?

These are questions we are asking ourselves as we look to bring World Mission Broadcast back home to the US and Canada. Not since the radio program Showers of Blessings and the media campaign “Our Church Can Be Your Home” have we been positioned to truly impact the North American culture via broadcast. We’d love to know your thoughts, dreams and ideas. So, e-mail us at wmb@nazarene.org. Post on our Facebook wall http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lenexa-KS/World-Mission-Broadcast/47535197359 or send us a Tweet http://twitter.com/wmbroadcast.

---Brian Utter, World Mission Broadcast