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A Global Perspective
The mission task is global. To fulfill the Great Commission we need to encourage each other to try new tools, new ways of communication and interaction, and eventually accept the risk for failures along the way. The commission is too important that a general fear of making an error should keep the people of God from creative and innovative approaches to carry out the most important task in the world.
In the next few years we are likely to see a number of new structures be implemented and new tools coming to the market. If the Great Commission is as important as we proclaim, the logical consequences must be that we, after serious testing, use all tools suitable to carry out the commission. Several new tools are emerging, and they will be affordable for mission agencies in a few years. Perhaps the most important will be the ability to combine various tools and by that further increase their potential effectiveness. Mission Aviation Fellowship has already demonstrated how radio and e-mail can be combined to provide a new reality of communication in remote areas of the world. Low-cost satellite telephones, with the ability to e-mail and fax messages, should become standard equipment for mission executives travelling the world.
The rapid implementation of fiber optic cables, vast amounts of bandwidth becoming available, video conferencing opportunities, net telephone, etc. will make the need to have an "office" to perform certain tasks less important. It will provide opportunities to help the receiving partners in mission become more of real partners through everyday interaction. Also, the supporters back home have great new opportunities to become "partners" with the people doing the fieldwork.
New tools for communication and interaction also imply totally new concepts for partnerships and how one can structure the work. With cheap and effective telecommunications almost worldwide, there are several questions that could--and should--be asked.
Firstly, why does the headquarters of a mission organization need to be in the Western world? Could fundraising offices located in the sending country provide necessary communication with the Christians and others praying and giving to the work?
Secondly, why do we need to have large headquarters for a mission organization if more people could partly work from home, partly out in the field and partly interacting with partners both at an office and in other places of the world?
Thirdly, do mission societies also need to consider their old hierarchical structures and develop new, team-based models to make their work more effective? Fourthly, how can local new communication technologies be used to make local churches and agencies become effective (and real) partners in missions? Finally, how can new technologies be used to communicate and interact more effectively with people praying and supporting the ministry?
These questions are only examples of issues that need to be considered as a result of the emerging "global village." For example, when it comes to maintaining effective communication via the Internet, there is no real need to have a person working in a room next to the machines. The computers can be located together with numerous others in an air-conditioned office space in a major city with all the bandwidth and speed needed, while the people running the computers can live and do their work literally thousands of miles away.
Different organizations and ministries may find different answers for the future, all depending upon their special kind of work. However, in the same way that many Christian ministries have been a spearhead in developing new outreaches on the Internet, the Christian missions agencies and ministries also need to be open to new challenges and opportunities if it can make them serve the Lord in a better way.