The internet is everywhere! My home recently experienced an outage due to the local utility company digging improperly. My husband, along with 30+ neighbors who work from home, had to use a hotspot on his phone to supply internet access to his laptop. My son (who attends college in person but must submit assignments, do research, submit applications, and read materials online) was forced to frequent the university library for its internet access, not its books. My husband and I had to watch DVD’s (digital video discs) of previously recorded programs because our television could not stream current programming without the internet. There was no Facebook, no texting pictures, and no googling for information. After a week of waiting, we gave up and switched to a different internet provider so we could reconnect with the rest of the world. The man who did the installation told us that his company was receiving government support to help supply internet services to rural areas. Before long, these areas will be just as dependent as we are.
Believe it or not, there are still people in the world who do not have access to internet. While many of us follow scriptures on a Bible app while the pastor is preaching on Sunday morning, some folks do not have even a paper copy of God’s Word they can read. Wycliffe Bible Translators (https://www.wycliffe.org/about) reports that “the Bible is one of the oldest and most popular books of all time.” They believe that since God’s Word was written for everyone, and “everyone should be able to understand it for themselves.” They send missionaries to tiny villages in extremely remote parts of the world to live among tribes of people and learn their languages. They believe the first language a person learns is his/her “heart language,” and God speaks best to people in the language they think in and can pray in. While they have translated the Bible into hundreds of languages, they say, “We’ll keep on working so all people – speaking or signing more than 7,000 languages worldwide – can have the Bible in the formats and languages that serve them best.” The Church of God of Prophecy is currently working on translating materials into 139 languages that are spoken by its constituents. This is a daunting, though very necessary, mission.
Nonetheless, think with me for a moment about some reasons why the church might still need missionaries in this digital age. I remember going on a mission trip to Greece and Bulgaria when I was 29 years old. Many of the people in Greece spoke English, so language was not a huge problem there. But I spent five nights with a family in Bulgaria—a man, his wife, and their teenage daughter. The young lady had taken one year of English in her Bulgarian high school. I would point to something. She would say its name in Bulgarian. I would write down what I thought I heard her say and practice saying it back to her. I would tell her what I called the object in English. By the fourth or fifth day, we were communicating quite well. I still remember, 32 years later, that “oosmeefkah” (I have no idea how to spell it in Bulgarian*) means “smile.”
I believe, however, that knowledge of language is only a part of being a missionary. The words I learned in Bulgaria are not nearly as precious to me as are the friends I made and the presence of the Lord I experienced while I was with them. Why did the Apostle Paul insist on making three missionary journeys when he was such a fluent writer that he could have stayed at home and allowed his quill to do the work? As a member of the Sanhedrin, he knew the scriptures about the coming of Jesus incredibly well.
Paul’s belief in Jesus did not stem solely from reading about him; he needed an encounter. Jesus appeared to Paul after a light from heaven flashed around him and left Paul (at that time, Saul) speechless and blind. Jesus does not appear that way to everyone, but sometimes people who have opposed Jesus for long periods of their lives need an eye-opening encounter with him. I have heard the general presbyter of Asia, Bishop Tim McCaleb, say that sometimes people of the Hindu and Buddhist faiths are converted after they witness a miraculous healing or occurrence. The Lord worked through Paul in this fashion several times (Acts 13:8–12; 14:8–10; 16:16–18, 25–28). Paul began to get a reputation for preaching about the one true God, and as a result, the early church grew.
Missionaries have opportunities to build relationships with people. Once a person feels safe around another, he/she begins to trust. When we begin to trust, we are open to believe. Paul likely made missionary journeys because he knew that spending time with people would show them that he cared about them, and they could see for themselves that he believed what he was preaching. People were then open to believe the testimony of his encounter with Jesus. Once they believed, they desired a relationship with Jesus like Paul had, and they, too, began to share their encounters with Jesus to family and friends around them. Thus, the church continued to grow.
Later in life, when Paul was no longer able to travel, he sent letters to the Christians he had guided to Jesus. Because he had built relationships with them when he was discipling them, and they had experienced God’s work in their own lives, they were mature enough to accept Paul’s correction, even from a distance through his letters. When we take time to build rapport with those God allows us to serve, they can learn from us. Paul modeled a life focused on loving God and others. This is one reason missionaries are still necessary even in this digital age when it seems the internet can take the Word of God anywhere. Sometimes people just need to experience Jesus “with skin on.” They need to know he is real so they can trust him with their lives. Then they can begin to disciple others in their communities. This is what keeps the church alive and growing.
We all know, “You can’t believe everything you read on the internet.” God uses real life people—missionaries—at home and abroad, to lead people to life-changing encounters with the one true God that they may have read about. He uses real life missionaries to guide people in understanding how to commit their lives to the service of the one true God that they can read about. And he uses real life missionaries to initiate the cycle of “disciples discipling disciples” of the one true God they can read about. We are all commissioned to be missionaries (Mark 16:15), and God desires to use each of us to strengthen the church in the faith and to grow its numbers (Acts 16:5) in this digital world. Yes, you can “read about it” online, but it takes real people taking the gospel to the world to make disciples of all nations.
*усмивка (usmivka)
– Debbie Freeman, Accredited Ministries Development