“If I have one candle to burn, I would rather burn it in a land filled with darkness than in a land full of light.” – John Keith Falconer
This week Indigitous is in southeast Asia. We’re here to learn how ministries are serving the world’s “unreached people groups,” to find out what ministries around the world are doing with media and other digital strategies, and to learn how the Indigitous movement can benefit those in attendance.
A major theme of the conference was reflected in the above quote from John Keith Falconer. Most evangelism resources, both funding and manpower, are devoted to places where God is already known and there is already a church or ministry presence. The ministries here are most concerned with those other groups, the people groups who have little or no access to the Gospel, a Bible in their language, or a church.
A ministry leader in northern India* shared the above quote when talking about inequality of ministry resources and how many people still need to be reached. It was a very optimistic talk, though. His main point: It is possible to fulfill the Great Commission and he believes it will happen in this generation. “We can do it. We will do it. We must do it.”
Another ministry leader who serves in many different closed countries talked about how to train leaders in those secure nations. During his talk, he shared a surprising statistic: The average education level of pastors worldwide is third grade. If you are called to serve church pastors, are your strategies made to help those with a third-grade education, or only those who have advanced seminary degrees?
A missionary from Australia talked about innovation in ministry. “We as Christians need to be the first to try new digital fads,” said one leader. Fads come and go, but while they are here, evangelists need to take advantage. For example, Facebook 360 is a fad whose popularity will soon fade and it will be replaced with something new. For now, though, ministries need to figure out how to reach people using that new format. He also talked about a product of theirs that was first made as a website but was then transitioned to an app-only experience because they were not getting the desired engagement on the Web. It was a great example of pivoting from the original strategy in order to obtain the desired results.
Speaking of trends, a digital strategist with a ministry focused on outreach to children talked about various trends in the tech industry and wondered how they can be applied to ministry. Decentralization is a recent trend, with people opting for Airbnb rather than staying at a hotel chain and using Uber drivers rather than a taxi company. “What would a decentralized church look like?” he asked. He then zeroed in on the current generation – Generation Z – and how to reach them. To them, “your digital presence is more important than your physical presence,” he said, relating that 51% prefer to talk to their friends digitally rather than in person. The most important part of your digital presence: “Be a real person!” Being personal and authentic is more important than having polished media.
Keep checking with us throughout the week as we share stories and observations from the conference.
*Due to security concerns, we cannot give the name or organization of the person interviewed or quoted. In fact, the above photo is from a different conference because no photos are allowed here.