Ready for e-mission?

Former CMS mission partner Jon Gregson assesses the potential for building Christian communities in cyberspace.

With the dawn of the new millennium, the media seems to be awash with stories of a new revolution. While the information technology revolution is not exactly new, the dramatic growth in use of the Internet and the transformation of businesses because of electronic commerce are, for better or worse, bringing incredible changes.

Many might imagine that we, living and working in Nepal, one of the poorest countries of the world, were insulated from these changes. Yet if you were to walk around Kathmandu, in common with many parts of Asia, you would find Internet access booths and places to send e-mail on almost every street.

Development agencies are also responding to the potential advantages of the new technology and are looking at ways to support improvements in education, health and agriculture through use of the Internet. This might seem an irrelevant pipe-dream, given the extreme poverty, low levels of literacy and other severe problems affecting the people of Nepal but, intriguingly, affordable technology now exists that can bring mobile phone and Internet access to villages in places that roads may not reach for years to come. Moreover, these tools are proving empowering and beneficial.

Nepal, for example, is currently engaged in building a new communications infrastructure that is aimed at linking two thousand mountain villages within two years.

Promoting knowledge-sharing

Over the last six months I have had the privilege of spending some time working with mountain communities and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in the Himalayan region.

Apart from Nepal, I have been to north-west and north-east India and also to Bhutan. Communities living in these mountain areas are among the most cut off, and lack relevant information and communication support that could be helpful to their survival and livelihoods. The projects in which I have been involved aimed to address these constraints and to promote communication through e-mail, and the sharing of knowledge through Internet access.

Personally, I think we are at an important stage where we can assess some of the possibilities and look at the potential for strengthening links between different parts of the global Christian community through ‘on-line initiatives’.

As more and more Christians, Christian organisations and Churches from all around the world get e-mail and Internet access, friendships can be built up and a new sense of closeness and community could be facilitated.

Recently, for the first time, I was able to ‘chat’ over the Internet with some friends I had made in Malaysia. I learned about a project in Malaysia where orphanages, including Christian ones, are putting up web-sites on the Internet, communicating and sharing their lives and needs. The project has come up with ideas for e-fostering and e-mentoring - once you get beyond such jargon, there does seem to be a substantive benefit for the children (see www.lion-cybercare.org).

There are many other interesting examples of experimental projects, using new technology, that are springing up in the social and educational sectors. Due to the nature of the technology, they often have an international component; for example, rural schools in Malaysia are linking up and having on-line conferences with schools in the UK through a global schools network.

IT specialists can become part of a caring profession, as I discovered on a trip to evaluate the provision of Internet services around Gilgit in the north of Pakistan. Users of the service saw it as a huge blessing. For example, an eye hospital was able, simply through e-mail, to reduce its communication costs, to network internationally and improve its services by sending digital photos of rare eye conditions to experts for diagnosis.

The technology is changing fast. The Chairman of the World Bank, Mr James Wolfensohn, reported at a recent conference that within five years, as a result of new, low-orbiting satellites, most villages around the world might be linked to the ‘information superhighway’. The World Bank is building what it calls ‘an on-line, global gateway’ to broker knowledge for development on this highway. I know from my own work that places such as Bhutan and Tibet, which have previously been very cut off from the rest of the world, are now linked and contributing to the Internet.

There is clearly scope for Christians to forge new friendships and innovative ‘communities’, which are likely to be quite dynamic. This really could be an exciting time for interacting with Christians around the world, for example, in the UK we can be alerted to prayer needs and human rights issues faster than ever before - you won’t have to go there to be there, if you know what I mean!

On-line tools for ‘chatting’, ‘conferencing’ and ‘sharing files and resources’ are available ‘free’ all over the world although access to the Internet remains costly, even prohibitive. Certainly it won’t be long before voice and video become widely used and more affordable media for much on-line, global communication.

In many countries there is already no reason, technically, why mission partners cannot communicate in real time and through web-sites with supporting parishes, and why donors cannot be in closer touch than ever before with projects that they support. However, mission partners overseas do need to be sensitive to the culture and political context of their host countries, and to be aware that e-mail and the Internet, in common with many traditional communication media, are not 100% secure.

A new kind of Christian community

For intermediary organisations, and agencies like CMS, this revolution could indeed present interesting opportunities as well as some difficult challenges! In some areas at least, CMS and other mission agencies will have to ‘reinvent’ their roles as businesses are having to do.

CMS, for example, is ideally placed because of its constituency to provide a gateway and support new services (eg, chat rooms, conferences, moderated mailing lists and collaborative web-sites) which could more closely link Christians and Churches around the world at regional and global levels.

While there are major issues to think through, given the fast changing global communications infrastructure, relationships with Christian communities and with poor and marginalised groups could be facilitated in ways about which one could previously only dream. I believe that this could be part of a really exciting vision that would invigorate and inspire both prayer and action.

As English language has become de facto the global language, we in the UK have been given tremendous gifts in our 'mother tongue' and its use on the Internet, in that we can now easily communicate with people from almost any country in the world.

As we embark on this IT revolution, some politicians, for example Dr Mahathir, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, are excited by the potential for building new ‘k-societies’: their vision is equitable economic development through knowledge-based activities (as opposed to industrial ones). In development terms this strategy offers a lot of hope.

However, by contrast, I would suggest that for Christians the vision be more focused on using these new tools to strengthen partnerships and relationships, to become part of a new kind of Christian community, to advocate for, and to improve our response to, those most in need.

The post-modern era, with its emphasis on diversity and pluralism, has given everyone a fashionable freedom to express what he or she knows personally, and we have all been challenged accordingly to respect different values and beliefs. The Internet, with plenty of exchange of ideas and relationship building, is increasingly becoming the medium for this era. As Christians we have the opportunity to use it to listen to new voices and share our spiritual and professional gifts and our resources in new ways.

For example, Christian IT specialists with an interest in mission can make a major contribution by designing suitable on-line infrastructures that enable Christian communities to take shape and interact caringly and creatively in cyberspace.

I have written as an ‘Information Technology enthusiast’ but I would still rather be in Nepal, face to face with those I love, than interacting on-line!

To conclude I will refer to my favourite passage in the Bible. In I Corinthians, chapter 13, Paul makes it abundantly clear that language and communication, knowledge and concern for the poor (all dominant themes in secular development) are but empty drums and clanging cymbals if we have no love!

Embracing the opportunities presented by new technology will be a worthless endeavour unless our hearts are in the right place and our efforts are led, underpinned and supported by prayer. With this in mind, we can pray that the exponential growth of the Internet will enable us in new ways to respond as disciples to the Great Commission and to the commandment of Jesus to love our neighbour.

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Jon and Lyn Gregson, with Rachel, Hannah and Timothy, have just finished seven years’ mission service in Nepal. Jon worked at the Kathmandu University School of Management and then as a volunteer consultant to a range of NGOs. Lyn, a physiotherapist, supported Nepali organisations that work with disabled people.