Wired.com writes about co-Founder Kevin Kelly’s “6 words for the modern Internet”. Kelly is a brilliant futurist and analyst of where trends are going, but while his comments are about the Internet and technology in general, they are really also applicable to life in general. Let’s take a moment to reflect on how these apply to missions, too.
Screening. “We are no longer people of the book. We’ve become people of the screen.” Interesting implications for Biblical text. My favorite Bible of choice has become “YouVersion,” on my iPad. My wife uses it on the iPhone to read the Bible through chronologically. Each day shows her the reading of the moment. BlueLetterBible brings me an interlinear Bible, one of the easiest to use. It has made Bible study far easier for me. “Screens will become a filter for reality,” however… And how do we deal with information overload?
Interacting. We are more and more able to interact with our devices, and through them with people on the other side. This brings up choices we have never had before. Choices I am making for my children and for myself. Who do we interact with? Who do we allow to friend us on Facebook? What implications does it have for evangelism, for discipleship, for accountability, for missions? “If it’s not interacting, it doesn’t work.” More, our screens are watching us – attempting to personalize to us. If a security agent demanded you open up your Facebook page on your personal computer, or your music selection in iTunes – what would it say about you?
Sharing. “The primary verb of this world.” The privacy concerns he touches on here directly impact those of us involved in missions work. Moreover, the privacy concerns of our friends involved in missions can impact us. I am pretty open about myself and what I do. This likely gives some folks pause about “friending” me on Facebook – because what will it mean for them if I reshare something they send me? In missions we have to be very aware of the privacy decisions of those we work with and serve, especially as things get easier and easier to share and there is value in doing so. There can be value in not sharing, too, and we need to respect that.
Flowing. Now instead of files, folders and desktops we have streams, stags and clouds. My twitter stream, my Facebook stream, my RSS feeds–all of this represents knowledge, connectivity, shared histories. These streams are a new media and a new platform. How is our missionary efforts being streamed? Our agencies being streamed? How can we tap into the history of missions and the church as a stream?
Accessing. “Access becomes more important than owning.” I rarely buy a movie anymore. I can access just about anything I want just-in-time via services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. We cut off our cable television but left on the Internet and haven’t missed any shows that we really like–and for the most part completely cut advertising out of our existence. How do we provide access to missionary resources? What does “access vs. ownership” mean in terms of the church?
Generating. How do you create anything of value when it can be copied so easily? “Things become valuable if they can’t be easily copied but are easy to pay for.” Keywords here: personalization, findability, embodiment. What does this mean for the church? We need to meet people where they are. This is something that we should excel at. However it means turning away from mass audiences and mass stages and instead becoming important to just a handful of people–maybe 1,000 (like Kelly’s “1,000 true fans”?).
What do you think?
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