NEW YORK (ABP) — Most leaders in Baptist missions agree that technology has changed the face of world evangelization. What they don't agree on is what it has changed the most.
Some point to centralized integration of information, saying it has radically reshaped the missionary process. Others think easier and expedited communication has changed the very nature of field work. Still others credit visual and audio media with changing the fund-raising, recruiting and promotional landscape for missions.
They could all be right.
Technology has altered the mission-sending experience, replacing slide shows, landlines and snail mail with video presentations, voice over Internet protocol and e-mail. Extensive databases have also replaced file cabinets crammed with paper information about field workers.
Jim Burdick, director of Evangelical Baptist Missions, said the integration of information has most affected his work. Founded in 1928, the Indianapolis-based agency used to store all personnel information in five scattered file cabinets.
Now, Evangelical Baptist Missions keeps all information in one place. It's a “huge” step forward, Burdick said.
“We now have the ability to take everything from the application standpoint when somebody contacts us and says, ‘I'm interested in missions,' now we can start to gather that information online, and that starts to accumulate in a database we have,” he said. Whether it's a “person, a foundation or a church — if there's any kind of relationship — it's in one database.”
The database is managed by an outside vendor — the mission agency pays a subscription fee for the software — and took about a year to implement. Burdick said the database is part of his office's five-year technology plan. The next steps will make administrative tasks, such as bookkeeping, more efficient.
John Burnette, director of Open Door Baptist Missions, said he appreciates the streamlined accounting practices and improved donor interface the technology fosters. But it's the communication opportunities that really get him talking.
Burnette and his wife lived as missionaries in South America for more than 20 years. Having worked in missions for a total of 38 years, he said, the greatest change since he started has come in the way missionaries and their supporters share information with each other.
“When we started, it would take perhaps a month for a communication to [be processed],” he said. “It took usually 10 days for a letter to get from South America to our home office in Cleveland, Ohio, and then be distributed and returned over another 10 days. Now, for a request or question even in remote areas, people can get to a computer and send an e-mail, and they can get an answer in the same day.”
Now stationed in the United States, Burnette uses a laptop and special cell phone to talk to his daughter and her family, who live on a boat in the Amazon River. And he talks to missionaries in Israel using a voice over Internet protocol, or VOIP, phone.
Written communications with donors have changed, too. Since Burnette's missionaries are largely supported by churches, e-mail attachments of financial statements let them know on a regular basis their donation status.
“What used to be something that took awhile to get in order, by the time we mailed it to them, they may get the statement for June by the end of July,” he said. “But presently, our accountant is pretty much able to close the books by the end of the month and send them a[n Internet facsimile copy] of their statement.”
Burnette said he has also seen a move away from the hard-copy “prayer letters” that missionaries would send to their Stateside supporters in years past. Now, missionaries at Open Door send weekly e-mail updates with pictures, charts and other visual components.
Lonnie Richards knows the value of the visual. A video producer at Baptist Mid-Missions, Richards has a full video studio and two complete video-editing suites at his disposal — and he makes full use of them.
During furloughs, missionaries visit the studio to create and edit video presentations for church visits, adding narration tracks and formatting the productions to copy onto DVDs. Right now, the shooting center production schedule is booked for months in advance, the Ohio-based Richards said.
“We've recently completed a video presentation of our own to use for recruitment in Europe,” he said. “For Europe, the video was to say ‘when you think of the mission field, you think of Africa, you think of China, but you don't always think of Europe.' So we put together a video showing people in Europe.”
While such equipment used to be prohibitively expensive, new technologies have put sophisticated-looking presentations within the reach even of ministries on tight budgets. Burnette said that several years ago, many congregations thought a laptop was an excessive luxury for a missionary. Now, it's accepted as a necessary tool.
Burdick agreed — he is able to modify his database to get the best value for his particular, non-profit needs, he said.
“We can't always afford the Cadillac, but we can afford the Buick that gets 90 percent of the job done,” Burdick said, adding that hiring others to handle databases almost pays for itself. “I no longer have to have people on staff that have to fix all this stuff.”
Price aside, the benefits of technology abound. Missionaries at Open Doors use computer courses to train nationals in countries not open to Christian missionaries. They use chat rooms and question-and-answer sites to do work that would be impossible using traditional mission methods.
Another benefit of technology is the ability to share capacity, Burdick said. His group has worked closely with other missions agencies, swapping best practices and dishing about the best software vendors.
“You don't always have to agree theologically — mission agencies as a whole, we all have to do the same functions,” he said. “We've been put into a place where we can share some of our technology, if you will, with others.”
There are downsides to technological advancement, though.
One is that it can radically alter missionary tactics and systems that have worked for decades — and Baptists are often known for a seemingly innate aversion to change. Sometimes mission supporters “struggle with the changes because they think, ‘You guys are just playing with computers,'” Burdick said.
Another ostensible downside to technology is also one of its major selling points: its speed. The fast pace of communication means mission workers must be more organized and prompt in replying to correspondence from home.
“With access to information comes responsibility,” Burdick said. “Most missionaries don't want to be bothered with that [financial] stuff. If a missionary has information sooner, he has to respond sooner. That can be distracting.”
Burnette said there is a danger “in becoming so focused on technology that you forget your purpose, which is sharing the Lord Jesus Christ with individuals.”
Security is always a concern. Sensitive information sent to mission workers in repressive countries can jeopardize their work. Even seemingly innocuous prayer requests could have serious ramifications. Burnett said encrypted messages and other kinds of documents can help shield sensitive material from prying eyes.
Burdick said computer data is actually safer than hard copies of records. His employee information is kept on a remote server and backed up by several other servers at different locations in the country.
Still, the benefits of e-mail access and an Internet connection may outweigh the risks simply by reminding field workers they're not alone.
“It also has provided a little bit the less of a feeling of being isolated, because missionaries can communicate with their family and friends,” Burnette said. “You can even conference with video and web cams.”
All told, mission people do seem to agree that technology itself is in the mission field to stay — and that it will continue to be fluid in every size of missionary-sending agency.
Sometimes smaller organizations, like the Baptist Mission to Foreign Peoples, “don't use it,” according to Dina Eanes, who works at the Florida-based mission. Other times, it's the smaller groups that are able to adapt quicker than large, top-heavy institutions.
The bottom line? There's no looking back, and most people like it that way.
“I don't miss that at all,” Eanes said of the old days “I like what we're doing now.”
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— This story is the first of a series on missions in the modern world.