The Laptop Pith Helmet
E. A. de Bordenave
October 1, 1996
Missions will never be the same since the introduction of technology. That is a loaded sentence, thinly disguising what we all know: missions has always had technology, and technology has always improved missions. The thing about today's technology is that it is more dazzling, and the improvements in missions are quantitative leaps. A couple of examples. I direct a missionary society that works among the twenty-five least evangelized people groups in the world. As part of this work I watch bulletin boards of what are virtually symposia on Christian work in such places as Yemen, Kazakhstan, and Tibet. Every day I receive queries, answers, news, and comments on work in these countries. The other day I was told how to get a copy of the Dalai Lama's speech to the U.N. I could send the command to the site, receive it as a file, and forward it by e-mail to a missionary working with the Tibetans. All within an hour. In front of me and slightly to my left is sufficient equipment to generate a platform from which, borrowing the image from Archimedes, to move the world. I have a phone with two lines, one of which can send a document to any person with a modem, a computer that holds more files than would fit in any church's covered dish dinner area, a printer that will outperform what any printing shop could do as recently as twenty years ago, and a connection to a search device that will turn up thousands of pieces of information on any unreached groups. These groups may be unreached as missionary work is measured, but as for information, they are in the thick of things. Humanly speaking, creativity, imagination, and money for the phone lines are the only missing elements to move the world. And that is just what we want to do in missions. ...
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