---Just to start with, the ministry we have been able to do with the Pocket Preacher Audio Player filled with over 300 hours of bible teaching and the audio bible is mostly the result of sourcing and communication that we are able to do over the internet.
---It is true that the cell phone has almost totally invaded Africa.
Folk in remote villages far out in the centre of the Kalahari Desert even have cell phones. (although a large number don't have funds to make calls, they have a phone so they can receive calls!) - even our little 3 year old 'grand-daughter' knows how to use many aspects of her father's phone including the camera!
---It is also true that in the urban areas in particular a growing number of people have email addresses and some have smart phones, and there are 'dongles' available from cell phone companies to be able to access the internet via the cell-phone network.
---We have greatly benefited from the use of email to send communication to home offices, supporters and family, which not only speeds up processes but saves money.
In that way, of course the Internet is a help.
However, this picture can be very deceiving.
What may appear to a Westerner that all of Africa now has total access to all that is on the internet, is simply not true.
To use our context as an example:
- firstly a person has to have enough money to be able to buy internet time, and its not cheap when compared with western prices,
- and they need access to electricity in some form.
- many people do overcome the need for power/cash by only using their office/work email address if they have one. This means though that they should only be attending to personal internet matters in their lunch break and what they can download and print off may be limited and they have no access at all in their non-office hours (weekends/holidays/after hours - the very times when a person actually has some time to read, they have no access).
- the best internet is available only through copper wire post-paid landline phones (pre-paid customers who are many, are not eligible) which a large part of the country doesn't have access to.
- - and that service is mostly incredibly slow. While sometimes speed can be almost acceptable there are times when it has taken us 1.5hrs to download a 6.5MB document!
- if a person doesn't have access to a landline phone but has an internet equipped cell phone or a 'dongle' for their computer(if they have one), then they can buy 'airtime' for internet access. But again speeds can be incredibly slow - so slow that secure webpages that require passwords sometimes can't be opened because the server times out during processing.
- there are no free wi-fi 'hot spots' that we know of except in high-end restaurants and many require you to be a patron before you can be given a code to gain access. And not all restaurants have this service available for free, many charge a fee for a limited number of minutes.
- there are a few internet cafes but the charges they have are prohibitive for most folk to do anything beyond a few minutes quickly checking a few emails. And if the power is out, and the cafe has no back-up generator, there is no internet access at all.
Last week while Andrew was in town, he stopped at a cafe and was going to make good use of time and get some internet tasks done. He discovered the cafe charged a fee, but he decided to pay the fee anyhow, for the convenience of internet access. However, just after he typed in the code and the timer started ticking, in walked someone he hadn't seen for ages. The person spotted him and came over for a chat. By the time they finished chatting the time was almost 'up' and the money wasted.
So ............when a Western 'ministry' group announces with pride that they now have all their resources available for free on the internet, that isn't the whole story. Most people in Africa probably still can't access it.
We have just had word that yet another evangelical international Christian ministry, that up to now produced their excellent magazine in printed form, is no longer going to do so. It will all be on the internet.
So now, we can no longer subscribe to receive a printed copy.
More than half the reason we subscribed was not just so we could read it, but so all the people who come through our house can read the copy from our coffee table, or borrow it later. And when the copies get to be a couple of years old we send them to a Bible College for their library so all the rural pastors from various parts of Africa doing training there can have access to it for many years to come.
These are people who now will NOT be able to benefit from the content of the magazine.
Africa so desperately needs access to good solid bible teaching. Printed teaching resources that are available to multiple readers is a great way to do this.
Of recent days/years we have had another major international daily devotional producer cease making printed copies available to Africa (we are not sure if anywhere else in the world can still get them). When we enquired we were told that people can now find them on the internet.
We also know of a major strong, biblically sound producer of printed bible study booklets and sample sermons on CD who stopped producing both, saying they are now available on the internet for free.
Rather than being missions and 'God's global church' focused, the West is being very narrow minded and self-focused in making such decisions.
When an item is only available in electronic form or on the internet, that has impact in ways most Westerners don't even begin to comprehend:
- most people won't have access, but if they do ......
- only one person (the one who owns the computer or smart phone) can access the material and no one can access any other material similtaneously- essentially it can't be shared except with another person with current access to the internet on a separate device.
**** a book/magazine on the other hand can be read by many people over many years and even while the 'original owner' is reading something else!
- the material can only be accessed while the person has money, access to the internet and power to keep their device charged. If they want to re-access the same information later they have to pay for internet time again
****printed material can be read anytime and is not reliant on internet access or power or a charged device and can be read over and over for no extra expense
- if the material requires printing off or downloading, the person has to have a device large enough to store the data along with other data and/or ability to print off the material
****the cost of buying a book or bible study notes or other materials is actually normally cheaper than printing off one copy of the book even if there is no purchase cost, and the quality of the finished product is much more robust and long lasting than a bunch of A4 printed sheets that then have to be bound (more cost).
- to access something on the internet you have to fairly much already know what you are looking for specifically and go directly to that site/article or type a specific key word into a search engine
- whereas a book or magazine on shelf or a coffee table is there to browse even if you weren't thinking to do so or had never heard of it.
When sound Biblical teaching in printed form is withdrawn there are consequences...
When evangelical publications cease to produce material in printed form (whether books, cheap magazines or free booklets), it doesn't leave some neutral void.
We can't just say: "its sad, but 'so be it' ".
No, people will still read what they have access to - material from the cults and the like. The JWs are still distributing literature. The big 'Prosperity Gospel' churches such as "Pastor Chris of the 'Christ Embassy'", still distribute thousands if not millions of his basically free devotional book every year around the world, particularly across Africa. (see blogpost from Pastor Conrad Mbewe in Zambia about Pastor Chris to get an idea of the type of teaching that is flooding Africa)
And yet here we have strong, sound biblical resources not increasing the light of Christ in places like Africa, but shrinking it - shall we say hiding it under a 'bushel' (Luke 11:33) - the bushel of the mostly inaccessible internet.
So though Technology may be helping some aspects of missions, there are more and more other ways in which we feel it is actually taking missions backwards. And it really saddens us.
- not so much for ourselves
(though we prefer to not have to read everything on-line, we can make the effort to do so - but the truth is that less will be read).
.......but.....
(though we prefer to not have to read everything on-line, we can make the effort to do so - but the truth is that less will be read).
.......but.....
......We are sad for Africa.
......We are sad for Pastors who will now never read this magazine and the wealth of its content which could help equip them.
......We are sad for new Christians who we can no longer 'sign up' to receive the daily devotional, and growing Christians we can no longer even buy some of the cheaply available great bible studies that were produced in printed form but are now only available on-line.
We can't even afford to be printing all these items off, let alone find the time to do it - the average African hasn't a chance.
In fact it almost makes us more than sad - it almost makes us mad!
Is this really 'loving one another' when we don't make provision for those who have less than ourselves?
We might give to missions in the Sunday offering but are we really thinking about what it means to be part of God's mission to the world?
What does God think?
Is He Sad? Is He Mad?
Would Jesus have had a similar reaction to what he did in the temple when those who purported to be providing a service to God's chosen people were actually more interested in their finances than truly serving?...and thus many of those who wanted to be able to sacrifice couldn't because they simply didn't have the resources available to access what they needed or they had to spend more than they should to obtain it. Jesus called it theft!
Now those people would never have called themselves thieves or thought of themselves that way - they would have just thought they were maximising their financial opportunities!
They didn't see themselves as guilty. ( Scripture tells us we are all busy doing 'what is right in our own eyes'.) But they should have been ashamed of themselves.
But what about God's perspective? For sure the money changers got a bit of a shock to be publicly labelled as thieves!
We need to take a closer look at God's bigger perspective on this issue of cancelling printed media in favour of internet media only accessible to those with the wealth and a piece of technology to access it.
Supposed 'Cost Effectiveness' seems to be overtaking a missional perspective.
On one hand we hear so much about the need to 'Reach the Unreached' and yet some of the effective means to reaching many who are unreached are actually being removed. Access to solid teaching in forms that many of the 'unreached' need it for it to actually 'reach' them, is being reduced.
Whatever happened to trusting the Lord for the further resources needed to reach those who need to hear who will not hear without a preacher - even if that preacher is a book/magazine/booklet?
Whatever happened to innovation and creativity - maybe making the magazine smaller or produced less often or fewer colour pages or cheaper paper or...or ...or?
We would really like to somehow send a 'wake-up call' to the wider Christian world, with a plea especially for sound biblical groups to make every effort to NOT stop printed media and consider being 'missional' before simply being 'economical'!
This doesn't only affect places like Africa.
What about those in the 'West' who don't have a computer? Not everyone does and its not only the elderly who don't. The poor, the elderly and anyone else for whatever reason doesn't have access to the internet are all excluded as well when print media is removed.
However, in the midst of bad news there is some good news!
- we want to mention one organisation that is not following the trend. Randy Alcorn/Eternal Perspectives Ministries does make their magazine available on-line and does include a request with their printed versions that if a person can access it on-line to please do so. However, when we wrote to them explaining why we still subscribe to a printed copy, they were right with us. Thank you Randy and EPM!
That little magazine is read over and over again by various ones who come through our door and lives are being impacted.
What can you do to encourage a true missional perspective over supposed 'cost effectiveness'?
What can you do to encourage and better love your brothers and sisters in other parts of the world?
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