EMQ Volume 59 Issue 3

By Heather Pubols | From apps to AI, the increasing availability of digital technology is changing the world and the way we do missions. Practitioners working at this crossroads of missions and technology describe missions, evangelism, discipleship, churches, prayer meetings, and even metaverse mission fields all contained within digital environments.

By Andrew Feng and Nick Wu | Missions leaders and practitioners see the need for digital solutions, but they may be overwhelmed by the vast amounts of apps, tools, and strategies. The digital landscape for missions is key for collaboration.

By Elizabeth Adleta, Susmitha Kothari, Ray Peng, Pastor X*, Robby Butler | An unprecedented number of people across the world are participating in coordinated 24/7/365 prayer for the fulfillment of God’s promise to bless all ethne. Advances in technology are fueling this prayer and linking believers together in prayer as never before. 

By Ace Pendon | The Cru Digital Strategies team has been building digital training programs to equip the body of Christ for digital missions. Through their programs, they are training cohorts of digital missionaries to fill missional gaps helping the gospel to spread further and faster.

By Dorrie Manu | The Mentor Ministry software platform enables people serving as mentors to connect online with mentees looking for someone to join a spiritual journey with them. Along the way mentors are equipped to help their mentees take steps towards Jesus.

By Josiah Palusky | Innovative strategies are linking new and existing methods of evangelism and discipleship in ways not previously explored. In many cases, technology is playing a key role.

By D. B. Brown | Traditional and embodied missions methods are not always possible among the least reached communities. Digital distribution of Scriptural content, when driven by sound missiology, can bridge this gap. Missionary technologists have a unique opportunity to help missionaries use this powerful and effective means for evangelism and discipleship.

By Justin Sooter | How can Christians live in a world where we are glued to screens and where verbal communication seems to be going out of style? How do we do evangelism and engage with our neighbors and friends so that they can hear about Jesus when we barely even talk to each other? Digital technology, the very thing that seems to be enabling our self-destruction, may actually be a part of the solution to bring us together.

By Jeff Reed | God has been preparing the digital and the metaverse mission fields, and in these digital environments we can reach the world. A handful of innovative church planters with little to no support are leading what can at the very least be called an innovative experiment.

By Jeremy Hodes | While limitations and potential nefarious uses need to be considered, AI also offers tremendous opportunities in missions that can help the gospel to spread further and faster than ever.

By Kevin Horan | When someone becomes a missionary with a raise-your-own-support type of agency, they are taught how to make phone calls and talk to people to create their ministry team. What if there was a website/app that could help missionaries and potential partners find one another?

By Dorinda Beeley | Over the last 22 years, God has led me on a journey from missions tech skeptic to missions tech recruiter. He has given our ministry the opportunity to share about missions tech needs with thousands of Christian computer science students over the last decade – and then give them opportunities to plug in and see their skills at work.

By Helene Fisher and Elizabeth Lane Miller | Walking away from current beliefs into new ones is never neutral. In places where Christian faith is unwelcomed or illegal, following Jesus has implications for everything. In order to offer better support and help strengthen the church, missionaries walking with these believers must grow in awareness of persecution dynamics.

By Phil King | Michael Stroope’s book, Transcending Mission, offers a semantic challenge on the use of the words mission, missionary and missional. He believes we distort history when we use these words to describe biblical people and activities. Using a cognitive linguistic lens, we can evaluate his claims .

By David Greenlee and Greg Kernaghan | George Verwer, founder of Operation Mobilisation, passed away on April 14, 2023. His impact in global missions reverberated far beyond the boundaries of OM. God used him to help shape its multicultural and multinational the future.

By David Daniel | Today’s technology, powered by our collective pandemic experience using it, is accelerating online connections and collaboration. This shift is the backstory for a new platform that is matching Great Commission Organizations (GCOs) with Kingdom Consultants (KCs). These fruitful connections are exponentially increasing kingdom impact. 

By Jon Here | The free software and open source movements in the technology industries have been so successful that even large corporations participate in them. What can we learn from this methodology that we can apply to ministry resources right now?