Digital transformation of mission

Tony Whittaker, the Coordinator of the online magazine, Internet Evangelism Day has written an Open Letter to Mission Agency Leaders.   He begins in this way:

Digital communication is transforming our world in ways that we are only beginning to discern. There are now over 3 billion mobile phone owners and 2 billion web users, and the majority are outside the West. Facebook has 500 million users in nearly 100 languages, making it (in terms of ‘population’) the third largest ‘country’ in the world.

This new ‘digital communication culture’ is superseding the West’s ‘print communication culture’. And remarkably, it has much more in common with the ‘oral communication cultures’ that many of us are so familiar with. Its strengths include two-way interaction and relationship building, visual storying rather than left-brain abstract analytic thinking, and the ability to offer information and help anonymously. 

Tony goes on to discuss ways in which Mission Organisations are still needing to catch up with the digital revolution.   There's something of a mindset that the digital age is only affecting the West.   This may (in part) be the case with the Internet, but in terms of mobile phones, the revolution is huge, enormous, increasingly global.  

Read the rest of his letter and see just how remarkable the potential is for far-reaching changes in global mission.