I have spent the last few days in Singapore listening to reports from around Asia on TWR‘s outreach efforts. There’s an amazing amount of work being done in this region of the globe for the advancement of the gospel including work in closed countries like North Korea, Myanmar and China. TWR is the largest Christian Broadcaster in the world reaching out to over 200 languages in some 160 countries through radio waves, television, print and internet. It’s truly an amazing organization. As I sat with leaders of 12 different countries/regions one common theme began to appear: mobile is our new frontier.

While radio is still the only way to reach millions in some cultures, mobile phones now make up the fastest growing communication device in the world. Even remote places in India and Africa now have affordable cell service with data plans. In the past few days I have been learning how Asians are using SMS or text services in marketing and the proliferation of Blue Tooth marketing. As I walked through a mall posters advertise “turn your blue tooth on and we’ll send you a coupon.” Now concert goers can receive a small video, a free song or any mobile friendly file through a blue tooth connection. Shortly we’ll receive our church bulletin to our cell phones through blue tooth or a dedicated app.

I’m honored to be a strategic technology partner for TWR (The A Group is developing several new technologies for TWR including mobile apps and a comprehensive Digital Management System). And I’m encouraged by their vision for ministry and not for the medium. It would be easy for such a legacy organization to say “we are radio people, we should stick with what we know.” But instead their focus is on the message and the most effective way to broadcast it to the entire globe.

In what interesting ways have you seen technology being used for ministry?