Hi Tech and Hi Touch

It’s been great to keep up with the all that’s happened with and through the Katrina team via Mark Evan’s email journal and the accompanying photos.  Technology has impacted the work of the church and its mission just like it has impacted so many other aspects of our lives.

I am still sometimes amazed to think of Sue Makin sitting in her clinic and Mulange Mission hospital and sending a quick email that takes only seconds to arrive from Malawi.  Or I think of a couple of our high school students who sit at their computers in a comfortable Beaver home with webcams sending their images and voices to their Brazilian buddies huddled around a make-shift computer that’s they’ve got up and running in a dark corner of some tiny favela home. 

But we’ve got to be careful not to get too impressed by all the techo-dazzle.  Mission and ministry are not about silicon chips, they’re about people, those willful, stubborn people who long ago fell from grace, but whom God promises never to abandon nor forsake.  Mission is about Greg and Charles whose lives were so disrupted two years ago, but to whom, now in his time, God sent some Park people and others on a mission of care and compassion to help rebuild their shattered house and lives.  Mission is about Leonardo, Ludmilla and dozens of others who truly count Chris or Kurt to be good friends and through whom God has blessed them deeply.  The communication is high tech, but God still uses high touch to build his Kingdom.

Many of you know that I am off on a high touch mission trip next week.  I will be leaving for Brazil on Wednesday to officiate at Aline Gomes’ (Robson’s daughter) wedding.  Yes, I am honored and delighted to go, but it is mission, no doubt about it.  It is touching lives in the name and for the sake of Christ. I will be meeting with a couple Brazilian pastors who are eager to find an American church willing to partner with them in their work.  I’ve got appointments with various IPJA folks – things to talk about and problems to resolve. 

Some of us are called to Brazil or the Gulf Coast and we get to use our high tech gadgets to stay in touch.  But we’re called to do the high touch work of sharing the gospel in word and in deed with people like Greg and Charles, Leonardo and Ludmilla.  All of us get called to a neighbor’s house, an office cubicle, school classroom or to be the leader of a Girl Scout troop for exactly the same reason – the high touch work of sharing the gospel in word and deep with people God always calls by name. 

Some of us get called to Brazil or the Gulf Coast and we get to use our high tech gadgets to stay in touch.  But we’re called to do the high touch work of sharing the gospel in word and in deed with people like Greg and Charles, Leonardo and Ludmilla.  All of us get called to a neighbor’s house, an office cubicle, school classroom or to be the leader of a Girl Scout troop for exactly the same reason – the high touch work of sharing the gospel in word and deep with people God always calls by name.