"[God] created all the people of the world… and scattered them across the face of the earth….His purpose in all of this is that they should seek after God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him…" (Acts 17:26,27, Living Bible).
Recently I came across an interesting article describing the cultural impact of cellphone technology. The broad-scale implementation of cellphones (why, even I have one) represents "a fundamental change in the telecommunications landscape." It has changed the way we speak. It has changed the way we interrelate, in some ways. It may not be too much to say that cellphones are changing the way that we look at the world.
"It’s a behavioral shift from the last hundred years in which we called a geographical place and got a person," an analyst explained. "We’re now moving to a model of calling a person – regardless of geography. The consequences of such a change could be profound."
Consider the example of common telephone etiquette. When calling a friend over "land line" – by hard-wired telephone hanging on the wall in our friend’s kitchen – we might inquire, "Is so-and-so at home?" But when calling a friend’s cellphone, a particular kitchen in a particular home is irrelevant. You might ask instead, "Where are you?" The article explains: "In a cellular age, you no longer dial a place but a moving target: a person, somewhere in space" (New York Times, August 29, 2002; p.E1).
We see a similar shift in the field of Christian missions. In the last hundred years, we have "called" upon specific unreached peoples in specific geographical places. But the situation today is radically changed; people are no longer "hard wired" to their traditional geographies. I am told that 80 languages are spoken in the Minneapolis public school district. More than 400 Afghans are found in my city. The Hmong population in my city – here in the Scandinavian northland – is larger than anywhere else in the nation. There are more Chinese students on the campus of the University of Minnesota than on any other campus in the country. It is time to take notice.
Somalis are found in Somalia, it is true. But they are also found in my neighborhood. If I am interested in building friendships among them, I must not picture a telephone hanging on a kitchen wall in Mogadishu. I must ask first, "Where are you?"- and the answer might surprise me. I will discover that today’s unreached peoples are "moving targets, somewhere in space." I will find them across the ocean, to be sure. But I may find them in my own neighborhood, as well. "Land line" thinking will no longer do.
Who lives in your neighborhood? Might you find unreached peoples there, do you think? Do you care?
"The Way I See It", November 2002
© Copyright 2002 (World Mission Prayer League). All rights reserved.