Another Mission Field?

An American, an Italian and a Filipino visited St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City. They were awestruck as they beheld Michelangelo’s Pietà. The American could only mouth the word, “Amazing!” The Italian could not contain his joy and exclaimed, “Magnifico!” But the Filipino immediately got his cell phone from his pocket, grabbed a companion’s hand, posed as close as possible to the sculpture and shrilled, “Picture! Picture! Post ko sa Facebook!” (“I’ll post it on Facebook!”)

Yes, we are a certified Facebook country. “Of the more than 496 Facebook aficionados worldwide… The Philippines ranks seventh in the world with the most number of Facebook users at 15,935,880” (Source: http://inquirer.net/). In fact, the number of Filipinos riding the Facebook wave is growing so fast that it seems we can overtake Italy at the sixth spot, which has only 16,858,340 users. Also, we still reign as the SMS capital of the world. And according to the latest Young Asians 2010 Survey conducted by Synovate, a global research agency, “Mobile phones are the most important device for 67 percent of young Filipinos… Filipino youth have many people to choose from when sending messages – with the third-highest number of contacts in their address books with an average of 102. Indonesian youth had an average 131 contacts and Singapore youth an average 108 contacts.” (Ibid)

Now, let’s put Facebook and mobile phones together and what do we get? A powerful combo for reaching more people with the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ! Sadly, there was a time that Christians were wary whenever a new technology comes. For example, in the early days of radio, I heard that there was a preacher who criticized its use for evangelism, arguing (out of context, of course) that Satan is "the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2, ESV). We almost lost that opportunity were it not for the brave pioneers of radio preachers. Now, radio is indispensable in the sharing the Gospel. In 1 Corinthians 9:22, the apostle Paul explained his strategy for reaching out, “I do everything I can to win everyone I possibly can.” (CEV) So, let us all become missionaries through Facebook and through SMS, which is fast becoming a new frontier or mission field in world evangelism. Let us make the most of it by expressing our faith through our status updates and text messages.

Brethren, by all means let’s do everything to win all that we can.

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