DIGITAL MISSIONS: Yes, We Can!

Juliette Arulrajah, Chairperson of the MMS Training Committee. She is also the MMS Area Director for Cambodia and Laos.

Introduction

A key feature of missions across geographical borders in the ‘new norm’ is capitalising on the digital platform more than ever before! Both digital natives like millennials and students as well as the older digital novices need to creatively explore the digital platform to be on the frontiers of cross-cultural missions!

We can tangibly empower local Christian leadership in other nations with contextualised and creative new ideas, strategies, and possibilities! Yes, indeed we can bring significant transformation through God’s love and hope to nations around us despite not being able to travel there due to the COVID-19 pandemic!

MMS seeks to be on the cutting edge and aspires to facilitate Singaporean Methodists to explore the potential of the digital platform for missions. A two-session series on crossing cultures digitally was jointly organised in February 2021 with the three Annual Conferences’ Boards of Missions.

I. X-Culture-Digi

79 participants from 30 different Methodist churches (6 ETAC, 9 CAC and 15 TRAC) in addition to 6 non-Methodist Churches were actively engaged in this two-hour zoom session on 20 February to explore and enhance missions ministries over the digital platform. Nearly 90% of the participants were key leaders of local churches (LCEC, Missions, Pastors & staff) and Annual Conferences.

This session highlighted the practical digital measures employed by MMS and others from the Singapore Methodist community after the onset of the pandemic in 2020, involving and engaging children, youths, millennials, professionals, church leaders and seniors!

Missions in the light of COVID-19 (in the field)

Missions in the light of COVID-19 (Missionaries)

Missions in the light of COVID-19 (in Singapore)

The MMS Training Chairman shared on the implications of COVID-19 for cross-cultural missions in the fields, on the missionaries, and how Singapore churches need to adapt to the ‘new norm’. She also underscored five simple digital measures to cross cultures through being E-Care Pals, E-Creative Innovators, E-Content Empowerers, E-Collaborative Funders, and E-Christ Warriors, citing concrete examples from a variety of nations.

Flood Relief in South Asia

WMC's monthly healthy exercise programme for NBLPMC's seniors

MSC Kindergarten Staff in Cambodia

Weekly English tuition for NBLPMC children

Four Methodists shared uplifting stories on their ‘digital missions’ ministries:

(A) Koh Geok Cheng, Wesley Methodist Church (WMC)

From June 2020, varied groups of WMC volunteers taught English on three different days weekly over Zoom to the children, youth, and adults of Nong Bua Lamphu Methodist Church (NBLPMC) in Northeast Thailand. WMC seniors also connected with their Thai counterparts every month through healthy exercises and creative arts. All these led the NBLPMC pastor to be invited to teach English daily at a school using WMC resources.

B) Teo Quee Lin, Pentecost Methodist Church

Quee Lin, a professional educator and coach for pre-school educators, shared how through the digital platform she encouraged the acting local principal and teachers of the Methodist School of Cambodia Kindergarten to improve the quality of their resources, teaching materials and pedagogy, resulting in the growing engagement of students and parents despite the challenges of online learning in Cambodia.

(C) Leong Jenn Yeong, Aldersgate Methodist Church

God led him to motivate a Facebook pastor friend from South Asia and the latter’s pastor friends through weekly prayer meetings to be passionate, godly fathers. This led to two digital motivational conferences for 110 pastors who were later sent out to minister in 10 districts. These pastors were also taught how to manage a flood crisis, be financially accountable, facilitate crisis aid to their local community, and even begin a small-scale mango tree livelihood project.

(D) Cindy Chen, Wesley Methodist Church

Through cFriendz and SuiteMozaic, a group of Methodists with their non-Methodist friends promote digital networking of Christians to encourage crossborder business and missions opportunities. This is to enhance capacity building of business communities especially for millennials and young adults through Youth Biz-Up Zoom Boot Camps across Asia and Africa.

“Broadened Horizons, motivating, in-depth explanations, good spread of how individuals and churches can be creatively involved in digital missions” were part of the positive feedback received.

II. X-Culture-Collab

60 participants from 25 Methodist churches (9 CAC, 3 ETAC, 13 TRAC) and 3 non-Methodist churches came together for this four-hour Zoom session on 27 February, to use their skills, gifts, ideas, and expertise to engage and collaborate cross-culturally over the digital platform with MMS field partners from Cambodia, Thailand, and Timor-Leste. It was a time to innovate, collaborate, build communities, and meet real-world needs!

The participants were given an overview of six collaboration projects:

• Cambodia – Empowering Decision Making of the Next Generation at COSI and COSY

• Cambodia – Collection of Medical Data from Surrounding Villages to Set up a Clinic in the Future

• Thailand – The Puhada Livelihood Project for Under Privileged Women

• Thailand – The Good Soil Livelihood Project

• Timor-Leste – Empowering Business and Financial Management Skills for Tertiary Level Youth

• Timor-Leste – Enhancing Conversational English Skills for Tertiary Level Youth

The Cambodia Breakout Group

At the six breakout groups, the participants further delved into the details of specific needs and the types of help needed for each project. Each group came up with a plan of action after brainstorming different ideas and assessing the available resources both on the field and in Singapore, sharing their plans with all present. The participants found the session useful, relevant, helpful, and motivating as they learnt from one another. They acquired a better understanding of needs on the ground and asked for more collaborative sessions.

Photo with majority of x-Culture-Collab participants

Implementation of projects was followed up initially by the MMS Training team and subsequently the field teams spearheaded by respective Area Directors. An example was the group that discussed empowering better decision making for the children and youth at COSI and COSY in Cambodia. Representatives from Bedok MC WSCS, Toa Payoh MC, and Queenstown Chinese MC met with the MMS Cambodia field team on 30 March to further discuss on the implementation of befriending and training sessions over the digital platform on general principles of decisionmaking, BGR & Purity, Money Management set to start in June 2021. By mid-April and after checking with their church missions or WSCS leadership, the group had come up with the implementation schedule of the collaboration project, spanning between June 2021 and January 2022.

The Timor-Leste breakout group

Conclusion

Digital Missions: Yes, we can! God’s purposes and crosscultural missions can go on via the digital platform despite the pandemic. Whether we be individuals, Christian groups, or even a local church, we can be the hands and feet of Jesus in very practical ways after hearing and understanding real needs to empower those in faraway lands so that they and we can be God’s Hope Bringers!