Just Google It? Role of Missionaries in an Internet Age

When I want to know something, the internet is ready and waiting at my fingertips to give me answers.

What is a good recipe for bread?

What time does that store close?

Where can I get a COVID-19 PCR test?

During this “Age of Corona,” I found YouTube to be especially helpful to learn the technical skills surrounding audio and video production. If I was to email someone for advice, their answer often is “Just Google it.”

What is the role of missionaries in an internet age?

Is the role to simply help people find a googol of data online with everything they have ever wanted to know about Christianity? The world already has unlimited access to the gospel online. Videos, blogs, and podcasts abound. You no longer need to step through the doors of a church to hear the sermon. Even training and education for seminarians have been almost 100% online for the past year.

So, I ask again. Is there still a need for global missionaries? Do missionaries offer expensive technical support to help people with an organization called the “church”? When people need help, missionaries can step in with live assistance to point people to resources online.

Do missionaries offer expensive technical support to help people with an organization called the “church”?

The growing trend in the American church toward supporting nationals over missionaries seems to point in that direction. The “locals do it better.” They can provide “technical support” in their native language and in cultural-appropriate ways. Most importantly, they can do it a lot cheaper. In an internet age, perhaps we no longer need to be physically present to assist church planting in countries around the world.

Personally, I find the answer, “Just Google it” rude. It would be better to just say, “I don’t know,” or “I don’t have time to answer that right now.”

When I ask someone for advice, I am not primarily seeking information. I am asking for a relationship. I want interaction with the one offering the advice. All human beings are relationship–based, not information–based.

This, of course, goes for the church as well. The church is not a product to be peddled and supported. People are the church, the thoroughly broken product God offers to the world. If missionaries are simply technical support, then they are doing a terrible job! It would be best to seek elsewhere for advice and input, and a lot cheaper too. If missionaries are about building relationships, well, then, there is no other way to do it but to go and meet with people.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19)

With all the obvious weaknesses and faults of the church, God works through it to bring his gospel to the nations. Knowledge of God and knowledge of the church is not enough. Interaction is necessary. Community is necessary. Love is necessary.

Just Google it?

For some things, the internet is helpful. For others, nothing can replace person to person interaction. When it comes to global missions and church planting, online resources are just a tool for building relationships.

God sent his son to know us and build relationships with us. If God wanted us to “Just Google it,” he would have built a website.

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