An excerpt from a paper I wrote for my recent communications class at Biola.

The Difficulties of Modern Missionary Communication

In the world today there are more people to evangelize, more missionaries on the move originating from more churches, more agencies, and more countries than ever before. Clearly, we’ve entered into a new era of missionary work. This massive increase in the scope of missionary work requires new ways of thinking about how the work is done, and especially about how to communicate.

Missionary communication is inherently difficult and complex. Language and cultural barriers, distance, inconsistent technology and communication tools, and diverse communication protocols combine to create an environment that is discouraging and inhibitive to communication. Despite this, effective missionary work requires missionaries not only to communicate, but to cooperate with people both within and outside their organization. Many missionaries interact regularly in a foreign language. They communicate across distances, using diverse media, including mail, telephone, email, web, fax, and even courier. Often missionaries are tasked with leading projects that require the cooperation of many people over whom they have no legitimate authority, with people of diverse cultural traditions and educational backgrounds, including indigenous people, government officials, and local church and association leaders. Many missionaries also raise their own support, which requires them to speak publicly, to provide information about their work, and to articulate their needs for financial and other support.

Continued in Part 2.