Cyberspace: The New Mission Area

"There are 8 million Filipinos using facebook." This was what I heard yesterday in Fr. Jayboy Gonzales' workshop on Social Media. It's amazing how the internet has become part of our lives already. Just one click and the whole world knows. I wonder how it was during the time of Christ, 2,000 years ago. No TV, no radio, no facebook, only pure word of mouth and scroll writing. Yet, His disciples were very passionate in spreading His word, to the point of Christianizing Rome. I think with that kind of drive and with today's technology, more and more people will come to know Christ. I also heard in the workshop that the Pope said that "the new mission area of the Church is cyberspace." To reach out to people for them to know Christ through the internet, I believe we need to possess these qualities:

Humility
It takes a lot of dying to ourselves when we write about God. He is to be glorified. With this comes the humility to write about Him through our lives. The temptation of 'false humility' will set in once we try to testify. Thoughts like, "I'm not good enough to write" or "I have nothing much to say." This might lead us to be suppressed in sharing the goodness of God in our lives.

Boldness
We cannot be selfish of God's message for us. Good news is to be spread, not only to be kept in our journals and stacked in our cabinets. We need to be bold and share so more people may know Christ.

Diligence
This is the hard part. To be consistent. It is really a challenge to regularly write online. Apart from writing, we have a lot to do in our day's work. But I believe diligence has its benefits. By writing consistently we become more attuned to God because we are brought into a situation to seek Him. We come to ask "Lord, what shall I write today?" Diligence leads us to surrender before God and let Him take over our writing.

Millions of people are out there floating in cyberspace, needing to hear about God. Let us reach out and share our lives to glorify Him. And then he told them, "Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone. Mark 16:15"