We all know there's got to be a new way of doing things. I mean, here we are, living our lives by the credo that we have found the best thing about life, yet sometimes our message is just recycled and endlessly reused. It saddens me to no end. Not only does this seem to be not fitting to the worth of the message that we proclaim to have but it also seems to not be reaching the "ends of the earth" as we were told to do oh so long ago.

So where do we go, what do we do? In this day and age, how can we do just proclaim our message in a way that others will understand and that can reach even the farthest corners of the world? Repeat after me, "TECHNOLOGY." If you said technology, you and I are on the same page. You see, while not everyone might be in a place where they are constantly traveling and meeting people from another country, new technology enables us all to be in communication. We might be worlds apart, but as the earth grows in age, so does the number of people who are using things like smart phones, internet, podcasts, blogs, social networking, etc.

A quote we heard this week went something along the lines of "The best way to reach the unreached is to give them a Christian friend. Social networking makes this possible!"

You no longer have to spend thousands of dollars, forget packing the mosquito spray, or even packing at all. You can reach the unreached from your seat. (But just for the record, I do recommend the above.)

You can be sitting on your brown leather sofa in suburban American with your macbook on your lap, talking to a muslim participating in Ramadan in Pakistan. And in fact, thats what we did this week. (Just remove the sofa and the America part. It was at our desks in Thailand) We simply found a muslim focused chat room and logged in. We didn't even have to start conversations...before we knew it people were talking to us. At one point in time we were sharing the gospel with 4 people at once all of which were Muslims and were miles and miles away from us. It was simple. If you have a computer or access to a computer you are no longer without excuse.

That was the biggest thing I got out of this week. The potential. There is so much potential in using new technology for missions, really it's just a question of you and I's willingness. There's millions of people who are streaming videos, going into chat rooms, playing things like second life, downloading podcasts, etc. So lets go out there and give em what they want and hey, what they need all at the same time.

We can all do this. We all need to do this. And so here I finish the blog...but with a dare. I dare you to go and try out what I said. Talk to a Buddhist today. Talk to a muslim. Or hey, if you're more of a gamer type...give second life a try. Have fun, make some new friends, and for goodness sake, spread that gospel!

We went from the theory to practice when Barry E. taught us on video production and lighting.  After getting a dose of technical information, we were set loose on cameras to produce and shoot our first script. The following day, we had critique and more classroom time before breaking off into groups to produce a 1-minute short film of our choosing.  One group did a testimony on freedom, while another group recruited Chef Sameh (our school leader) to teach us how to make carrot cake.

Although all the technical information was a bit overwhelming at the beginning, by the end of the week we felt we had a better grasp of the process from all the hands-on experience.

The Create Emerge team came this week to impart to the SFM students.  Ken, Chris and Aaron shared imparting the heart behind mobilization, God’s story through the ages and our part in it. This included the 5 w’s of mobilization, the mark of an ambassador and becoming a missional mobilizer.  They then went on to share about the practical tools for making documentaries which covered types of documentaries, planning and filming and the creative process.

This was a much anticipated week by all the students on the SFM, especially with those who were more often than not seen with their cameras glued to their faces.  Bob B a resident of Chiang Mai came to get us familiar with photography, our cameras and what makes good photographs.  Mid week we were also joined for a morning by Jio who taught us on studio lighting and showed us some creative techniques and uses of light.

At the end of the week we enjoyed an outing to a farm outside of Chiang Mai with the opportunity to do more hands on photography.  We were all pleasantly surprised and impressed with the results of what we had learned in such a short time.

Another week that was looked forward to with anticipation.  For two days Dave H.  took us on a whirlwind tour of Photoshop.  Then after a morning of inspiration of what can be done he launched us into our assignments and the hands on learning process.  We were challenged to create a collage, special effects project and artwork using what we had learned.  Once again all were pleasantly surprised at how much could be done and what was achieved over two days.

This week was new ideas, strategies for using the internet and it’s developments for missions.  After having an overview of the development of the internet Calvin C took us into ideas of how we can use if for evangelism through using things like websites, blogging, chatrooms, social networking, video sites like YouTube and podcasting. 

We also discussed the future developments of technology and the challenge as christians to remain involved and what kind of strategies we should put in place to create a lifestyle of internet evangelism.