I’d like to challenge the commonly held idea that computers make everything easier. Computers can make work more efficient by taking away some repetitive tasks and give us greater capability to do work – but at the same time, computerised systems take a lot more effort to set up and require greater technical support due to the greater technical complexity of the medium.

Thus it is with digital media or internet ministry. It’s easy to look at the statistics of the number of hours that Thai people spend, interacting with social media each day and then think, “Wow! That could be a shortcut to sharing the gospel with Thai people throughout Thailand. The truth is – the process of a person becoming a Christian in Thailand in Thailand is the same, whether face-to-face or via the internet.

A Thai person contacted online still needs to:

• Hear and be attracted by the Gospel message.
• Have someone respond to their questions and challenge them to further consider the words of Christ, their need for repentance and belief in Christ.
• Become a Christian through the leading of the Holy Spirit.
• Be encouraged and discipled by an a more mature Christian.
• Connect with a church and become a regular part of that Christian community.
• Grow in maturity of faith, and become involved in God’s work in their local church, community and the world.

The internet takes away the repetitive task of travel, but the other aspects of seeing a Thai person become a mature Christian are still all the same as with that of face-to-face ministry. For this reason, when the current working discussed our mission and vision, we decided to change the name of the ministry from “digital media ministry” to “digital movements ministry” to reflect our understanding of this task.

The Digital Movements Working Group was formed last year after Rich Cho returned to Australia and stepped down from being the director of the Digital Media Ministry of OMF Thailand. The working group is currently made up of seven people – Eunice Burden, Renate Kohler, Will Brooks, Lee-anne Hill, Rich Cho, Steve McCallum and Jeff Callow. Each person brings different strengths and skills to the group.

The group worked through the purpose, vision, mission and values of both the ministry and the working group as follows:

Purpose Statement

The purpose of OMF Thailand’s Digital Movements ministry is to be part of the facilitating of movements of Thai Buddhists coming to faith in Jesus Christ and growing in discipleship and Christian leadership by using digital online media to strategically:

• share the Gospel of Jesus to Thai Buddhists everywhere.
• disciple Thai Christians using online media
• partner with Christian ministries in all contexts (eg. local churches, evangelistic or church planting ministries), both online and offline.
• mobilize prayer and new workers for the work of OMF Thailand.

The purpose of the Digital Movements Working Group is to:

• research, experiment and mobilize digital/internet resources
• collaborate with, mobilize and facilitate training for people who…
  • use digital media in their current ministries or want to use it in the future
  • mentor others in online ministries
  • develop online courses
  • develop online media campaigns
  • follow up online contacts
  • will train other to do the same
• seek funds for the online ministries it is involved in as appropriate.

in order to facilitate the purpose, vision and mission of OMF Thailand’s Digital Movements ministry.

Vision

OMF Thailand vision: “Our vision is to see a movement of indigenous, biblical churches reproducing among their own people in Thailand and reaching out in mission to other peoples.”

We want to see clear paths for churches, Christians and missionaries to see movements of new disciples and groups formed through the interaction of digital online media and on-the-ground ministries, working towards the OMF Thailand Vision.

With this in mind, we want to see a Digital Movements Working Group that is collaborative, innovative and inclusive, making an impact on Thailand through the use of digital online media.

See the draft DMWG strategy statement to see the mission and values statements if you are interested.

The areas of ministry covered by the working group are quite varied. This list below explains the different areas of ministry and the person responsible for coordinating the ministry. The coordinator isn’t necessarily doing the ministry him/herself, but she/he takes responsibility to see that it is happening.

You will notice that not everyone involved in the ministry are part of the working group, and that not every area of ministry currently has someone coordinating it (these are underlined) – which probably means that nothing is happening in that area. If you would like to be involved in an of these ministries, please talk to the coordinator or to Jeff Callow.

Areas of Ministry

Chair – Jeff Callow

Research – Lee-anne Hill

• • Resources and evaluating resources
  • How churches can use DM in ministry*
  • See what others are already doing so that we don’t need to duplicate.
  • Finding areas that are strong/weak on the Thai DM scene
  • Analytics

Looking at how DM can contribute to movements – Will Brooks

Internet evangelism – Steve McCallum

• • Khao Dee Nakhon Si facebook page and website
  • Creation of localized Facebook pages
  • Use of various social media apps eg. FB, Instagram, Line, TikTok
  • “Meet-up” events
  • Video – Will Brooks

Bible reading/exposure

• • Prakampee facebook – Lee-anne Hill (to help but not to coordinate)
  • Prakampee webpage

Discipleship

• • Learnnn platform – Jeff Callow
  • Bible project videos – Rich Cho

Training

• • Imparting vision
  • Workshops
  • Technical training – Lee-anne Hill

Collaboration

• • Helping churches use DM
  • Training
  • How churches can use DM in ministry*

Mobilization for OMF Thailand

• • Bless Thailand with Prayer – Renate Kohler
  • Thai Tempo – Renate Kohler
  • OMF Thailand Facebook & Instagram – Trish Bartleet
  • prayerMate – Renate Kohler
  • omf.org Thailand website
  • YouTube channel
  • Mobilization video – facebook page, youtube, website – Thomas Roest, but he went on HA at the end of 2021
  • Prayer guide – Jeff Callow

After a recent strategy meeting, the strategy sub-group of the DM working group talked through our “media to movements” strategy. We envision it coming together as follows:

The biggest “a-ha” moment from this planning day came with the realization that the team of responders need to be the same as any church planting team. The team may not need to all be in the location, but the responders need to have the skills and motivation to share the gospel, teach the bible, answer questions and pray with people. There still needs to be times of team building, mutual encouragement, training and accountability.