Digesting some research

Well, I've been reading those scholarly articles for my research paper, so i figured I would do a little free write here on some of the things I've been learning.

My Paper topic is going to research the relationship of media with Christian evanglism and world missions. Since missions is a passion of mine -and I am going to Africa this summer- the subject carries some personal interest for me.

The article that has impacted me the most so far is one that looks at the effect of Christian Evangleism in the Media in Nigeria and Ghana. My initial expectations of this article is that it would talk about all the ways that Media is working in a positive way to spread the gospel to the people of these African countries. After reading, however, I found that the article was moreso a critique of Christian Evangelism in the media. The author's position was definitly not against the use of media in evangelism, but he did raise a needed flag of caution to the way it is presented in the culture. He aknowledges that media is a useful tool for reaching large groups of people quickly, that it stirs the human soul in a unique way, and that it can be particularly helpful for reaching young people. The author also points out, however, that using media requires a certain responsibility of those who produce and use it in these countries. In areas of these two countries in Africa where Christian Evanglism was flooding -and often bringing in before unused- forms of media, there were large objections. People tried to eliminate or compete with the christian media that was produced. Also, people in christian media gained power and influence because of their capablity to produce a form of media.

In the end the author came to the conclusion that media in evangelism can be a very usful tool, or harmful to spreading the gospel message. He said that everything hinges on whether or not the presentation is attatched to or recieved in unison with fellowship in a local community such as local churches, outreaches,or camp meetings.

I think this is a great point and ties in the ideas that my group came up with for defending media conglomerates in our in class debate. We thought of the point that recieving the massive amounts of information these conglomerates could provide could be a good thing, as long as we balanced that out with personal growth and reflection outside of the media context. The same this is at work in Africa with using media to evangelize.