Digital doors open the gospel for islanders in Southeast Asia

Recently, when an International Mission Board team in Southeast Asia asked a young woman if she had heard the story of Jesus, she replied that yes, she had heard about Him through a video online.

For workers who have been in the field a long time, this is a new and welcome development.

“Back in the day,” said Amanda Clarkston, an IMB missionary who has served in Southeast Asia for 33 years, “when I first came on the field, you’d go somewhere and gather all the people together in the village to watch the JESUS film.”

Now, face-to-face conversations about Christ on the Southeast Asian islands are harder to accomplish. While teams travel to these remote islands often, living in a sparsely populated, animistic background culture as a foreigner creates suspicion and makes long-term ministry difficult.   

Furthermore, young people have become more comfortable talking online than in person, Clarkston said, which is true of the islanders as well. Attempting to have a spiritual conversation face to face has become “too much” for locals, she said.  

So, how do you share the gospel with multiple people groups who are constantly online and less comfortable with in-person interactions?

For these Southeast Asia teams, digital engagement — the use of social media platforms to share a message — has become a plausible and effective entry point. The social media agency We Are Social confirmed this, revealing that 82.4 percent of Southeast Asia’s population uses the internet. 

“No matter where they go, how far they go, how remote it is, people have phones,” Clarkston said she and her team realized. “And though sometimes they do have to climb up the highest peak to get reception, people do it.” 

Clarkston’s team has begun creating and publishing Jesus-focused ads, videos, and other digital content in hopes of building bridges to the islanders through the internet. Viewers can click on the ad to message back and forth with a responder, a local believer or missionary who is available to pray, build relationships, and answer spiritual questions.  

“It seems like locals are more open to watching those things in the privacy of their own cell phones,” Clarkston said.

Clarkston intends to use digital engagement as a means for initial contact with people from animistic backgrounds, and then, she hopes, for evangelism and, eventually, discipleship. The new ministry has the potential to open doors to individuals across remote islands who would normally never reach out on their own or respond to the gospel in person.

“Maybe they’ll respond this way,” Clarkston said. “I know without a shadow of a doubt that God is calling people to Himself.” 

Now, more than ever, technology has a grip on society. Many spend hours each day mindlessly scrolling, searching for meaning, for happiness. And now, more than ever, there is an incredible opportunity to plant seeds across Southeast Asian islands through digital engagement. 

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Names were changed due to security concerns.