Fifteen years ago I was approached by young man name with a vision. His name was Mark Orr, and his vision was to use technology to connect Mission Agencies with young people who were looking for Mission experiences. Mark was President of an organization called Student Mission Advance, and he was convinced that traditional methods were not effective enough to help young people find the best fit with a mission agency.

Student Mission Advance in Canada served as a communication pipeline between Mission Agencies and young people. They would go into Universities and meet with Christian clubs, speak at chapels in Bible Schools, and meet with with young people at Churches, all with the goal of presenting missions and the opportunities available from Canada’s mission agencies. In short, their vision was that of being “Mission mobilizers”.

I had just graduated from Canadian Theological Seminary, and Mark wanted me to join the team as the Research and Information Manager. He was looking for someone who had both a theological education along with a technical background, and I fit the bill quite well.

In the early 90′s computer based bulletin boards were quite popular, and we started experimenting with how we might use these to communicate. In the fall of 1994, a friend working for the Federal Government in Ottawa introduced me to Mosaic, an early Internet Browser, and the first to integrate images into a browser. I was impressed, but felt it was not quite user friendly enough. A couple months later Netscape 1.0 was released, and shortly thereafter Student Mission Advance had one of our cities first website. We called it “Fingertip” because it made missions available at your fingertips. At its core was the Mission Opportunity Database, with hundreds of opportunities from over 30 Mission Agencies. We had everything from teaching opportunities in Asia, to defusing landmines in Mozambique. Fingertip ran for many years, and I have met a number of people who told me that their journey to a career in missions began with a search on Fingertip.

All of this happened because Mark Orr had a vision, and he set out to find people to help him accomplish that vision. In the years since then I have helped many types of businesses achieve a vision by using the Internet as a tool. I have helped:

• Farmers optimize feed rations for their dairy cattle.
• A multinational payroll processor deliver pay stubs and tax forms online.
• The financial advisers of a large mutual fund company get instant access to the financial transactions of all their clients.
• A multinational trucking manufacturer provide customizable flyers to the customers of all their dealers.
• An international candy maker provide secure, up to the minute, sales and forecast data to sales reps around the country.

All of these thing happened because a leader in an organization had a vision. I was able to help these organizations use the internet as tool to fulfill that vision. In my experience the tool is only limited by the vision.

Very recently I was asked by a denominational leader to help them explore ways that they can use the internet more effectively. As I have been thinking about different things that they could do, I have realized that what we do has to start with one thing. A vision.

That is what we are going to have to explore together. What is our vision of the church in this new web enabled world of ours? What must the church be doing? Who do we want to inform, enable, and influence?

I am reminded of Proverbs 28:19 – Where there is no vision, the people perish.

Do you have a vision for what your church or denomination needs to be doing online? I would be interested in hearing what you have to say.

What could be a better way for a coffee company to display pictures than a pictures spread out on a coffee table.

Disclaimer: I helped in the creation of the site, so I know the offer is genuine.

You can view it at: www.virtualpartscounter.com