This is the 3rd installment of our Gifts in Missions blog series.

These developments are exciting. Yet there seem to be far more organizations needing IT staff than there are IT missionaries. And when I talk to IT professionals about getting involved in missions, I often encounter a hesitation toward the unknown. 

If you are an IT professional or have a bent toward technology, let me share with you some reasons why you should consider getting involved in missions through IT and what it requires.

Once in a while, I get caught up in comparison while looking at the giftings of my colleagues. I’ll begin to lament that I can’t strike up a conversation as easily as my more extroverted friends, and, amusingly, I sometimes struggle even to cut and serve a piece of pie onto a plate. Yet interdependence is God’s idea and woven into the body of Christ.

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’” 1 Corinthians 12:21.

If you are gifted in IT, it does not take much asking around to hear adamant agreement that the missions community needs what you have to offer. Your skills can multiply the efforts of the rest of the team. Perhaps they can write spiritual content and you can work on Search Engine Optimization to help them reach exponentially more people. Or perhaps they can network with individuals and you can streamline the database and use integration and automation to make their admin workload lighter. Others can translate biblical content while you navigate the use of linguistic scripts in your team’s software. Whatever the specific skill set God has given you, you are needed.

As for financial rewards, it is true that careers in missions often come with smaller salaries than their secular counterparts, especially in fields as lucrative as IT. That is part of the cost, but according to Jesus, treasure in heaven is far more valuable and will last forever (Matthew 6:19-20). It’s an eternally worthwhile investment.

Second, hardly anything in this world is guaranteed - except the Kingdom of God. While not everything we do will result in eternal impact, the overall Kingdom efforts will. 

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb,” Revelation 7:9. (See also 1 Corinthians 15:58 and Matthew 16:18.)

Consider on that day meeting people face to face who have heard the name of Jesus and put their trust in Him because of your efforts here on earth. And consider the resounding, “Well done!” from Jesus as He rejoices in their salvation with you. Even if you did not tell those people the good news directly, do you think God will somehow miss your faithful service behind the scenes and forget to track your contribution in His heavenly database? (Revelation 20:12, Matthew 16:27)

In the meantime, serving in IT can be rewarding in and of itself. Cross-cultural missions often presents unique challenges due to geographical distance, languages, differing infrastructures, security precautions, or available resources. In my experience, these unique challenges drove my work well beyond what I imagined doing with my original degree. And they have often been fun to puzzle through. Serve faithfully for several years and see what unusual skills and stories you end up adding to your resume.

Maybe it was just the university that I attended, but Computer Science and related fields can often sport a competition of intelligence, knowledge, and experience. We students felt pressured to flex our abilities and vie for top positions in the geek pecking order. 

That is not how the Kingdom of God works, and it is not what God desires from His servants. Instead, Jesus outlined Kingdom principles as follows:

“For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted,” Matthew 23:12.

“Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many,’”Matthew 20:25-28.

Following King Jesus’ example means picking up the IT towel. It means stepping back and looking at the big picture to recognize that the necessary solution isn’t always the glamorous one. Sometimes it means laying down the dream of writing awesome code in favor of implementing the simpler or paid solutions for the sake of sustainability. Other times, it means tackling daunting problems for the benefit of your team and objectives. It means volunteering for menial tasks like tech support or data entry - although you’re welcome to automate what you can. But take heart, because God has a way of generating more eternal impact through our faithful service than we could ask or imagine… or produce by our own ingenuity.

The wonderful thing about a job that requires humility is that it does not require that you know everything. Not knowing is not a problem at all. More often than not, solving tech problems or building systems in the missions world is more about finding a thread of an idea and pulling on it through research until an appropriate solution surfaces.

And herein lies a wonderful secret. God is not limited, and His promises work just as well in the digital realm as they do in the physical and spiritual realms. He promises to be with us (Deuteronomy 31:6), to help us and uphold us with His righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10), and to give us wisdom when we ask for it (James 1:5).

Once in a while, I encounter a problem that I struggle to solve. I’ve learned that while I could eventually come up with a solution with the abilities God already gave me, direct dependence on Him is even better. Soon after joining a team as IT missions staff, I encountered a problem and prayed asking God for help and wisdom. A picture came to mind of Jesus sitting at the computer wearing glasses and fingerless gloves and coding away. I chuckled and thought, after all, all wisdom and understanding and knowledge really do come from Him! Shortly afterward, an idea came to mind that smoothly clicked into place. It’s like doing my dream job with my best friend.

Since the very beginning of the church, every generation has had its unique challenges and unique opportunities for spreading the gospel. The first generation church saw empirical highways and clandestine fish symbols. Hundreds of years later, it involved printing presses and hidden manuscripts. Today the global missions effort needs IT staff to manage digital connectivity and cybersecurity.

How is God calling you to utilize technology to help reach people for Jesus?

Written by: A GFM IT Staff Member

Looking for a way to use your skills for the Kingdom?