Quadrennial Theme Prospectus

As members of the Women’s Home and Overseas Missionary Society, we have made the decision to bring a heightened voice of awareness to our missions work as we build on our previous message to develop our personal relationships with Christ. By using the hashtag #MissionsMatter, we are intentionally engaging one another and those connected to us by way of our missional work to raise awareness of the importance of mission activity at home and abroad.

Why #MissionsMatter? A hashtag is a type of metadata tag used on social networks such as Twitter and other social media services, allowing users to apply user-generated tagging which makes it possible for others to easily find messages with a specific theme or content, and as we are missionaries “Missions do Matter”. Hashtags allow easy, informal markup without need of any formal technical terms.

Social media applications such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook just to name a few are computer-mediated tools that allow people, companies, organizations and even churches to create, share, or exchange information, career interests, ideas, pictures and videos in virtual online communities and networks. Their effectiveness has always relied on people believing that these tools mattered enough to continue using them as a way to keep them connected to people and the topics they share. As society evolves into the age of technology and computers, the use of social media broadens the scope of how we the church can reach the masses.

What began primarily as recreational communication applications over the years has moved from a simple way for people (friends and strangers) to communicate and interact in like-minded online communities such as mIRC (Internet Relay Chat) chatrooms to becoming a major medium of communication for thoughts, ideas, personal feelings, marketing, commerce, politics and social justice.

Users create and use hashtags by placing the number sign or pound sign # (also known as the hash character) in front of a string of alphanumeric characters, usually a word or un-spaced phrase, in or at the end of a message. The hashtag may contain letters, digits, and underscores.

Searching for that hashtag will yield each message that has been tagged with it. A hashtag archive is consequently collected into a single stream under the same hashtag. For example, the Quadrennial Theme: “The Great Commission - #MissionsMatter,” the hashtag allows users to find all the posts that have been tagged using that hashtag.

#MissionsMatter allows us to connect to other individuals, organizations and institutions to bring awareness to the very relevant message of the Great Commission.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20 NRSV)

As our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ ascended into heaven, he prepared the disciples for the Great Commission by telling them to “Go therefore.” He prepared them for the making of disciples, and for the work that would pair them to missions work for the rest of their lives. Since that time, the church has traveled the world domestically and abroad to share the good news of the gospel of Christ and to aid our fellow brothers and sisters in need with the Christian message of salvation and hope. We must use social media tools and technology to allow us to share that message now. Communicating discipleship even when we cannot physically travel to a location.

Social media has shocked the world, as it became a vehicle to capture, important and not so important moments in history and in our everyday lives - to include world issues, politics, news, sports, media, music, art, self-help and even celebrity gossip. Serious to hilarious (#) hashtags and video recorded incidences have been viewed and shared online so often that they became viral (seen by tens of thousands of people sometimes as many as millions have watched and shared these incidences). As missionaries, we can also share our voice on any given topic to include the message of missions and make Christ viral.

Through social media, a hashtag can start a movement, like the “shot heard around the world.” Just a few years ago, a hashtag movement called #blacklivesmatter engulfed the African American community. This (#) hashtag not only went viral, but also omg eventually became a social justice movement of global proportions. The roots of this movement came from a desire to speak out against police brutality perpetuated against people of color. The #MeToo movement brought women together in a stand against sexual harassment. Protests were inspired around the world and it all began with social media.

Personal accounts of triumphs, success stories, people helping people, as well as, reports of abuse, mistreatment, and violation of civil rights, murder and suicide have all been captured by video camera and posted to social media to be viewed, shared and discussed by the rest of the world. As shocking and emotional as some posts make us, the online world of social media and the practice of hash tagging seems, for the foreseeable future, to be here to stay.

This quadrennial the Society has chosen #MissionsMatter to show our global concern and commitment to “Win the World for Christ,” as we introduce our theme: “The Great Commission: #MissionsMatter Globally Committed to: Social Justice, Environmental Stewardship, Transformative Service, and Agape Love.”

Written by Mrs. Laurenna Crenshaw and Mrs. Vicki L. Breaux