Phillip Matthews challenged Hope Channel leaders across the Southern Asia-Pacific Division to treat every program, episode, short and translated series as a missionary being sent into a specific field during a morning devotional at the SSD Year-End Meetings.
Matthews said Christian media should undergo the same preparation expected of missionaries, including language study, cultural understanding, contextualization, prayer and evaluation of effectiveness.
“Every piece of media is a missionary we send,” Matthews said. “Sending without preparation is not mission. It is just departure.”
Speaking on the theme “Media Missionary,” Matthews drew from John 20:21, in which Jesus tells his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” He described mission as an expression of God’s character rather than a program invented by the church.
“Mission is not something the church invented and God blesses,” Matthews said. “Mission is something God is doing, and he created the church to carry it.”
He quoted theologian Emil Brunner’s statement that the church exists by mission as fire exists by burning. A congregation that exists only to congregate has forgotten its identity, Matthews said, while a media network that sees itself only as a content factory has lost sight of its calling.
Ancient letters offer a media model
Matthews pointed to Paul’s letters and the early Christian community in Corinth as an example of media extending ministry beyond a messenger’s physical reach.
Early believers copied the letters by hand and carried them between cities at “the speed of sandals and sailing ships,” he said. The writings reached cities Paul never visited and generations he never met before the church recognized them as part of the biblical canon.
“Those letters were missionaries,” Matthews said. “A copied letter is a missionary you can send where you cannot go.”
He connected those early manuscripts with Ellen White’s description of Christian literature as “silent messengers.” The term emphasizes that publications are not merely products but instruments through which the Holy Spirit can work, he said.
Modern media performs the same function through video, audio, streaming and translated programming.
“For the first time in history, we can send digital missionaries,” Matthews said.
Hope Channel must define its purpose
Matthews warned that Hope Channel cannot compete successfully if it defines itself as one more organization producing content in an already crowded media environment.
He used Starbucks and Apple as examples of organizations that built distinctive identities around purpose and experience rather than products or technical specifications alone.
“There is nothing distinctive about being one more content producer when the world is drowning in content,” he said. “Hope Channel sends missionaries.”
Some Hope Channel missionaries are people engaged in media evangelism, while others are programs designed for audiences the producers may never meet, Matthews said.
That distinction makes research and preparation essential. Media leaders should learn their audience’s language, understand its culture, recognize its fears and identify the questions people are actually asking before releasing content.
Matthews described Hope Channel’s Mission Passport process as a missionary-preparation tool rather than an administrative requirement. Its central question, he said, is why a particular piece of media is being created and sent.
Goal requires ‘sending better’
Hope Channel aims to reach 1 billion people with a message of eternal hope by 2030. Matthews said the goal will not be reached simply by increasing production.
“There is only one way that happens — not by producing more content, but by sending better,” he said.
Matthews closed by contrasting the ruins of ancient Corinth with the continued influence of Paul’s letters. Studios and production facilities may eventually be forgotten, he said, but well-prepared media can continue its mission far beyond the time and place of its creation.
“Let us lead in a way that sends better,” Matthews said. “Somewhere, someone will be watching a missionary we sent. Let us make sure we prepare them all.”