Combining Technology and Ministry Affordably

When I got to work my first day at the Upper Columbia Conference (where BibleInfo.com “lived” at the time), I was ushered into a room, pointed to a computer sitting there on a desk, and told, “Fix it.” It was the server running the 1-800-97-BIBLE telephone information line that was the precursor to the website.

Before my arrival, BibleInfo didn’t have any technical infrastructure or network to speak of. During the first two years, using Linux, I was able to put the technical talents entrusted to me to good use building a fully functional network including mail server, firewall, and the various resources to support the activities of the ministry—all from a bones pile of old machines the Conference would have thrown out. We had no choice, there wasn’t money for anything else.

THE JOURNEY

Notwithstanding the difficulties, it didn’t take me long to realize that this ministry was more than the sum of its parts. There was something special happening every day between the public, the website, and the volunteers that answered questions. God was working on hearts and I observed first hand the working of His Spirit on individuals, facilitated by the technology I was helping build.

But technical skill in the west is expensive. I took a 50% pay cut to work at BibleInfo.com, and I would not have done it had God not made it abundantly clear, He wanted me there. That first ministry job was the beginning of what has become more than two decades of applying technology to ministry. It’s been immensely rewarding… and fun too, watching the InfoTech space evolve over the years, and seeing what new challenges and opportunities present themselves year by year. I’ve had the privilege of working on many things, nearly every one of them involving the use of technology in ministry. Through it all, one common thread has been impossible to avoid—the high cost of technology, particularly skilled labor.

At BibleInfo.com we dealt with this reality for a time, by pioneering a relationship between North America and young skilled labor from South America. That worked well. The reality is that God has not neglected other parts of the world when He distributed technical skill. That early experience, along with my missionary background, gave me a unique ability to appreciate this, and to intuitively understand how talent from different parts of the world could be combined to create a technical team capable of delivering quality solutions to ministry at a fraction of the market cost.

Today at Oncilla, this is our focus. We are a US-based company that has been around in one form or another since late 2006. We specialize in applying the Internet and Internet-related technologies to ministry. We are a small international team of Seventh-day Adventist professionals, with a burning desire to put our talents to work in the service of the Gospel. We live and work in the US, in India, and in South America. Together we are able to offer value that simply doesn’t seem to exist anywhere else.

MINISTRY THROUGH TECHNOLOGY