The world has come a long way technologically. Today, one person, with one phone, can communicate with millions. That is not surprising in our new digital world, a world where an average smartphone is millions of times faster than the computer system that landed Apollo 11 on the moon. In today’s world, more than six billion people—three-quarters of the world population—now use the internet, and more than a billion of them follow Portuguese football (soccer) star Cristiano Ronaldo across social media platforms.
From months to moments
Adventist media has also come a long way. In the summer of 1849, a small group of fervent Advent believers knelt beside printed sheets of paper to ask God to bless all who would read the truth-filled pages. Those sheets were the eight-page pamphlet called Present Truth. Physically and emotionally exhausted after months of work on the pamphlet, James White, author of this new publication, trudged eight miles to the nearest town to post it.
Today, of course, any pastor can ask generative AI, such as ChatGPT, to help them write a feature. Then, with a couple of keystrokes, they can email it or post it on social media to an exponentially larger audience. All done in 30 minutes.
A unified effort, unique approaches
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is now leveraging today’s mind-boggling digital technology through the OneVoice27 initiative. The 2,000-year anniversary of Jesus’ baptism in 2027 provides the occasion. OneVoice is not just for blogging pastors but also for Instagramming mothers, TikToking teenagers, and Facebooking seniors. All can use these platforms to tell the story of Jesus.
The theme to share is All Things New. In our disorienting world of artificial intelligence and other digital technologies, this message is transformative. We live in a world of injustice, sickness, war, human trafficking, and so much more. But Jesus makes all things new. He revives, restores, and resurrects.
The words one voice might make some pastors nervous. Is this another inflexible program instructing us how to do our job? Fortunately, no. True, OneVoice calls for a unified effort to share Jesus. But it also encourages us to do it using our own styles and methods on social media platforms, websites, and billboard signs, in chat groups, videos, podcasts, books, and pamphlets—even person-to-person in “real” life!
For a church that ministers in 420 languages and dialects in 212 countries and areas, OneVoice shouldn’t sound the same everywhere.1 The good news will be proclaimed in thousands of different ways, using different cultural melodies, styles, and rhythms. It will all come together in a symphony of voices proclaiming Jesus and All Things New.
Jesus’ method—personal mission
But there is a danger. Digital communication could tempt us to think that our mission is just to share information, that if we could send the 28 fundamental beliefs to every cell phone in the world, our work would be done.
But mission cannot be done by just clicking buttons. God did not just send a YouTube sermon. He did not send tweets. He sent His Son. Physically. Among us.
Jesus encountered blind men by the road, tax collectors in trees, and needy women beside village wells. His was a social, connected mission. He not only taught and preached but also came close to people, physically touched them, and healed their sicknesses (Matt. 9:35, 36). Try doing that on your cell phone.
Jesus’ method is key to OneVoice27. Media is powerful. But it can only support, never replace, personal mission. And the good news is always most potent and effective in the context of loving, real-life, human connections. When millions of OneVoice27 digital and analog interactions transform into Jesus-serving, people-loving, disciple-making communities, then we will know OneVoice27 was worth it.Cf. “They all listened! It was hard for them to believe they were hearing words in their own language” (Acts 2:6, NLV).^
October 2026
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