That question came up this past week. A Brigada reader wrote, “I work for a Christian mission agency. I am curious how other Christian organizations are using social media, especially with regards to doing member care for their workers in other countries. Thought maybe I could get some insight here.” So how would you answer?
I serve as the Global Pastoral Care Coordinator for a missionary organization. Concerning “social media,” I am assuming you are thinking about FaceBook, Twitter and others. About the only application I would think of might be to post resources or to alert our folks to links/videos. We do not use social media platforms for any personal work with our staff, because of the nature of those conversations and confidentiality.
Carl
Two weeks ago we had a short-term missions conference on the Southern Nazarene University campus. One of the workshops was on the use of social media. The audio and PowerPoint of that workshop is posted online
Howard, great stuff. Thanks for being in tune with EXACTLY the relevant best response!
I use Facebook to communicate with many of our latest workers who have gone out long term. As a Member care worker it helps me keep in touch with what is happening in their lives. Some of them also have blog sites. I use the private message part of FB to ask for particular prayer points and to ask personal questions.
We at Joshua Project use social media almost exclusively to promote prayer for a specific unreached people group each day. It seems a perfect fit for reminding people to pray and linking them to fuller information about the groups.
Duane, thanks for taking time to respond to this item! We here at Brigada are grateful for your partnership and energy for the unreached!