Daniel C Berman Communications

I recently received an email from a worker in a creative access country, letting me know that she had unfriended me on facebook because of a burst of sensitive information that I had posted on my facebook profile. Now this sensitive information, was not even close to compromising in a North American ministry sense. It was simply some links to a photo album of a monastery I visited in another country a couple of years back and two imported notes based on blog posts discussing dynamics of the Christian faith from my personal blog.

From the worker’s perspective though if that kept showing up in her activity timeline, she might have justifiable reason to be concerned as that information was already transmitted to her just by logging in to facebook. The country she works in takes a very dim view of Christian efforts to share the gospel, and has excellent electronic surveillance capabilities.

Thankfully they still look forward to meeting with us once they are stateside, but this should be a useful reminder to church staff as well as members of any congregation who have made overseas contacts in sensitive areas. If you post stuff to the web or other social networks such as facebook beware of your entire friendlist.

Yeah its a crazy world and there is some justifiable discussion which does need to happen regarding missions security, but in the mean time it is not worth getting them in trouble over something you say.

Photo Courtesy of greeneydmantis