Social Media & Security
by Anthony Ball - Director of Development & Social Media for Nik Ripken Ministries
The sun begins to set on a picturesque evening - your short term team’s last day ministering in the heart of the unreached North African people group your church has recently adopted. The setting is just too perfect. A swarm of local children surrounds you, smiling and laughing; the orange African sun, now not so blazingly hot, casts beautiful “golden hour” bursts onto the landscape. You whip out your phone, say “cheese,” click… and capture the best selfie you’ve ever taken.
When you return to the main city, complete with Wifi and air conditioning, you instinctively post your perfect mission selfie on Instagram (#blessed), pack your bags, and head to your flight home without a second thought. The picture was so good you didn’t even need a filter.
We’ve done it a thousand times. I’ve done it a thousand times.
What’s the catch? Unbeknownst to you, the persecutors are also on Instagram. You didn’t realize that a brand new believer is in the background of your photo. Or that a unique landmark sits just over your shoulder, in plain view of everyone who sees your Insta post. And what you didn’t know is that rumors of a spiritual movement in this people group had already made it to the bad guys one city over - before you even landed - and now they are on high alert for traitors to the country’s national religion.
This isn’t to beat fear into you so that you never step foot outside your doorstep ever again. Instead, the intention is to help you understand that in our world of instant global access to information, God’s people need to be particularly mindful of what gets shared on social media.
If there’s one sin that social media provokes above all others, it’s self-promotion. The insidious need for likes and shares. To be seen by the world as doing good and being good. To elevate our brand, personality, or talents to the world. What makes this so dangerous in missions is that, without wisdom, feeding our addiction for self-promotion means we can inadvertently share information on social media that puts lives, ministries, and movements at risk. Again, this is not to make you paranoid; it’s to make you aware. We need to be deadly serious about our approach to missions security.
A few years ago, we worked with partners in a hostile-access country. One of the partners was coming to the States for a conference, and the host church had made posters to advertise the conference, complete with names, locations, and highlighting the country where he served. Reluctantly, our partner went through with the conference. A few weeks later, he flew back to the country where he served. Upon arriving at the customs booth, the official pulled an original poster from that church’s conference from under his desk and asked, “What’s this about?”. It had made its way from that church, across the ocean, and to the desk of the customs official within a month.
If a piece of paper can do that in a month, your social media post can do it in milliseconds.
Nik Ripken expertly teaches that the persecutors always want two pieces of information:
Where is God working?
How long has He been working there?
This helps them attempt to eliminate witnesses with surgical precision. Facebook can facilitate sharing this information with the bad guys before we pour our morning coffee.
So… what should we do? I want to offer three pieces of advice for those who go to the nations, especially for short-term opportunities and especially in the hard places where acute persecution is a reality. How do we handle the new norm of such a digitally connected world and our ongoing obedience to take Jesus to the hard places wisely?
Put the phone down. I know… you’ve probably heard this before. And I’m preaching to myself as much as anybody. Our addiction to screens doesn’t magically end when we get on an airplane. Our reflexive need to check and post on social media follows us to the ends of the earth. Make it a habit, not to make it a habit. Having your phone in your hand less means you’re less likely to post unnecessary or confidential information online. It also allows you to be present in the work and with the people you serve. That’s good advice for me, and not just overseas.
Practice Humility. Self-promotion and Gospel promotion are eternally contradictory. Neither long-term nor short-term missions exist to satiate our internal need to be liked, promoted and praised. If we go to the nations intending to showcase ourselves, we’ve missed the very heart of missions: serving the peoples of the globe so that they can have access to eternal life in Jesus Christ. Why are you going? Evaluate your motives. None of us is perfect, of course. But you need to determine in your heart before you go that it’s perfectly OK to serve Jesus overseas, even if nobody gets to see pictures of your service. Your God in heaven sees it… and therein lies your true reward. There are lots of ways to update supporters and sending churches without putting it on social media.
Use The Social Media Golden Rule. There’s no sense in sugar-coating it. Your mission trip photo album can lead to unnecessary suffering and worse. It’s harsh, but it’s true. The best way to know what to post and what not to post, is simple. If the roles were reversed, what would you want them to post? Would you like someone from another country to come to your doorstep, take pictures, and then post them to Instagram, knowing that their images contained critical information like your front porch (your address visible), your car (license plate visible), the street sign on the corner, and pictures of your young children for the whole internet to see? Don’t place people overseas in a compromising position where you wouldn’t want to find yourself.
You don’t have to live in fear overseas. But it would be best if you lived in wisdom. Be a wise partner with God in the Great Commission - more serving and fewer selfies.