Jill and I were teaching the third session of the Mobiles in Missions course and I wanted to share something with the MMF that Jill reinforced to me at the end of the class.
Earlier in the class, I had shared how one of our missionaries in Central Asia had been getting to know a bright young man in his neighborhood. One day he decided to look the guy up on Facebook and friend him. Upon finding him on Facebook, though, he came to see that the young man he had been “getting to know” was not, in any way, who that young man was in truth. This guy’s Facebook profile was full of ISIS-inspired hatred for the West and it appeared that he was, at a minimum, ISIS-inspired if not a full ISIS member.
Jill mentioned to me after the class had ended that they had a short-term worker come to Africa a couple of years back and this young woman ended up helping with the English training course at a center they ran there. There was a polite young man who was taking her course and one day Jill, for some reason, did the same thing- she went onto Facebook to find and possibly “friend” the man. This man who was so polite- “wouldn’t hurt a fly”- was spewing all kinds of ISIS-inspired rhetoric including “death to America” on Facebook. Wow, what a difference between the person you thought you knew with the person they were before others on social media.
In ministry, this is often the case- the face a person shows us isn’t their real self. It isn’t the face/self they are before their friends and family. We often talk about people being fake on Facebook but the opposite can be true with people being fake before the foreigner and real on Facebook, and this is an opportunity social media provides- an opportunity to find that true face. The “face” a person show us may not match up to their real face and we now have the opportunity to see their true face via social media.
With this benefit, we can now adjust our relationship, our evangelism, and discipleship to account for that face rather than just the face they choose to show us. A wise co-worker once shared this advice to me about working with seekers and young believers- “don’t listen to what they say, listen to what they do” and we now have a way to better see and listen to what those we are ministering to are and do through social media.
Keith Williams and Jill McKinnon teach the Mobiles in Missions course through Mission Media U. Check here for the next online class.