Monday it will officially be two-weeks since I began using my website Johnwilburn.org for communication with prayer partners instead of Facebook. To be honest its been kind of hard, but I know this change will develop closer relationships with them long-term.
This decision partially came from the fact that Facebook was taken up far too much of my time and attention. The main reason however, is I wanted a stronger relationship with prayer supporters.
Communication through websites like Facebook or Twitter are sent as short updates (like a text message) to friends. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it shouldn’t be our primary form of communication.
The point is, you cannot build a relationship on text messages.
actually you can…but not a very strong one.
As a missionary God calls me to have strong relationships with those who support, or pray for my ministry. This kind of relationship comes through quality communication.
- Communication that is constant
- Communication that is transparent (shows both the good and bad of missions life)
- Communication that is personal (shared directly with specific prayer partners)
- And communication that is deep (shares updates in detail instead of just sharing short bursts of information)
I’m still doing some fine-tuning on using the website instead of Facebook for communication. But am beginning to take the next step in this process by embracing email instead of social-media as my major communication tool. This is the best way to share quality communication.
To be honest it’s still tough because I selfishly enjoy seeing likes and comments on my Facebook posts. But I understand that strong relationships quality communication develops is far more important than how many likes I get.
Johnhwilburn.org 