The North Little Rock mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of about a dozen worldwide now allowed to use Facebook, the latest step in testing the introduction of social media to the mission field.
Bridger Cowley, a missionary and elder in the church's priesthood, said the initiative is a way to reach people who may be more comfortable interacting via social media.
"The way the world is moving is to technology," Cowley said. "As missionaries, what we try to do is talk to people face to face ... but about 50 percent of the world nowadays is not even comfortable talking face to face, let alone letting people into their homes to talk with them. And so I think the church is realizing that if right now we can reach those 50 percent ... [using] technology then we can reach the full 100 percent."
The North Little Rock mission -- a group of 60 missionaries between the ages of 19 and 22 -- represents a fraction of the Mormon church's nearly 71,000 missionaries worldwide, according to the church's website.
Arkansas has 182 missionaries spread about evenly among the state's three missions, each of which is associated with a stake, or governing body within the church. Worldwide, the church has 423 missions.
The move to allow Mormon missionaries to use Facebook coincides with the church's decision to transition its missionaries to the use of smartphones, Crowley said.
Previously, the church allowed only the use of tablets, without Internet capabilities, that came preloaded with church-approved apps. Missionaries have been permitted to use basic cellphones, but only to call and text in their door-to-door mission work, known as "tracting."
The use of Facebook and smartphones comes at the end of a three-year pilot program tested in other missions to "work out the kinks," and assess the risks and benefits of both technologies, Crowley said. As part of tests, some missions were permitted to use smartphones but not Facebook. Others were permitted to use Facebook on computers but were not allowed to own or use smartphones.
The church's foremost goal in allowing missionaries to use Facebook will be to proselytize, or spread the word of Jesus Christ as laid out in the Book of Mormon, the church's sacred text.
"Every post should reflect your purpose," Crowley told about 40 missionaries attending a Facebook training session Thursday.
Another purpose of the pilot program as introduced to the missionaries was to allow the general public to "see that we're normal people and see our interests," said one missionary, who had asked about what kind of content was permissible for sharing on Facebook.
"We shouldn't just be sharing [random] videos or sharing photos, but sharing something personal that is testimony," said Crowley, who also discussed things the missionaries should refrain from doing.
"There's a few missionaries that we've seen that have posted 10 things a day or sharing 10 things a day, and that's definitely not what we want," Crowley said.
Aside from some monitoring of Facebook use by the church, Crowley said, missionaries will be relied upon to monitor themselves and one another's use of the technology. He acknowledged that some missionaries may use the social media outlet for reasons other than proselytizing.
"The Lord has put the trust in our hands, and if we want to use the technology for an inferior kingdom, an inferior purpose, then that's up to the missionaries," Crowley said.
"But really, the trust is put in us to use it for God's purpose," he said.
The church declined to disclose the locations of other missions now using Facebook, but Kevin Hansen, mission president of Arkansas, said the missions are spread throughout North America and Canada, and three of the missions are in the Southeast.
In the Mormon church, missionaries volunteer to serve away from home for a set time period -- 18 months for women and two years for men -- and must abide by many rules and restrictions during that time.
Some of the missionaries at the North Little Rock stake had previously used Facebook and other forms of social media that they were required to leave behind when they joined the mission, Crowley said, but others are creating Facebook accounts for the first time.
Renee Carr, public affairs representative for the church, said she believes the use of Facebook by missionaries will be a successful endeavor.
"This 180-degree about-face on utilizing Facebook is a big policy change, but I have full faith in these young millennials that they will find positive and constructive ways to use it," Carr said in an email.
"Nothing has changed with their mission goal of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ," she said. "They just have a different tool [now], which most of them are already skilled at using."
Metro on 10/01/2017