Decay of Church Finder

[MaxPC]

It makes me ponder that there may be concerns for safety and security. Certainly concerns regarding violence against churches during their services.

it always seemed unwise to me to publish a directory of multiple churches with multiple names, birthdays, marriage details, jobs, email, phone number, address...

We declined to add our names to the western fellowship directory but have had it added with some small details removed for a single local church before.

Why is this unwise?

A few things come to mind: identity theft; harassment or terrorism; burglary (knowing who belongs to the church, where they live, and when they are likely to be away from home attending church).

As it is mentioned that such directories can be obtained from CLP or other sources and that nonAnabaptists can purchase them, it would seem to present the above mentioned possibilities as safety issues.

[steve-in-kville]

A Horning mennonite co-worker once told me that the Weaverland Conference has a digital version of their directory but its controlled pretty tight. The reason? To keep men from stalking the single ladies.

True story.

[barnhart]

A Horning mennonite co-worker once told me that the Weaverland Conference has a digital version of their directory but its controlled pretty tight. The reason? To keep men from stalking the single ladies.

True story.

I've wondered about the wisdom of putting so much info on-line. I've seen pictures, phone numbers and addresses. It made more sense when paper copies were distributed only to other members.

[steve-in-kville]

A Horning mennonite co-worker once told me that the Weaverland Conference has a digital version of their directory but its controlled pretty tight. The reason? To keep men from stalking the single ladies.

True story.

I've wondered about the wisdom of putting so much info on-line. I've seen pictures, phone numbers and addresses. It made more sense when paper copies were distributed only to other members.

I agree. My MIL attends a conservative Brethren camp meeting every year and they print up a directory that includes everyone that attends. It tends to get freely distributed... never know who's hands get ahold of it

[Josh]

A Horning mennonite co-worker once told me that the Weaverland Conference has a digital version of their directory but its controlled pretty tight. The reason? To keep men from stalking the single ladies.

True story.

Makes sense not to keep it online. I guess the stalkers aren’t aware they can walk into a bookstore and buy the print copy (which is admittedly voluminous).

[Josh]

it always seemed unwise to me to publish a directory of multiple churches with multiple names, birthdays, marriage details, jobs, email, phone number, address...

We declined to add our names to the western fellowship directory but have had it added with some small details removed for a single local church before.

Why is this unwise?

A few things come to mind: identity theft; harassment or terrorism; burglary (knowing who belongs to the church, where they live, and when they are likely to be away from home attending church).

As it is mentioned that such directories can be obtained from CLP or other sources and that nonAnabaptists can purchase them, it would seem to present the above mentioned possibilities as safety issues.

Every congregation in my church maintains its own directory and we don’t seem to have problems with this.

If I needed a directory from another congregation I would ask for it.

[steve-in-kville]

A Horning mennonite co-worker once told me that the Weaverland Conference has a digital version of their directory but its controlled pretty tight. The reason? To keep men from stalking the single ladies.

True story.

Makes sense not to keep it online. I guess the stalkers aren’t aware they can walk into a bookstore and buy the print copy (which is admittedly voluminous).

From what I understand, the digital version is searchable. So if one is looking single ladies between certain ages, one could narrow down the possibilities. Perhaps its different now. I could find out.

[Josh]

A Horning mennonite co-worker once told me that the Weaverland Conference has a digital version of their directory but its controlled pretty tight. The reason? To keep men from stalking the single ladies.

True story.

Makes sense not to keep it online. I guess the stalkers aren’t aware they can walk into a bookstore and buy the print copy (which is admittedly voluminous).

From what I understand, the digital version is searchable. So if one is looking single ladies between certain ages, one could narrow down the possibilities. Perhaps its different now. I could find out.

I generally agree online directories cause problems. Most churches in a database I use don’t want to be on the Internet, but are fine with information being shared with seekers for a specific geographic location from a request, etc.

[Soloist]

It makes me ponder that there may be concerns for safety and security. Certainly concerns regarding violence against churches during their services.

it always seemed unwise to me to publish a directory of multiple churches with multiple names, birthdays, marriage details, jobs, email, phone number, address...

We declined to add our names to the western fellowship directory but have had it added with some small details removed for a single local church before.

Why is this unwise?

For one, if the government decided to pursue Christians as they have in other countries I would rather not give them a ready made list with all our identifiable information. Identity theft is a real problem and Mennonites have been terribly naive falling for multiple scams already. There is also people who specifically crawl the listings to attack Mennonites on seeker success and while I lament the lack of success I don't want to give ammunition to these people to attack the Conservatives more. I also object to the tax exempt status of the churches creating a registration of churches and having the church agree to specific requirements to get that. Such as not speaking against voting, permitting people to use social security all for a tax break. I would much rather that churches are underground in terms of registration.

[Franklin]

Would you consider yourself a good person?

Yes but most people would consider themselves good based on their subjective view of what is good, so this isn't a meaningful question.