Perhaps the loudest cheers for social media are how it opens up the conversation not only in number of voices, but speed. A few weeks ago, Twitter officially exploded onto the SBC scene with pastors (yes) young and (but wait a minute) older signing up to post their thoughts during sessions at the SBC annual meeting. President Johnny Hunt's blessing on Twitter the day after the SBC ended (@johnnymhunt) practically made it an institution of pastoral communications.

But what if that same openness can lead to danger? In an effort to head off trouble caused by well-intentioned messages via outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, the International Mission Board added a new element to missionary training recently - how to use social media wisely.

"It is a concern," said Wendy Norvelle, spokesperson for the IMB. "Right now we have 54 percent of missionaries working in areas where they need to be cautious in how they communicate. In April we talked to missionaries about adjusting their privacy settings and being sure who they consider a 'friend.' On their profile, we encouraged them to use the 'limited' profile and disable some options that could inhibit their ministry."

The mirage of a smaller-than-actual audience is the biggest threat. College-age missionaries serving overseas may have to fight against their own culture of sharing almost-all online.

Warren Skinner, consultant for Collegiate Ministries of the Georgia Baptist Convention, said so far there have been no instances of student missionaries from his state placing themselves in harm's way via tweet or status update.

"We've addressed it for several years now [in training] and make them aware of what's appropriate to share and what's not. They know to be careful about posting personal information on the missionaries they're serving with and anything that might compromise that ministry," he said.

Journalists may be tempted to contact missionaries through social media when their part of the world is in the news, such as with the recent unrest in Honduras. Norvelle asks media to help in protecting their status.

"One of the things we tell our personnel is to not pass judgement on governmental actions," she said. "Taking political stances is simply not helpful. We tell them to be very careful about what they say [online] about such events.

"We also ask that any stories written about them are ministry-related and not political. If a missionary says something that can be seen as politically-charged, I wouldn't mind if journalists even chided them a little for it."