For churches and missionaries

The missionary directory

Missionary Lane keeps one central record for each missionary family, made from what the churches that support them upload. A letter shared by one of those churches, or posted by the missionary, reaches every church linked to that family. Each church keeps its own kiosk, its own edits and its own settings. Churches and missionaries can leave at any time.

On this page

How a record is made #

When a church adds a missionary, the platform looks in the directory for the same family: the same email address, the same family name in the same country or place, or a newsletter PDF already in the directory. If it finds one, that church's staff are asked “Is this the same family?” before anything is shared. Yes links the kiosk. No gives the family its own record. If there is no match, the platform makes a new record with its own ID.

The record holds the family's name, where they serve, the email addresses and family names churches entered for them, the letters churches published, and anything the missionary posts in the portal. It never holds support amounts, staff notes, giving or anything else from a church's admin.

What is shared #

  • Letters a church publishes for a linked kiosk go to the directory once and appear on every other linked church's kiosk. The church that shared a letter doesn't get a second copy.
  • A church that uploads a letter the directory already has gets it already read, with no AI cost.
  • What the missionary posts in the missionary portal: letters, photos, videos, prayer requests, praises, announcements and needs. Each is Public (on the galleries) or Hidden (only linked churches' staff can read it).
  • Each church can take new items right away or review each one first.
  • A church's own edits to an item are never overwritten by later changes, and an item a church deletes is never put back.

What is never shared #

  • Limited and Hidden kiosks. They are never matched or shared. Making a kiosk Limited or Hidden takes it out of the directory and withdraws what its church shared.
  • Anything from a church that has left the directory, or from a kiosk the church took out.
  • Phone numbers and home addresses: the letter reader leaves them out of everything it writes.

Letters can show a family's faith and sometimes health or family details. Where a missionary serves in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, the UK or Switzerland, the law asks for their explicit consent before we share them, so:

  • the platform never starts a record for them from a church's kiosk;
  • the missionary signs in to the missionary portal, sets up their profile and gives consent, and churches with their email are then asked to confirm it's them;
  • a record whose missionary hasn't consented, or has withdrawn consent, shares nothing: its churches are held, what was shared through it comes off the other churches' galleries, and each church keeps the letters it uploaded itself.

The country comes from the kiosk's or the record's country, or the last part of its place (such as “Lyon, France”).

For missionaries #

Sign in to the missionary portal with the email address your churches have for you. If a church has that email on your kiosk, the record is yours. From the portal you can:

  • post once for every church that supports you;
  • see which churches are linked, pause one, or remove one (it isn't linked to you again unless you restore it);
  • take your record out of the directory.

Leaving the directory #

  • A church can leave for all its kiosks (admin Settings) or for one kiosk (its Newsletters step).
  • A missionary can take their whole record out (portal Profile).

Leaving withdraws what was shared through the directory from the other churches, and removes what came in, except anything a church's staff edited. Every church keeps the letters it uploaded itself. A missionary who has left is never matched again until they rejoin. A record no church and no missionary uses is deleted.

Privacy #

Missionary Lane decides what the directory holds and how it is shared, so it is responsible for the directory's data as set out in the Privacy Policy and the Terms. Questions or requests: richard@missionarylane.org.