Facebook rules for pastors
"Should
I post or should I not?" I ask myself this when I'm thinking of posting a
particularly snarky religion-related Facebook status update that would
entertain my old seminary friends, go over my high school friends' heads and
unsettle some members of my congregation.
I
use Facebook daily in my work, but it wasn't designed as a ministry tool. As
the new movie The Social Network
shows, Mark Zuckerberg developed Facebook on a college campus with the social
networks of college students in mind. Now, as a pastor with 866 Facebook
"friends," I struggle with my mixed-up social networks.
If
I post a vacation picture or two, church members will post comments on them.
This is lovely and thoughtful of them, but it's also a reminder that even when
I'm on vacation I have a congregation waiting for me back home. (There are larger concerns about vacation posts as well.)
