Acts20.com

My wife and I recently were invited to attend a Christmas program at another church. We attended, and a dinner followed the program. As we sat eating, several members of the church (I don't know the pastor personally) were talking about the excessive use of social media by their pastor. According to numerous reports, the pastor updates his Facebook status many times and constantly posts political rants and selfies throughout the day. As I listened to their comments, it got me to thinking...I'm sure this pastor has no evil intent, and probably has no idea what he is conveying to his congregation. But their perception is that he spends his time doing nothing but playing on social media. I'm not his judge but it made me more aware that people are watching and forming their own opinions and judgments. I would hate to think I was hindering my ministry because my congregation thought I played on social media all day (I don't by the way ).

Re: "Our Pastor is on Facebook All Day"

Did they mention Actscelerate? No, this was a Methodist Church.

Did they mention Actscelerate? What - you thought they were talking about you

I understand the point. I personally think that anyone in a pastoral role should limit their political posts on FB. It only marginalizes those you're trying to reach. I know several pastors that are on FB all day, so it seems, but they are very effectively using it to promote Jesus, and the good work of their churches. Others just use it as a platform to hear themselves speak ---------My Facebook www.facebook.com/theB3

how do you know that? One would have to be on FB all day to see the many updates and selfies of others. Unless, of course, you are going to his profile and looking at just his posts at the end of your day. Then the other question would be, why are you doing that?

What a defensive response to a call for a little introspection to how the use of social media affects our ministry!So what are going to say back to them when they say they looked on his Facebook page to see what he was doing that kept him too busy to visit Aunt Marge in the hospital?

As one who has in the past been criticized by some for the frequency of my internet activity (but not as of yet by any parishioners of mine), I will say the following should be kept in mind:1. Thanks to Gore, Daugherty, Zuckerberg, and Jobs, the Internet, Facebook, Actscelerate and my iPhone are literally with me everywhere I go. Things are much different in this regard since just a few years ago, when interacting on the internet required one to be at a desktop or laptop.2. Due to #1, it is not difficult to quickly check my phone occasionally throughout the day, and, if there's something I feel is worthy of response, it only takes a brief amount of time to do so. But it's not as if the fact that I may post something several times throughout the day means I'm somehow sitting at my desk for extended periods of time interacting on the internet necessarily, much less, all day.4. Also, for me at least, the fact that I worked for many years as a medical transcriptionist, and, consequently, happen to be able to type 100 wpm, makes my gift of verbosity all the more accessible to the world (haha), with a relative minimum of time required in order for me to type a paragraph, or two or three.

Re: "Our Pastor is on Facebook All Day"

Did they mention Actscelerate? What - you thought they were talking about you?