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Why Pastors Should Only Have 1 Facebook Profile

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May 16 12

My good friend and blogger Adam Copeland has been talking a lot recently about pastors who use more than one Facebook profile. I will say that I have some friends who have decided to do this, and while I understand their reasons, it’s not the choice that I make, and not the choice I encourage others to make.

As someone who trains ministers and others on the use of social media at Social Media Boot Camps, I do not recommend that ministers use two separate Facebook accounts.

For one, if you do, you break Facebook Terms of Service (“You will not create more than one personal profile.”). However, I’m not one to generally be too concerned about specific fine print like that. So there are other reasons I encourage the use of one profile.

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Adam Walker Cleaveland on (Re)Imagining Christianity

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May 14 10

This post is part of an ongoing blog series on Pomomusings entitled “(Re)Imagining Christianity.” To read about the series, as well as get a full schedule of participants, click here.

What is one belief, practice or element of Christianity that must die so that Christianity can move forward and truly impact the world in the next 100 years?

First off, I want to thank all those who contributed to the (Re)Imagining Christianity blog series. The past two months have been filled with some wonderful conversations here on this blog. Some of my favorite have included Lars Rood on why we need younger voices in the church, Sarah Bessey musing on the practice of testimony, Bethany Stolle saying we need to get rid of nostalgia, and John Vest calling for the death of everything that makes Christianity an institution.

I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to contribute to this series as it ends, and I’ve spent the past couple days pondering what needs to die so that Christianity can move forward and truly impact the world in the next 100 years. My answer? Theological orthodoxy.

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Carol Howard Merritt on (Re)Imagining Christianity

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Apr 27 120

This post is part of an ongoing blog series on Pomomusings entitled “(Re)Imagining Christianity.” To read about the series, as well as get a full schedule of participants, click here.

What is one belief, practice or element of Christianity that must die so that Christianity can move forward and truly impact the world in the next 100 years?

Brainstorming women, armed with their Sharpies and poster boards, are going to battle. If you haven’t heard, there is a “war on women.”

Is this hyperbole? Is this “war on women” tagline merely something that can unite the various feminist waves into one tsunami that has real influence?  Is this “war on women” a cheap trick by liberal political operatives to highlight how out-of-touch and extreme conservatives have become on social issues? If there’s a war going on, who is attacking women anyways?

The sad truth? Christianity wages war on women. How are we doing it?

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John Vest on (Re)Imagining Christianity

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Apr 20 9

This post is part of an ongoing blog series on Pomomusings entitled “(Re)Imagining Christianity.” To read about the series, as well as get a full schedule of participants, click here.

What is one belief, practice or element of Christianity that must die so that Christianity can move forward and truly impact the world in the next 100 years?

Am I limited to just one thing?

There are lots of little things I could list, and plenty of big ones too. But to sum up what I think needs to die in order for the gospel to truly make an impact in the world, I would kill or let die everything that makes Christianity an institution.

I’m not just trying to riff on Andrew Sullivan’s recent Newsweek cover story or the “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” guy. I’ve been thinking this way for some time—which is perhaps ironic coming from a pastor that works at one of the largest (and most institutionalized) Presbyterian churches in the country. But it is precisely this experience, along with the experience of being involved in denominational work at both the local and national levels, that leads me to think this way.

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