I seriously told a friend “I wish pastors would ask me before they do anything on Facebook.” There’s just so many clergy on facebook that are unaware of how to use the system to its full benefit for churches. So, here’s my advice when it comes to changing churches (most changes happen in the coming month).
In connectional denominational systems like the UMC (where pastors are moved frequently among churches), the expectation is that pastors would cease contact with their former congregation. But what about Facebook and social media? Should pastors unfriend their former congregants? Should they keep them friends? It’s a touchy question in the digital age that our polity hasn’t caught up to yet.
If there are any UMC conferences that have published expectations for digital presence and relationships, I’d love to see them. Post them in the comments.
In the meantime, I previously blogged about this problem last year in “Having Multiple Identities is an Example of a Lack of Integrity“…but here’s the updated version after another year of practice and reflection.
There are four options of what to do with online personas and pastoral moves.
Novice: Delete all your former church’s friends.
- The simplest way is to delete all the friends of your old account. This means they are not part of your life anymore and you change churches without any further attachments. Done and done.
- Feelings may be hurt but it’s the cleanest break.
Beginner: Start a new account for the new pastorate.
- Some pastors have taken to having a “real persona” and a “church persona”: ie. two facebook accounts, one for their family and friends (Jeremy), and one for their “professional” life (Pastor Jeremy). While I think it neglects to use Facebook to its full advantage (see below options), it does make a break between churches easy.
- So the solution is to simply stop using the Pastor Jeremy account and start another account (Super Pastor Jeremy) and begin friending your new parishioners there.
- You can then cease to check the former pastorate’s account or check it infrequently. If you set your email notifications correctly, you could get notes whenever they write on your wall or direct message you, but otherwise you cut off communication with them.
- As a combination of Novice and Beginner, if you have two accounts, then wipe the friends list of the Pastoral account and start anew, only friending your new parish. This maintains the boundary pretty cleanly.
- Please note, however, that two accounts is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service. They will likely never bother you but it is technically against the rules.
Advanced: Start a friends list for each church.
- This is the most advanced of the Facebook options. It is also the most effective, in my opinion. Master and understand this and you are a Facebook pro.
- First, create your friends list.
- Click “Edit your friends” here.
- Click on “Create a List” and name it your former church.
- Add your parishioners to that list.
- Second, assign privacy restrictions.
- Click on “Privacy Settings” here.
- Click on CUSTOMIZE on the left side.
- Now under each item that you want to hide, click the lock button and select “customize”. Set to friends only “except” and type in the friends list you made earlier (it should auto-fill). click SAVE SETTING. The header graphic on this post shows this step.
- This is tedious but do this for each item you want to hide.
- Now, your former parishioners can see your profile INFO tab…but can’t see your wall or photos. In other words, they can still contact you and see where you are in the far future, but they aren’t a part of your day-to-day life.
Pro: Set levels of access for all your friends.
- I make three friends lists: Limited Profile, Safe Profile, and Full Profile.Under privacy, I set these groups to have different levels of access.
- People I meet online or know from church, I add them to my Limited Profile. People here can only see my information, but not my wall (any posted links, pics, tags, etc). It is essentially a static page with my interests and that’s it.
- As I get to know them, I graduate them to my Safe Profile and allow them to see my posted links for discussion. I don’t consider those as private and I don’t mind linking to controversial topics to spur discussion.
- Eventually, I graduate them to Full Profile where they can see my entire wall and everything. Am I taking a risk? Sure. But by then they will have proven their trustworthiness with my random thoughts.
- The benefit of this is that everyone discusses and I can discuss with them all in one place! Saves time and energy with only a little setup and diligence, and I’m not managing multiple accounts or worried about saying the wrong thing to untrusted people, especially youth or parishioners.
Summary
So, in summary, there’s four different methods to deal with the former parish members who are your facebook friends:
- Remove them completely from your life (Novice)
- Add them to a church-specific user account that you disconnect from (Beginner)
- Create a friends list with custom privacy controls so the former parish is still aware of your static details (Info tab) but not your dynamic actions (wall). (Advanced)
- Use friends list to their fullest extent and create tiers of trust. When you move parishes, simply move the old parishioners down the tiers so they are more like #3. (Pro)
Comments
Thoughts? Reflections? How has your moving churches and social media experience been?
Jeremy, I disagree with your premise. While I agree that we are called to cease being the pastor for our previous congregants, and must take care to always affirm the role of the new pastor, I don’t believe that means total separation and lack of contact with people who we have come to know and love. What does it say about the love of Christ and our love of these people if we totally cut them off from our lives due to a job change (for that is what a move is)? Again, I fully recognize that we must take care to affirm our successors as the new pastors of these parishes, even when we may not agree with their decisions or directions of the church, and in my ministry I always actively encourage previous church members to seek out their new pastor related to church issues. However, these folks raised my kids, supported me and my wife through good and bad times, and have an investment not only in our ministries but our lives. So, I didn’t do anything on Facebook when I changed churches, other than to friend the new pastor, and remove myself from control of our congregation’s Facebook page. I maintain contact superficially (which is honestly all most of us can do via facebook), but not pastorally. There IS a difference, and to think that we can cut off a relationship at will is frankly problematic.
I appreciate your strong sense of your role as pastor as also being a human being who becomes involved in the lives you are around, and you are right that it feels wrong to isolate or cut off communication once your role changes. My understanding, however, comes from the experience of having congregants maintain relationships with their former pastor to an unhealthy extent. Perhaps clergy should ask themselves: “Would you have lunch with former parishioners? Would you go to a baseball game with them? Would you talk with them about their current pastor?” If the answer to any of these is no, then why would you maintain a Facebook relationship with them? There are bad apples who seem to have ruined the batch but in reality they have helped me clarify what my role is as their designated pastor and my role as their former pastor.
When I changed churches, I didn’t remove my congregants but put them on a friends list like “Pro” above. I seek to remove temptation to contact one another but maintain connection by the “Pro” form above. We keep in connection but I’m not involved in the flow of their lives. I don’t need to be: that’s what their pastor is for. And if their current pastor isn’t doing it for them, then the pastor needs to be consulted, not a former pastor.
I think Facebook makes it easier for (a) disgruntled former parishioners to contact their former pastor or be envious of how the former pastors life is (based on their facebook updates) and (b) former pastors to meddle with the lives of their former parish. Both of these temptations can be settled for pastors who are struggling with this issue by any of the above suggestions.
You’re correct. FB could make it easier for a disgruntled former parishioners to contact their former pastor, etc. That is definitely unhealthy behavior and, if it were to happen, would have to be handled appropriately. Speaking as a clergy spouse, I share much of what Jay expressed. I think there is one set of behavior for the average church member. There is another set of behavior for those who become real friends. There are a handful of people from former churches who were launched to the top tier while serving there and will be significant friends for the remainder of our lives. I completely understand, agree with, and support the rules of separation after a pastor moves to a new church. However, I think the automatic cut-off is only necessary in specific situations or with certain personality types. There are a few folks that I just cannot (will not) cut off or move to a lower level relationship just because we’ve moved. FB is part of the daily routine and we have remained FB friends with the same level of access. All involved recognize the importance of connecting with the new pastor and there hasn’t been any problem respecting that. (If that were to become a problem we’d make the necessary changes.) We have significantly reduced the number of times we interact on FB wall discussions and we rarely post comments on each other’s wall. (To be honest, that decision was/is for the benefit of others who might be watching.) The private FB notes, chats, text messages, phone calls, and emails have continued with little change. We no longer talk about local church business – the stuff that would cross leadership boundaries, but we still talk about the larger UM connection on a regular basis (district and conference events, common ministries, etc.) and we do mention programs and celebrate what is happening at each other’s church. We just keep the local church conversation on the surface. We also look for opportunities to meet for dinner when our travels bring us close enough, schedule golf get-a-ways, look forward to attending the same continuing edu events, share parenting tips, let our children Skype each other, etc. These are not just friends from a former church, they are now real friends and our FB communication is just a small part of the picture.
Thanks for this post Jeremy. Clearly this is an issue where more thought and discussion would be helpful! I’ll be adding this to evernote for the future. 🙂
I have yet to change churches under the power and influence of Facebook. So, maybe I have not completely thought it through.
I have no problem keeping all my Facebook settings the same as they are now. I would go to lunch with a former parishioner. In fact, some of them are our family’s best friends in life.
I completely understand the new role I have in their lives when I am no longer their pastor. They understand how I feel about it, too.
If someone really wants to rant against their new pastor to me they don’t need Facebook to do it. Emails and phones still work just as easy. I know Facebook might make it more easier for some, but we as clergy need to remember our commitment to our colleagues and the spiritual well-being of our churches.
So, I guess I would add a fifth method to your list: Do nothing and be just as discerning as you were before, maybe even a tad bit more.
Thanks, Jeremy for the chance to think about this topic. Stay blessed…john
Good article! I wish the pastorI followed (& especially his wife had done this). They have been obsessive in birthday greetings and comments on parishioners posts. They have maintained a pastoral role from hundreds of miles away. It’s Been so frustrating! the parishioners think nothing of it and of course they were so loved that to address it would cause even more conflict and make the new pastor look bad. I talked with the DS who said nothing can be done because he went to another conference and there is certainly nothing that can be done about the spouse. The church has been locked down by the ghosts of pastors past and Facebook has been a huge factor. I like your tools for setting limits.
This is a touchy subject. In my first church the former pastor owned the house next to the church, and would come into the church building and “borrow” or sometimes “reclaim” things as he saw fit.
In all situations it depends on the integrity of the individual. We all know that there are many in the ministry that need to be needed.
I think generally the solution to be followed is to limit the access to your account by the former church members. We all want to know “what the kids are doing” and other milestones in our friends lives. These were the kids that my kids went to Sunday School with, had camp outs, and all the birthday things. Though I would not show up to their graduation party, my kids might, and I would send a simple graduation card.
Also, the DS wimped out when he said nothing could be done.
Thanks so much for this, Jeremy! I think it is helpful not only to folks getting ready to change churches but also to those of us serving churches who are concerned about holding up personal boundaries while still maintaining a facebook church presence. I totally agree that conferences need to step up and give some guidelines when it comes to pastors and facebook in general, and especially with regards to switching churches. Thanks for yet another insightful, helpful post! 🙂
I believe in a combination – I have an up coming change this July. I have told my congregation that I will be un-friending them, but that they are welcome to send a new request for friendship, at which time they will be added to a custom list.
I feel the “levels of access” is essentially like having multiple personas for one profile, which I find a little duplicitous. I work with youth but I have told my youth I will not friend them but they can contact me through the youth page of my church. I don’t feel it would be honest of me to have limits where I could rant or rave about a certain parishoner who I was “friends” with on facebook, but not let them see it bec they are limited to a certain level of access. What if someone who could see it told them? I would not be able to proudly say “I support what I said and would say it to my bishop” bec if that were true I wouldn’t have hid it from them in the first place.
I friend some church people, and not others. And I honestly tell the ones I don’t friend that I want to get to know them better in real life before we are “friends” on facebook.
And I also have learned to hold my tongue on facebook because I find it ultimately is not the healthiest way for me to vent. All methods have trade-offs, this is my method.
I think helping pastors understand how to use Facebook’s privacy settings is a great thing. I know so many colleagues who haven’t learned how to use Facebook with appropriate boundaries, and so either get no personal use out of it or find that it becomes a problem for their professional life. I don’t really agree that it’s necessary to de-friend former parishioners — but I definitely DO think it’s both wise and ethical to stop responding to the posts of all but the few who have transitioned from “parishioner” to “friend.” Limiting the posts they see about your new congregation will probably also ease their pain during the transition period, making life easier for them and their new pastor, too.
Jeremy,
I love this, and you rock. I think what many people are missing is that Clergy don’t “un-friend” parishioners because they necessarily don’t want to be connected to them, that church or that past life anymore – they do it to make the transition easier for the new Clergy person. How intimidating and daunting to see all of these people you are trying to grow relationships and trust with when you see they are going to the previous Pastor instead. Well stated, Jeremy! Thanks!!
OK, I actually have a question about the Limited Profile settings. I put a fundamentalist cousin on my Limited Profile because I want to be kind and connect with her, but I don’t want her to see some of my true opinions on things. Then suddenly a few weeks ago, I noticed she was commenting on my statuses. FB said she shouldn’t be able to see my status, but clearly she could. My settings were “Custom: Friends Except for Limited Profile.” Seeing nothing wrong with this setting, I decided FB might be thinking “Limited Profile” is a person. So I manually added all the people on the Limited Profile list to the “Except” field. Do you have any idea what I did wrong?
Jeremy, this is really good information. Having the different levels isn’t duplicitous at all. If we are healthy people we automatically place people on different levels of trust as they enter our paths in real life not just the FB world. They might get moved around the levels throughout a relationship, but we each definitely know how much of ourselves we trust with each individual person. And your advice about moving on is true, true, true. While there are individuals from every church with whom I am still dear friends beyond the occasional Christmas letter level, after 30 years of doing this that number is way fewer than you think it would be. I will be sharing your suggestions with others.
Thanks!
Thanks for the post. I’m moving churches in July and have been considering this very topic.
I followed everything you said up until your “pro” level. Though the pro strategy sounds like a good idea in general, how does it deal with the need to separate from members of your old church?
Once a person makes it to your Full Profile, do you leave them there even after you leave their church?
Not necessarily. That’s the flexibility of the Pro level: you can move people up and down the tiers as you see fit. When I moved from my last parish, most of those parishioners went down a tier so they weren’t part of my daily life again. By keeping them as friends but removing their access to your wall, it makes it easier to maintain a relationship but not be involved in their daily lives.
I moved to a new appointment a year ago. What I did was tell my former parishioners before I left that I would leave it up to them to decide whether they wanted to keep me as a friend on Facebook. Some dropped me, but the majority kept me. I did eventually drop a couple of people for personal reasons. I am not initiating any contact via Facebook with any of them, but will respond if they contact me (which is seldom). None of the contacts I have received from them have been about anything to do with church business or the new pastor–just a few birthday greetings on my birthday and a couple of inquires as to how I’m liking my new appointment. Most United Methodists, at least in my conference, are well taught about proper etiquette in terms of relationships when pastors leave. And most pastors also understand that when we leave, we butt out.
Jeremy
I appreciate you tackling this issue. I was having this conversation just yesterday with a colleague. I hope annual conferences consider social networking in their transition workshops.
I already have multiple lists on FB: local church members, members who have moved but maintain relationship, family, close friends, limited profile, public figures (who don’t need to know that I’m sitting on I5 and about to go ballistic), etc. However, I think, as difficult as it is to do, “unfriending” is the correct move to make. It can be done well. It’s important to make the break clean and clear – not for folks to think that the former pastor is out there somewhere if needed. I think it helps parishioners and the new pastor form a bond without the outgoing pastor looking over their shoulders – even in cyberspace.
My rule is to let folks know that as much as I love them, we need a year of fallow time. I ask the incoming pastor how she/he would feel about me having a non-pastoral relationship with folks after that. If it’s complicated, I support that. If not, I will enter back into relationship with folks who seek me out, but I’m very clear that I am not their pastor. Pastors might be surprised at how quickly we can be left behind…and that’s good! But, despite the best boundaries, there are always those few people whom we could just be friends with under different circumstances. It is especially important to help kids who may have known no other pastor find good and healthy ways to bond with the new pastor.
FB can be a powerful tool to organize groups of people and to maintain emotional ties. It really shouldn’t be discounted or dismissed as superficial or artificial or unimportant (you are not doing this, quite the contrary). We have yet to see how imortant it can be in helping or hindering pastoral changes.
I appreciate you tackling this issue even though we take slightly different approaches. The conversation is important.
Peace
Katie
I agree with making the ‘clean break’ because if a pastor doesn’t do so and falls prey to whining parishonrs from a former charge that pastor could inadvertently be guilty of a chargable offence as described in the Discipline.
I think caution is te best policy and before you delete ‘friends’ one may want to encourage them to remain active in the local parish, be faithful to the ministry of the church, the staff and Pastor, and then give a brief reasoning concerning your decision with reference to the Discipline to which we have agreed to be faithful.
If it is against FB rules to have two accounts, that settles it. What part of obeying authority do we not understand? That’s how sin starts in my life; thinking, “Hey, nobody will question or check me. It’s not really hurting anyone. Ect…..” No contact means no contact. Rules are made to be followed. Rules are NOT made to be broken. Don’t like the rules? Help change them! Rules are what helps us live peaceably with each other. Isn’t that what we are supposed to do? Supposed to do–Just Do It.
Actually, I do just the opposite. I consider my Facebook space to be private space, like my living room, and I keep boundaries up just as I would with how I relate to my congregation. I am friendly, but I’m not their friend. In my personal space I feel free to share what are my political and other thoughts that are not always appropriate to express in a congregational setting. On Facebook I feel free to say “I support Joe Q Smith of the So-and-So Party for City Council” just as I would feel free to put such a sign on my front yard, but I would not say that from the pulpit.
As such, I don’t friend members of my current congregation as a rule but I do interact through the official church site. I don’t see this as duplicitous. Just good boundaries.
Can u pls tell me how to change a name and add a title infront eg from John to Pastor John. Tnx
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What about pastors, like myself who have been in a church for 20 year plus and what about spouses? Is it OK for spouse to maintain relationships? What about not doing anything with the church but still staying friends with members or people who may have come but were not members or people in the community not connected to the church in any way but who you have been friends with or done a funeral or wedding with their family. I have one guy tell me that he was not going to join the church so we could remain friends after I retire.