Many of our rostered leaders recently attended a boundaries workshop, which was held in Rockford. In it, we were reminded that maintaining healthy boundaries between rostered leaders (pastors, associates in ministry, diaconal ministers, deaconesses) and parishioners is very important to the life and health of a congregation. Maintaining these boundaries seems to becoming more difficult by the day. Consider the explosion in the use of social networking.Pastor Kurt Nordby and I have just returned from an ELCA Bishops Assistants Gathering. Such a gathering is held every two years for the purpose of continuing education, networking and collegiality. One of the workshops I attended was led by the ELCA attorneys and the ELCA Consultant for Sexual Misconduct Prevention, Barbara Keller. One of the topics Ms. Keller covered was social networking.
Guidelines for the use of social networking have been developed. The following have been adapted for our use by Ms. Keller, based on previous work done by an Episcopal diocese and the United Church of Christ. I paid close attention in this workshop since I am a user of Facebook. These guidelines are for relationships or “friendships” between adults. Communication with minors involves additional concerns. Although there seem to be lots of gray areas, these guidelines are fairly clear.
1. Rostered leaders are strongly encouraged to set very stringent privacy settings on any social networking profile to shield adult and youth members from viewing content that may be inappropriate.
2. Individual personal profiles of rostered leaders are to be used to interact with real friends, family and peers. Rostered leaders should not submit “friend” requests to parishioners and others to whom they minister. The disparity of power may not give the other person the ability to decline such a request.
3. Rostered leaders who want to connect via a social networking website with parishioners are strongly encouraged to set up a group account that all parishioners may join. The purpose of having a personal profile and parish group is to create a line of privacy and maintain healthy boundaries with parishioners and real family, friends and colleagues.
4. Rostered leaders should consider the impact of declining a “friend” request from parishioners. These encounters may create tension in “real world” relationships. Rostered leaders can direct “friend” requests from parishioners to the parish’s group page.
5. Rostered leaders who work directly with youth are encouraged to establish church sponsored digital communication groups to maintain contact with youth members.
6. When a rostered leader’s ministry at a parish or other ministry setting ends, the leader should remove parishioners as “friends” or contacts in all forms of digital communication.
What do you think? Your comments are welcome on the blog site at http://niselca.blogspot.com/ or on Facebook (either my page or Northern Illinois Synod). --JC
Comments from Facebook:
ReplyDeleteTim Leimberer: Item 6: So when you leave your current job with the church, you will "un-friend" me?
Karen Castelein Cursed be he that abuses social networking and all the people shall say "Amen".
Robert Lee Bennight: Overall, I think this is a very good idea, although I know the implementation of this policy will be a bit cumbersome for those with lots of connections throughout the synod that are not strictly "lay" and "pastor". For example, I am friends with people from my internship committee who are now also working for RALM. This person fits many categories.
Also, places like Facebook have become like the local cafe in some instances where people come to talk about what is going on in the community. It is going to be difficult to lose this type of resource in connecting with the pulse of the community.
Also, we have started to use Facebook and Twitter for quite a bit of intra-parish communication. We do have a separate church page now which will help.
Thanks for the information.
Mary DeFrancisco Miller: There is a lot of food for thought in this blog. The same or similar questions or concerns apply to the teaching profession. Many have set personal limits on interacting with students over social media, but there has not been a definitive alternative established in many communities.
ReplyDeleteEllen R Pannier: I never allow students as friends, nor other teachers- my private life is just that- mine- outside of school-
ReplyDeleteExcellent information on our new era.
ReplyDeleteThank you!!
Sandi Olson Decker: Hmmmm....I need to consider these a bit before jumping on the bandwagon. Someone told me Kelly Fryer recently had a post about this too, but I think hers came to other conclusions. Like the rest of life and like our wondrous Lutheran theo...logy, I'm not sure I can believe that there is only one "right" way to use FB as a pastor...life is simply more complex than that. That said, I do read a lot of "might" "possibly" and "may" type wording in your post and that leaves room for discernment and consideration.
ReplyDeleteI do already follow a few of these practices - e.g., not requesting to be friended by parishioners, limiting access, etc. #4 makes sense but I'm not so sure about de-friending when leaving a parish...seems like that could really hurt some feelings and cause some misunderstandings that would complicate grief rather than helping heal it.
What I do know is that I have had some of the most deep and profound counseling experiences with youth from church via FB chat. I wouldn't trade that for the world.
Sandi Olson Decker: Here is the link to Kelly's post:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.renewablechurch.com/2011/02/pastors-on-facebook-get-real.html
Eric Lemonholm: Good food for thought!
ReplyDeleteIt is definitely a different world, and I see dangers in mixing friends, colleagues, and parishioners from different contexts - but I also agree with Fryer - social media is becoming part of an effective pastor's toolkit, and being authentically one person, speaking with one voice, is part of the deal. It makes me very careful, for example, when posting political links - that sometimes gets me into partisan waters.
About former parishioners, I definitely keep interaction on FB to a minimum, but de-friending people for no good reason would make them wonder, "did he really care, or did he just interact with us because we were paying him?"