Lately I’ve been blogging about the dumbest mistakes I’ve made in student ministry. My hope is that my dumb mistakes will inspire you to be…well, not dumb. What we do is far too important for us to be dumb!
One of the dumb things that student ministry volunteers and pastors do is disqualify themselves. Here’s what I mean…
One of the dumb mistakes I made, early in my student ministry days, was TMI–that is too much information. I was sharing too much information in the wrong places, specifically, I was processing in the wrong places. There’s no doubt that ministry is stressful. Churches are quirky organizations and people do the craziest things. Everyone in ministry needs a place to vent and process. The problem is that far too many of us choose to do this online or with the wrong people. Processing in the wrong places can be incredibly damaging to your own reputation and also to the faith and trust of the people you are venting to. An unfiltered comment posted to twitter or Facebook doesn’t have the privilege of further explanation or context. I learned this the hard way in the early 2000s as I explored the writings of the Emergent church movement. Let me explain:
I grew up in very conservative churches, attended a very conservative Bible church and was on staff at a conservative Baptist Church. When I ran into Emergent writers, I felt like I had finally discovered the missing piece of my faith, which was a theology that incorporated the kingdom and also cared about suffering in the world. As I explored these ideas, I took to my Xanga page (yeah, I’m that old) with my musings. The problem was that my students, volunteers and co-workers who read my blog didn’t live in my head. They didn’t know that I was adding a kingdom minded branch to my biblically centered theology. They thought I was going “liberal.”
What I learned was that while I needed to process what I was learning, the Internet isn”t the place to process. Unfortunately, I lost some credibility and trust with a few students, parents and volunteers along the way. Processing in the wrong place can be pretty dumb.
The second way I see student ministry volunteers and pastors disqualifying themselves with TMI is also on the internet. A picture is worth a thousand words, but in the world of social media, it might be better to say that a picture generates a thousand interpretations. The beauty of Instagram, Vine, Twitter and Facebook is that you get to share your life with people. The danger is that people have the freedom to make their own decisions about what your pictures mean. This idea is especially important if you are in ministry. Let me give you the clearest example I can think of: alcohol.
We know from the Bible that there is nothing wrong with drinking alcohol, in fact there is an example of Paul encouraging Timothy to drink a little more wine for health reasons. We also know that the Bible speaks explicitly again getting drunk, especially if you are a spiritual leader. In addition to these two ideas, many in our culture struggle with abusing alcohol. Lastly, if you serve at a church with conservative roots, you probably have church members who think alcohol is the devil.
The thing is, when you post a picture to Instagram of you and your bros at Buffalo Wild Wings, enjoying a brew while cheering for your squad, you don’t get to explain the context to your boss, the volunteer who is a recovering alcoholic, your student who is debating whether to party on Friday night, or your hyper-conservative aunt Gertrude. They just jump to whatever conclusions they want.
In my opinion, it simply isn’t worth the trouble. We’ve gone as far as create a social media contract for our staff and volunteers. The basic gist is, “I agree to not be dumb on social media.” We have a policy that states that our staff and volunteers won’t post pictures of drinking to social media. I would encourage you to do the same in your ministry context. It’s not worth tarnishing your reputation or the reputation of your ministry over a misinterpretation.
