Episode 136: On Pastors and Social Media
How can pastors approach social media in a healthy way? Tune in to this episode of Pastors Talk as Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman break down how pastors can be discerning with social media and discuss their personal approaches to social media. They talk about how pastors can use social media to further the gospel but also the ways that social media can become a stumbling block.
- How Should Pastors Approach Social Media?
- Good Uses of Social Media
- Poor Uses of Social Media
- Should a Pastor Stay Silent on Social Media?
Show Notes
Read Jonathan Leeman’s article on this topic here.
Transcript
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Jonathan Leeman
I’m Jonathan Leeman.
Mark Dever
I’m Mark Dever.
Jonathan Leeman
And welcome to this episode of 9Marks Pastors Talk. 9Marks exists to equip church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources for—
Mark Dever
For more, see 9marks.org.
Jonathan Leeman
—building healthy churches. Go there, that’s right. 9marks.org. Mark, in our last Pastors Talk, we focused on the new journal, Shepherding the Work & Character of a Pastor.
Mark Dever
You don’t know the order these things are going to come out in.
Jonathan Leeman
I can help make sure.
Mark Dever
Yeah, anyway, maybe. So, there might be a cool one coming out on this journal.
Jonathan Leeman
Maybe, maybe. And if you’re listening to this one, it should have been a week ago that that one came out. And most of the themes of that journal could have been written by Ambrose or John Chrysostom or Francis Grimke or John Stott, just general things about pastoring. Whereas this topic I want to talk to you about now, well, it’s a matter for modern times and that is how pastors can take a wise approach to their own social media.
So not about discipling church members. Hey, here’s a wise as opposed to an unwise use of social media. I’m talking about their own Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. And what prompted—
Mark Dever
TikTok.
Jonathan Leeman
TikTok.
Mark Dever
Marco Polo.
Jonathan Leeman
I’ve never looked at TikTok actually.
Mark Dever
Marco Polo.
Jonathan Leeman
I have used that, a fellow elder got me on it. What prompted this was a phone—
Mark Dever
Etsy.
How Should a Pastor Approach Social Media?
Jonathan Leeman
—call, Pinterest, you and I were on, I don’t know a week ago in which, you may remember this, one of the brothers on that phone call said his members were wanting him to tweet about certain public events more.
And he was just like, I don’t know what to do, what, am I responsible, do I need to, do I need to speak and address these public issues and we had a long and good conversation about it. What do you think, Mark? What is your approach to social media? You personally?
Mark Dever
I don’t know that I have an overarching philosophy. I mean, it’s just sort of bitty.
Jonathan Leeman
You tweet.
Mark Dever
Yeah, I don’t really do the Facebook thing.
Jonathan Leeman
You’re on it.
Mark Dever
The Instagram, that’s just because when my assistant set it up with Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, it’s like I had an assistant at the time when it came out who set it up. That’s how that is.
Jonathan Leeman
Okay.
Mark Dever
And with Facebook, I immediately, I didn’t know how it works, so I just accepted everybody who asked to be a friend. And so there’s a 5,000-person limit. I quickly hit the limit.
I don’t know any of these people. So I just don’t use it. Yeah. I mean, I’ll go through every once in a while, like unfriend like 50 people, just cause I don’t know who they are.
Jonathan Leeman
Right.
Mark Dever
I’m thinking someday I may recover its usefulness for me.
Jonathan Leeman
Okay. Well, that’s helpful on Facebook. Thank you. What’s your approach to Twitter?
Mark Dever
Well, Twitter is the main one I use. Instagram is it’s like, I’m on vacation. I take a picture. You know, it’s, it’s an interesting building. Yeah. With Twitter, I try to first do no harm.
Jonathan Leeman
Good. Like a good doctor.
Mark Dever
Yeah, exactly. Do no harm. And that would eliminate a lot of the tweets I see other people do that bother me. So I want to first not do that.
Jonathan Leeman
Do no harm.
Mark Dever
Yeah.
Opening Conversations on Social Media
Jonathan Leeman
I saw you tweet recently, “I often try to open up conversations on social media and not close them down.” Can you explain that one?
Mark Dever
Yeah. I’ll sometimes go on Twitter and I’ll just ask a question. And, you know, 1% of the kind of feedback I get will be sort of sarcastic, you know, why don’t you answer your own question kind of stuff.
And I’ve just said, listen, I’m, I genuinely am trying to get people to, I want to hear what they say. So even if I don’t say anything else, if people are responding, a kind of conversation has been started and I would like to—
Jonathan Leeman
Benefit from.
Mark Dever
Yeah. And I would like for each other to learn how to talk to each other.
How Much Time Should a Pastor Spend on Social Media?
Jonathan Leeman
I appreciate your social media, if I may say. You kind of march to your own drummer. You don’t seem to do what a lot of people do.
And I think that would be one example. Some people might be confused by it. Well, Mark, you’re clearly, you’re trying to make a point here.
Go ahead and make your point, okay. I think that’s the subtext, but you’re not doing that. You’re doing something slightly different. I appreciate that. If a pastor is on social media for an hour a day, is that probably too much?
Mark Dever
No, I mean, I mean, you just said probably, so maybe. But I can’t know, I don’t know, they could be counseling a depressed friend over Facebook. I can’t say that.
That’s like asking if you’re on the phone too much. Well, I can’t say that. It’s a means. Are you FaceTiming too much? I don’t know.
I mean, are you discipling somebody? Is there a marriage that you’re counseling? I don’t know the answer to that.
Jonathan Leeman
Interesting though, you put all of that into pastoral categories. You just legitimized being on social media by invoking pastoral categories, pastoral work.
Mark Dever
Yeah. If all you’re doing is staring at the world outside of your congregation—
Jonathan Leeman
You’re watching the news, yes, that.
Mark Dever
Well, I think, you know, feel free and get informed, but unless it’s a very unusual time, I think you want to grab your information outside of work hours or in small amounts during work hours.
Do Pastors Need To Post on Social Media
Jonathan Leeman
I heard someone say, if you’re not speaking on social media, you don’t exist. Now, maybe there’s some truth in that. If you’re a journalist, I don’t know.
Thoughts on that idea, if you’re a pastor? If you’re not speaking on social media, you don’t exist.
Mark Dever
And just explain a little bit of what you think the guy meant.
Jonathan Leeman
I think he meant that is where we build a presence. That’s where people know who we are. That’s where we engage with the world and the ideas of the world.
That’s where we make a change. You garner a reputation and a presence for yourself there. That’s the watering hole. That’s the public square.
And if you really want to make a difference in this world, you got to climb on. You got to talk consistently. And I’m saying, okay, if you’re a journalist, I get it. That’s your job. And there’s some truth in that. But if you’re a pastor, thoughts?
Mark Dever
Yeah, Romans 14:12, Paul says each of us will give an account of himself to God, not to somebody else who thinks I need to speak up. So I’m not finally the servant of someone who has this or that philosophy of Twitter. I assume that person wouldn’t mean that I am to be.
But I would just think, no, in qualifications for being able to teach, I don’t think there is implicit in that a wise use of social media. I think I could be so unwise in my use of it as to make me not eligible to be an elder, but I don’t think that tweeting is a necessary part of pastoring today.
Good Uses of Social Media as a Pastor
Jonathan Leeman
What’s a good use of social media for a pastor? And you know, the next question is going to be what’s a bad use.
Mark Dever
Yeah. If you have members of your congregation who are following you and who watch Twitter a lot, it clearly becomes an opportunity for them to see how you interact how you approach and how you think about things that you think would be useful for them. But there’s so much that comes across my notice that I don’t feel I know initially how to respond to, or at least not in 140 characters.
Jonathan Leeman
280.
Mark Dever
280 characters. I think the response I would have to a lot of situations is not as concise as that. And a lot of it’s dependent on knowing the person.
I had someone today, a pastor from a Presbyterian church contact me via Twitter asking me about some literature on understanding the history of race relations in the US and stuff like that. And I thought about trying to post some things that are helpful, but I just thought this is just, no.
So I just direct messaged him. I said, look, here’s my email, send me your cell phone, let me just call you.
Jonathan Leeman
Yeah. I do that too.
Mark Dever
So I phoned him and I just said, well, listen, a lot of it would depend on who I’m talking to, what things they seem to know, what things they evidently don’t know, they haven’t read about, they didn’t experience, what situations are causing them right now to ask those questions.
So there’s just a lot of things that go into me, kind of like a doctor trying to prescribe a medicine, try to figure out the situation. So the bromides that I can put out or the provocative statements that aren’t going to hurt anybody, that could be useful, that I can put out on Twitter, are in a pretty narrow scope compared to what I can do in a personal conversation where I’m getting to know the individual.
What Can a Pastor Do Well on Social Media?
Jonathan Leeman
What can a pastor do well though on social media? What can Facebook, Twitter, hey pastor, it’s good for this, do this?
Mark Dever
There may occasionally be a situation in which you will see a truth very obviously that at least the people you’re seeing respond seem to be missing. You can try to provide that in a short, succinct, if possible, memorable or maybe even provocative way.
Unless you’re just unusually insightful, I doubt that’s going to happen to you a lot. That may happen occasionally. Yeah, our sermons are not a minute long.
Our sermons are 15 or 25 or 45 or 65 minutes long. We take longer to teach our people than the amount of time we’re given on Twitter. So one of the things that makes Twitter so useful to us with our sort of distracted age is we can, you know, climb on to see what’s happening right now. Well, that’s that in of itself—
Jonathan Leeman
That’s useful.
Mark Dever
I think it is useful. It’s different than me waiting for 5:30 every night growing up in Kentucky to watch the evening news. You know, I can now have the kind of evening news whenever I want it.
And from a bunch of different networks and, and from people I know personally about things that are big that they’re talking about in their lives, but there are so many different views on reality from somebody’s daily experience and reading and reflection offered on Twitter that there’s an infinite amount of information or viewpoints I could soak up there, and I don’t have any more time. You know, before there was Twitter, people had 24 hours in the day.
Now, after Twitter, people have 24 hours in the day. So, I mean, we, you know, we can, we can all volunteer. Okay, if there are 24 and we’re giving one to Twitter, but now we all just have 23 hours a day. Twitter can’t give us any more time.
Jonathan Leeman
Well said.
Mark Dever
So we need to be aware that there is an addictive element, which they, which Twitter understands and means to exploit. And they put a lot of scientific effort into that, about our acquisition of new information about what interests us.
And, uh, they are going to try to make sure that this is fine-tuned to capture as much of our face time as they possibly can have, because that’s how they can ultimately generate more information, which is for them a sellable quantity.
Jonathan Leeman
I remember sitting at a members meeting when I was a member of your church and an elder sitting next to another elder in your church. And both of us had our cell phones sitting on the pew in between us.
And I noticed I kept wanting during this members meeting to kind of reach down and check email, Twitter, and he kept doing the same. And I just thought, this is awful. He and I cannot like not reach into the…it’s addictive.
Mark Dever
Yeah, real life may seem a little slow compared to us finding highlights on Twitter.
Jonathan Leeman
No, I know. But back to the pastor’s use of social media, what’s a poor use?
Mark Dever
No, let me tell you another good use.
Jonathan Leeman
Okay.
Mark Dever
So, very often when I’m working on my sermon, I’ll throw out the scripture passage I’m working on and I’ll ask people to pray for me. And I’ll say, hey, any questions about this text or any insight or things I may not have seen?
And I’ll get 10, 20, 30 responses. And that’s, I’ve helped people to think about God’s word. I’ve created a little bit of a conversation with people who read that and read the responses to it.
And I’m sometimes helped particularly by usually not biblical theology stuff, it’s more like pastoral application kind of stuff. But sometimes biblical theology.
Jonathan Leeman
And from a variety of viewpoints, you might not ordinarily get them from in the church.
Mark Dever
Read something by, yeah, that’s right.
Poor Uses of Social Media as a Pastor
Jonathan Leeman
Okay, poor use of social media for pastors?
Mark Dever
Well, we were just talking about being addicted, being distracted, being consumed, imagining that your final judge is not God, but people liking you on social media or not. Yeah, I don’t tend to block people who disagree with me on Twitter.
I block a lot of people on Twitter. I block people who I think have bad attitudes. It’s just, I don’t need to import bad attitudes into my day.
If you’re not learning to play nicely with people, there are other people you get to play with. I’m not going to be playing with you.
Jonathan Leeman
I think a poor use of Twitter is to try to persuade people.
Mark Dever
I think you’re too pessimistic there.
Jonathan Leeman
I think the medium isn’t conducive to persuasion. I think the medium is conducive to blasts of “what I think”, which in turn kind of draws the boundary lines, reifies the tribes. I think to be persuaded, you need to be able to trust someone or at least be affirmed as in made in God’s image, which you do.
When you write an article or a book for somebody, there’s an implicit, hey, I want to persuade you, so I’m taking the time to try to persuade you, you are made in God’s image. Whereas in a tweet or a Facebook post? It’s just here, think this. I don’t think people are persuaded on Twitter.
Mark Dever
Well, first of all, I think a Facebook post—
Jonathan Leeman
Agree or disagree?
Mark Dever
—I think a Facebook post and Twitter are very different.
Jonathan Leeman
Okay.
Mark Dever
Facebook posts can be quite long.
Jonathan Leeman
I’m actually never on Facebook, I probably shouldn’t say.
Mark Dever
Okay. So what we’re really doing is—
Jonathan Leeman
I know what it is.
Mark Dever
—we’re just talking about Twitter.
Avoid Persuading People On Social Media
Jonathan Leeman
Yeah. Okay. Let’s talk about, I think you should not try to persuade on Twitter. I think you are going to potentially do more damage.
Mark Dever
Yeah. I think you’re technically wrong. I think you’re basically right.
Jonathan Leeman
Technically wrong because…
Mark Dever
I’m sure you can persuade on Twitter. And yes, I’m sure I do.
Jonathan Leeman
Hypothetical category, but realistically…
Mark Dever
No, it’s a minority category. I think, I think you can do it sometimes, but no, I think you’re basically right. I think it’s, it’s, um, the way I see it often conducted.
Now I try to conduct it in a way, you know, I just was reading an example of somebody who corrected me in public five hours ago. And my response—
Jonathan Leeman
That never happens.
Mark Dever
—my response was to write back to him, calling him dear, called him by his first name and—
Jonathan Leeman
Then you thanked him.
Mark Dever
—then thanked him and then explained what I was trying to do, but not in a way that I hope sounds super defensive, just explanatory, you know, and hopefully people could read that and realize like, oh, so this correction is actually a good correction. Oh, but this is the point he was making, just quoting this other author, it was really not really me.
Not Critizing on Social Media
Jonathan Leeman
Okay, let me give you something else that I think is a bad use. We’re dealing in categories of generalities and wisdom here, okay? I think generally, I try not to use it to criticize because again, 280 characters, no body language, no tone of voice, no context, no history of conversation, no human trust established.
If I got on and just criticized and people are going to ascribe to me the worst possible motives I find. And so in general, I just think, hey, there’s a place to criticize, but it’s not on Twitter. Let me try to do that in a more meaningful, better context.
Uh, let me use Twitter to speak positively, drop truth in here or there and so forth, as opposed to go after people. Agree? Is that technically right, but more wrong? Thoughts on that one?
Mark Dever
I’m going to answer the same way. Technically wrong, but basically right. Yeah, I think criticism is a kind of persuasion.
It’s more generally done better in private. There’s a crowd that wants to see you criticize things and will validate your ministry if they see you criticizing things.
Yeah, I don’t think we want pressure or to respond to pressure from that kind of crowd. I’ll trade you this pick for my pen back. Thank you.
Should a Pastor Stay Silent on Social Media?
Jonathan Leeman
Okay. I think it was right there I was using it. Probably what I’ve been hearing most from pastors in recent days is how social media has made the current moment and how members have made them feel pressured to say something on social media.
Silence equals violence and so forth. What do you think about that? Pastor, you gotta say something about this news event.
Mark Dever
I think that we have to be able to be silent. I think we will be responsible for our silence, just like we’re responsible for our words. The one we give account to ultimately is God who knows our motive, knows our ability, knows what we understand and what we don’t understand.
So I would say like the money you have, like the time you have, the talent you have, the Twitter following you have. And, you know, please remember that most of those people who quote, follow, unquote, you on Twitter, don’t read everything you say on Twitter.
They just happen to catch something you say every once in a while. Those people should not control what you say. You may sometimes have something you want to say to them.
Presumably, you do. That’s why you have a Twitter account. But the mere desire that they, and even you may have to know how to speak helpfully about X matter doesn’t mean you have the abilities to do it.
Now you may find yourself having this ability on this and this and this and then in such a way that you want to work on that to create an ability to comment meaningfully on something. Fair enough. But, I think if you’re a pastor, you want to be careful to make sure that what you’re concentrating on is the responsibility you have before the Lord for the congregation that he’s given you.
Jonathan Leeman
I heard you recently say in another context in conversation with pastors, our capacities have not increased one bit since the invention of the telegraph, the telephone, or the internet. And people’s desire for me to speak doesn’t increase my wisdom.
Mark Dever
So true.
Jonathan Leeman
And I think that’s what you’re getting at. Nonetheless, Mark, Proverbs 31 says, “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.
Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and the needy.” So again, back to my question, shouldn’t you be speaking up on Twitter?
Mark Dever
When you can see how you can do that helpfully, yes, but more likely…
Jonathan Leeman
Seems like everything that was in that phrase, when you can seem like you can do that helpfully.
Mark Dever
That’s right. Yeah. Because I’m building into that. The fact that what God has called me to do is not most fundamentally be on Twitter, but most fundamentally to be human, be made in His image, be a husband, a father, a Christian, a member of the church, a pastor of this church, those callings are far more fundamental and basic than any sense of obligation or responsibility I may have on a certain social media platform.
Jonathan Leeman
So again, maybe this is just me being more defensive, I guess I feel like saying silence on social media doesn’t mean silence.
Mark Dever
Correct.
Jonathan Leeman
And pastor, you’re not responsible to the World Wide Web. You’re responsible to your church.
Now, if you’re going to get on the World Wide Web, you’re going to create expectations and you need to manage those expectations wisely. Nonetheless, the World Wide Web is not going to be talking to you on the last day about your stewardship of it.
Mark Dever
Correct.
Jonathan Leeman
God is going to be talking to you on the last day about your stewardship of your church. And so you may need to definitely speak up on certain events to your church, pray this way, teach that way, but it’s not finally crucial that you speak or not speak in a particular way on social media. Fair? True? Do you agree, disagree, push back?
Mark Dever
Agree.
Jonathan Leeman
Anything else you wanna say to the pastor who’s struggling with whether or not he should speak in that context?
Mark Dever
Ask some good friends, fellow elders, what they think of your use of Twitter.
Jonathan Leeman
So I should go to Klon and John Joseph and say, hey guys, what do you think?
Mark Dever
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman
Guys I meet with.
Mark Dever
Yeah. I was talking about one guy’s use of Twitter today, that if I ever use Twitter like that, I hope I’ve got people around me who would tell me what an idiot I’m being. He evidently doesn’t or doesn’t listen to them.
Jonathan Leeman
Right.
Mark Dever
You know, I see him causing division. I think he feels like he’s scoring points that will wake people up, like laughing as, you know, in the story of the emperor’s new clothes. But I fear he’s just encouraging callousness and hardness and a lack of bearing one another’s burdens.
And I think he feels he’s probably creating, and dispelling illusions by mockery. I feel he’s just proving himself someone that I would never want to be around or talk to or have as my pastor.
Jonathan Leeman
You post, and tweet historical dates a lot. What’s your purpose there?
Mark Dever
It’s kind of like a hobby. Some people fish.
Jonathan Leeman
You don’t do anything meaninglessly though, or not deliberately. Why do you post historical dates? Is it really just: I enjoy it?
Mark Dever
Yeah. I mean, I think it helps us to stop breathing so heavily about today. Just remember there have been other days and there will be other days. It just put things in perspective.
And I just feel, if you’ll notice, I almost always will tweet about fives and tens. So if it’s been 15 years or 35 years or 70 years, I don’t tweet if it’s been 76 years or 87 years or 91 years.
Jonathan Leeman
Or seven years, a biblical number.
Mark Dever
I don’t tend to do those. I tend to do the fives and the tens.
Jonathan Leeman
Very Roman, no?
Mark Dever
I don’t know, man, but there’s just, it’s like we’re at Stonehenge and the sun shines through at certain points and the past seems closer to me at certain times. I feel like I’m inhabiting spaces that have been walked through before. And I just kind of want to remind myself of that, to remind myself of my own temporary sojourn here.
Jonathan Leeman
And remind others.
Mark Dever
Yeah, and encourage us to pray.
Jonathan Leeman
You tweet pictures of a construction project in your church parking lot day by day.
Mark Dever
I did for about a year, but it’s…
Jonathan Leeman
Why?
Mark Dever
We may have gotten the certificate of occupancy today.
Jonathan Leeman
Praise the Lord. Why?
Mark Dever
Just I thought people would be interested and maybe we could pray.
Jonathan Leeman
Pray for the project.
Mark Dever
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman
Okay.
Mark Dever
That the Lord would use it. Pastors to be trained could be housed there.
Jonathan Leeman
Any other counsel you want to give brother pastors out there for their own use of Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, I don’t know if any, I’ve not seen pastors..
Mark Dever
Etsy.
Jonathan Leeman
Etsy.
Mark Dever
TikTok.
Jonathan Leeman
Twitter, all that.
Mark Dever
Marco Polo, FaceTime, Google Duo.
Jonathan Leeman
There you go. I don’t know if those are social medias, but…
Mark Dever
The telegraph. Just talk to your fellow elders. Talk to other friends about how you’re using them.
Jonathan Leeman
Guys, am I doing this well?
Mark Dever
Yeah. Thanks for the time, Jonathan.
Jonathan Leeman
Thank you, Mark.
Mark Dever
Yeah, I gotta check my Twitter account.
Subscribe to Pastors Talk
Pastors Talk
A weekly conversation between Jonathan Leeman and Mark Dever about practical aspects of the Christian life and pastoral ministry.
Subscribe and Listen to on: