Elizabeth Drescher is a religion writer and scholar of Christian spirituality. She writes commentary on religion, culture, and social media for the online magazine, Religion Dispatches and multiple other journals. Drescher’s first book, Tweet If You Love Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation, will be published later this year. Currently she teaches in the undergraduate program in Religious Studies and the graduate program in Pastoral Ministry at Santa Clara University. Previously Drescher was the director of the Center for Anglican Learning & Leadership and Assistant Professor of Christian Spiritualities at Church Divinity School of the Pacific.
Recently she wrote an article, “Bouncers at the Door to the Digital Church (Or, How Social Media Makes Things Worse for Inhospitable Churches),” exploring how some churches and individual pastors have created exclusive digital domains where only those deemed worthy may enter. She begins by agreeing with so many other social media experts who see tremendous benefits from “participating in the social media landscape for churches and ministers of all stripes.” However, she cautions that all participation is neither equal nor appropriate. Some participation can be worse than no participation when that participation is closed to all but a select few:
I’m routinely gobsmacked when I find a private or “invitation only” church Facebook page or a “protected” church Twitter feed. Even more shocking to me is when I come across a protected Twitter feed for an individual clergy person.
So What?
For years churches have focused on being and becoming more welcoming to those who make their way to a church’s physical campus. One of the attractive features of both the congregation I am now a part of and the denomination it is affiliated with are their commitment to extending a radical welcome. This same denomination, the United Church of Christ, used the bouncer image in one of the most publicized commercials ever produced by a religious group. Contrasting the reality that all are not welcome or may feel bounced from many churches, this commercial and others in the series sought to spread the message that all are welcome in the United Church of Christ on their physical church campuses.
A new day has come; local congregations must continue to be welcoming onsite, most potential newcomers will have an online experience that precedes a visit to the physical church campus. What will their first impressions be? In Drescher’s words, “What impression of the church as welcoming community could they possibly take from a Facebook page with a guard at the front door?”
Consider the final words in her article:
. . . it is my suggestion that churches and leaders in ministry who feel unable, for whatever reason, to have open social media locales would do well to opt out of the Digital Reformation entirely. Otherwise, for the sake of those who are trying to use the blessings of new digital connectedness to nourish and extend relationships with whosoever might follow or friend, I’d suggest they use a non-churchy-sounding pseudonym online.
Do you agree or disagree with this recommendation? Why?