Category Archives: Ministry

Rules for Blogging as Clergy or a Clergy Spouse

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If you’ve read my blog for at least five years or more, you know that my husband is a Lutheran pastor and I’m thus a pastor’s wife. A number of my online friends are clergy buddies or people who are married to clergy and I’ve seen bad things happen to people who aren’t judicious in what they put on their blogs or on Facebook. (It’s happened to me too though it was nothing I wrote but rather the fact that I had a blog.) So… in the interest of helping out any clergy hopefuls (and also giving a resource to certain synod staff who read my blog), here are my rules for blogging as clergy or a clergy spouse.

1.) Don’t use your whole name. My last name is pretty searchable and while this blog isn’t the first item that comes up, it does eventually come up on a Google search. Unless you *REALLY* want people (including parishioners) reading everything you write, don’t use your whole name.

2.) Pseudonyms are good. A good clergy blog friend of mine uses pseudonyms for her husband, sons, church, and town. It means that she’s a bit harder to find online if someone does a search for her. While I use my real name, I think creating your own pseudonym is a better idea. Nickname your church(es) and your town (if you live in a small one).

3.) Anything you say can and WILL be used against you so password the good stuff. Had a crappy council meeting? If you blog it, you need to password it. WordPress lets you do that and Livejournal even hides posts that are “friends-only” and will let you filter who sees what. If you go with a CMS like WordPress, title things in a way that doesn’t draw attention to what they might be. For example, “Stupidity at Church Council” probably isn’t a good title. “Frustration” might work better.

4.) Don’t “friend” parishioners or give out your password. If you have a Facebook, consider making a censored one for parishioners so they aren’t privy to your personal life, especially if ANY of your status updates involve church. If you have a blog, don’t give your password out to people in your real life. If those people get pissed at you, you’re opening yourself up for a whole lot of trouble as well as hours of work re-passwording everything.

5.) Don’t use your blog to air the dirty laundry in your parish. If you’re pissed about something and need to get it off your chest, do a private entry. (Both WordPress and Livejournal will let you do that.) This harkens back to rule #3 — your people will get royally irritated if they think that you’re using your blog as a platform to harp about them, so don’t give them a reason to think that you are.

6.) Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your worst enemy to see. We’ve all heard about people losing their jobs or being denied acceptance to Ivy League schools over a stupid picture on Facebook. Your blog functions similarly. People might not be able to access the actual entry but they *can* find it accidentally in a Google search. Don’t put something up there for them to find.

7.) If you’re a clergy spouse, remember that anything you say has the effect of your spouse saying it. I’m rather passionate about a lot of issues and I either have to password my rants or take a milder tone because anything I say will be co-opted as something that my husband said. It isn’t fair but it’s a reality. If you have a rant, password it or put it in a private entry. Better yet, have a separate passworded blog for your ranting — it’s what some of my friends do.

This isn’t a totally humorous entry but it’s one that I thought was important and timely, especially as I’m watching pastor friends venting openly on Facebook and thinking “you really need to protect that….”

“Bones” Episode on Evil

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I watched “Bones” for probably the first time after “House” tonight and the premise of it was a priest and altar boy coming upon a fire on the altar in which something resembling a demon or devil was being immolated. I didn’t much care for the show in general — it wasn’t as good as “CSI” or “Law & Order”, mostly because the plot kind of wrapped up in the last 30 seconds in a really weird slapdash way.

It was,however, an interesting show in that you saw the views on the existence of evil from various characters including a Catholic, a Muslim, and Temperance (Bones) herself who has an atheist/scientific view point. I’m not totally a fan of how religious issues are portrayed on TV because the writers seldom “get it right”. (Please spare me the lecture about how “TV is not an indication of reality”. I’m fully aware that show like “CSI” and “House” are fictitious.) It was definitely fascinating to see how each character’s perception of evil influenced the way they reacted to the situation from the Catholic repeatedly genuflecting when they were in the church to the Muslim (Vazari?) talking about the difference between angels and demons in Islam. It appealed to the religious scholar in me and the interest I have in comparative religion.

It also begs the question for me of how I perceive evil in the world. I’m not sure that I believe in a corporeal devil or that demons have bodies. Nevertheless, I do believe that evil exists and that there is an evil force (Satan or “the Great Adversary”) acting in the world. Why else do we have war, hatred, violence, etc? I want to believe that good always triumphs but I also (in an Arminian way) believe that a lot of what happens that is evil is the consequence of our actions and our lack of consideration of others which is part of our inate selfishness as fallen people. Good can only do so much in those cases and it takes a whole lot of good to overcome so much evil.

As for why earthquakes and natural disasters happening, I want to say God is in control and I have to believe it. It is however hard to explain so much death and suffering other to say that much of it stems from poverty caused by capitalism and our annoying habit of valuing our personal wealth over the needs of others. (Example: Joel Osteen and all the other “mega-church” pastors could probably sell their massive properties and donate the money to feed the poor and rebuild Haiti instead of building bigger barns and buildings for themselves. *stepping off my soapbox*) I heard recently that only 10% of the aid pledged to Haiti has actually come through, which is really saddening to me as a Christian because I believe that we do have a duty to help our brothers and sisters (i.e. FULFILLING OUR FREAKING PLEDGES OF AID) instead of welching on our pledge.

What do you think, y’all?

Sounds Familiar

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LA Times: Justice’s wife launches ‘tea party’ group

The gist of this is that Clarence Thomas’ wife is launching a “tea party” group and this is testing the idea of political impartiality for the Court.

For me, this is called N-O-R-M-A-L. After being a pastor’s wife for 6 1/2 years, I know that anything I say/do can be used against me in the court of public opinion. Whatever I say = the same thing as Jon saying it from the pulpit. It’s pretty irritating because I don’t agree with Jon on certain things and I may not agree with parishioners. Thus, it works out MUCH better if I do political things very quietly.