Social Media Boundaries in the UCC

Social Media Boundaries for UCC Clergy

Opportunities for Ministry

Connection and Relationship

Pastoral Care

• Stay in touch with family and friends

• Learn what is going on in people's lives

• Discern what is important to the people you serve

• Find people with shared values

• Build and sustain communities

• See and hear what is going on in people's lives

• Listen

• Provide a safe space to share stories, hear grief, offer grace

• Connect to others - you are not alone

Social Trends and Evangelism

• Share news, information, events

• See what conversations are trending and what stories are being shared

• Retweet, Repost, Share

• Promote and display core values of the church

• Promote activities of the church

• Amplify voices

• Debate

Best Practices

While Serving

With Children and Youth

Grounding for the Work

• Do you initiate friend/follow requests?

• Do discern how and whether to accept friend/follow requests

• Consider: whose story is this to tell?

• Do encourage face-to-face conversations for sensitive concerns

• Do keep a list of any passwords for online groups you administer

• Do consider having separate accounts for personal and professional use where possible

• Avoid vague postings

Theological Grounding

• Do not submit "friend"/follow requests to youth

• No "confidential" or "private" conversations on social media

• Build and use safeguards for online communications

• Use privacy settings, and remind that social media = public space

• Create group covenants for any youth group pages

• Follow mandatory reporting requirements

• Do not post photos of minors on social media, certainly without permission

Boundary Considerations

• Trinity is interconnected

• Three-in-One God calls us to relationships of authenticity, wholeness, integrity

• Covenants of support and accountability help us embody holy relationships

• Authorized ministers' appropriate use of power

• Whose story is this to share?

• Who else needs to know what has been shared?

• How is transparency being modeled?

During and After Transitions

• Create and communicate your Social Media Transition Plan

• Pass along administrator duties, remove self as administrator, share passwords with appropriate leaders

• Best practice is to unfriend/unfollow all parishioners; sometimes appropriate to create separate list for former parishioners

• Refer all pastoral concerns to the current pastoral leadership

• Follow your Transition Plan

• Pray for your former ministry setting and for its new ministerial leadership

Expectations for Ministry

Social Media = Public Space

Availability of Clergy

• No legal or practical expectation of privacy

• Inform parishioners that social media does not allow for confidentiality

• Manage "privacy" through lists, private messages, closed or secret groups

• Manage confidentiality by minimizing confidential conversations on social media

• People are always there

• People expect you to always be there

• People expect you to see what they have posted there (and may not think to share with you in other ways)

Liability Concerns

• Mandatory Reporting Laws

• Use of social media nullifies confidentiality (i.e., no "seal of the confessional")