Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Should worship leaders/pastors be posting selfies?


A recent blog from “The Friday Pickle” carried this title: “Should worship leaders be posting selfies?” by Craig Borlase on 4 April 2014. The short post actually provided more what-if/maybe scenarios than answers to the question.

So, I have decided to be impish and offer my own answer to the question: Should worship leaders (or pastors) be posting selfies? My tongue-in-cheek view is yes. And here are 10 reasons
 why…from the members' perspective:-

1) Your members need to know that you are still alive for the rest of the week.

2) Your members need to know that you always look that good throughout the week (and not just on Sundays).

3) Your members may at the opportune time be thinking about the church and your selfie appearing just at that exact moment would make them feel that they are
 highly favored (even if the selfie is not exactly addressee-specific).

4) Your members need to know that as their mediagenic shepherd, you not just share to care but you also care to share (and not just your words but your looks and what you might be wearing at that divinely-appointed time together with a set of Colgate-fortified teeth to boot).

5) Your members need a
 personal touch from you - spirit, soul and the whole body...up close and personal as a form of corporate encouragement.

6) Your members need to know that you are watching them watching themselves in their speech and conduct when interacting with the world during the weekdays.

7) Your members may be thinking about something unwholesome at that time and
 your timely selfie may be the only intervening spiritual pop-up to pop that thought out.

8) Your members may be reminded of praying for the church by the godsend selfie.

9) Your members need a picture of you every once in a while so that they can either store them or send it to other members as a reminder that you are watching them watching themselves living up for God.


10) And lastly, and this is most important, your members need to know on an absolute must-know basis that you have not been raptured by God and left them behind to fend for themselves.

NOW, from the perspective of the worship leader/pastor, posting selfies is absolutely necessary because of the following 5 reasons:-

1) You need to keep your members up to date on how you
 look during the week so that they will retain that consistent image of you in their mind when Sunday comes. This is to prevent any form of surprises, however frivolous, that may distract them from you when you're on stage.

2) You need to remind your members that your smile is as authentic as they come by and they have no cause for alarm regarding the genuineness of your profile, your portrait and your pious projection on days other than Sunday.


3) You need to assure your members that there is no hanky-panky on your part at any time of the day, be it morning, night or noon (even early dawn), and you are someone who walks the talk and talks the walk.

4) You want your members to catch a glimpse of your normal self away from the weekend limelight so as to give them the casual, candid, and rustic feel.

5) Finally, and this is also 
important, you need to assure your members that you have not been raptured by God as yet, and you will still be available for Sunday service...unless of course you get raptured just before Sunday worship and get your members all riled up like meerkats staring frantically at their smartphones hoping for a selfie of you to pop up so as to disconfirm their greatest apocalyptic fear.

I hereby rest my case. Cheerz.
 

Caveat: Not to be taken seriously if you are a selfie-posting church leader who does it regularly because you love your members so much that you want them to know that unlike words, a picture of you, truly and most sincerely, paints a thousand words; if not gazillions in your case. Or, if it is all in the name of honest good fun, then fire away!

No comments:

Post a Comment