"I don’t mean to judge… or criticize… like…………………. it’s their FB they can do what they want, but it seems a little eerie to me that my old pastors who would post up bible verses and encouragements from time to time on their FB now only post about their marriage life ever since they got married and what they do with their wives and their vacations and their pregnancies….idk I feel off about it" - JK

Wow, after I read this, I started noticing this trend too. Somehow I have managed to become fb friends with an entire class of seminary students, now most of them pastors or interns somewhere. I guess this can also apply to all IV staff I used to know too (fb friends with 30+ of them).

I think yeah, they are allowed to be normal humans and show off a little what God has blessed them with in their lives, but I cannot deny that somewhere along that life they probably had a heart shift. Maybe its focusing on their attention from the people they shepherd to the growing family that God has provided them now. After a lot of reading and sermons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veRrjNNZwlU, Fit to be Tied by Bill Hybels, 1 Timothy 3:12 as examples), I now know that pastors need to provide and love their wives and family before the congregation, so maybe the pictures are stemming from this duty.

Still, the shift should never be 100% this to 100% that. Balance is key to a healthy spiritual Christian. Just like we need to balance our view of the sovereignty of God, between a loving God and a just God, these leaders in the local-community-that-is church (my definition, so it encompasses everyone, not just professional roles) need to balance their own personal lives with the lives of the church as a whole. Don't make me bring up C.S. Lewis's individualism vs. collectivism illustration (for those who don't know, the short answer is balance between the two, falling to either side means we've entered Satan's traps). So in short, when you see this dramatic shift in use of social media, which can be used for God's glory, you realized that there got to be some kind of selfishness (aka idolatry of self) underlying it all. Even a little. That's why it makes brothers and sisters feel off.

Responsibility for the church should never fall onto one person, not even the pastor. I think as their brothers and sisters, as their accountability partners, as their sheep in the congregation, we can gently remind them that they used to encourage us through the Word or snippets of wisdom or testimony, and that we would like to see that again. They are also going to need encouragement from us too.

We all need a little reminder that we love God and our entire lives are about worshiping Him.