Pastors ‘pasturing’ their flock?

Last week, as Lent began I noticed more than a few friends saying goodbye to Facebook for the next month. Social media is the new chocolate or booze—it can be addicting and it’s something identifiable that can be given up for Lent.

Social media, however, has for a few years now been helping people engage spiritually. That’s why a San Francisco pastor told NPR that people shouldn’t give up social media for Lent if it helps them grow spiritually.

That makes sense. The transcript of that interview didn’t:

Rev. REYES-CHOW: Yeah, you know, pasturing a church that’s in its 20s and 30s and myself not being of that ilk, I turned 40 about 18 months ago, it’s a different world for me. You know, I didn’t grow up with social media. I didn’t grow up with that kind of technology. I was right at the beginning in the cusps of that. Whereas I think there’s a generation of people now where that’s the air they breathe, it’s the water they drink, it’s the world in which they live.

I think that’s pastoring, not pasturing, though the concept is humorous.