My work in digital marketing for a Christian publishing house tends to spill over to my friends, relatives, and neighbors through various social media platforms. So while I’m not technically “in ministry”, like it or not some people may view my social presence as being representative of a ministry.

Since this is just a fact of my life, I try my best to keep my nose clean online—no lewd jokes, no strong political views either way, stay positive—you know the drill.

This recently backfired on me in a pretty big way.

My mother called me, and after dancing around the issue a bit, she asked me if I’d taken up a new hobby: witchcraft! Once I picked myself up off the floor, Mom admitted that someone had seen a post I promoted on Facebook from MinistryMatters.com entitled “Witchcraft and Christianity”. Of course, the concerned party hadn’t read the article, which happened to be written by my friend and United Methodist lay speaker Shane Raynor and addressed the Christian response to all things witchy. The individual was concerned enough to call my mom out on it in the middle of Wednesday morning Bible study! To say I was horrified would be putting it lightly.

I would venture to guess that most of us who are not necessarily in the limelight, but with ties to ministry, try to avoid this kind of misconception. Your online reputation can be tarnished with a few taps on your keyboard and unfortunately digital memory is very, very good.

When’s the last time you posted something and got a cringe-worthy response? Be honest, I won’t judge.

(Thank goodness Mom didn’t see me post the “Do Vampires Exist?” article Shane did earlier this week. She knows I love Twilight and might get some ideas!)