Apart from forty-six notifications linking sermon uploads to YouTube, the page contains fifty-four additional posts. Twelve of these consist solely of a verse of Scripture, offered without comment, explanation, application, or prayer. One post, dated 13 January, lists seven things the minister claims to have learned, but provides no expansion, teaching, or pastoral reflection. Another consists of photographs from the ordination of a minister. The remainder, roughly forty posts, are reposts or copied material from other figures deemed respectable or aligned with the right theological and cultural posture. 

There are no pastoral explanations of sermons, no doctrinal instruction, no prayer requests, no answered prayers, no local encouragements, and no engagement with the lived life of the congregation.

Visibility Without Shepherding

What, then, is being communicated? The page is active, but not pastoral. It is visible, but not instructive. It speaks often, but never in its own voice. In effect, the page functions less as an extension of shepherding and more as a tool of self-presentation. Even the Scripture posts, stripped of explanation, subtly reinforce this. The verse is displayed, but the labour of teaching is avoided. The appearance of faithfulness is preserved, while the cost of interpretation and application is sidestepped.

Why would this be the situation of a church public social media platform?

Why This Pattern Persists

One plausible explanation is risk aversion. Teaching requires clarity, and clarity invites evaluation. To explain a sermon further is to expose one’s theology, pastoral instincts, and exegetical judgment to scrutiny. Reposting avoids this exposure entirely. Scripture verses without comment cannot be disagreed with. Quoted voices cannot be held to account locally. The minister remains visible while remaining insulated. Over time, safety becomes strategy.

A second explanation is authority by association rather than by labour. By consistently reposting the “right” people, the page signals theological alignment without theological output. The minister appears serious, orthodox, and well-positioned, not because he has taught, but because he stands near those who do. This is a form of reflected credibility. It does not require the slow, often lonely work of developing thought, nor the vulnerability of saying something in one’s own voice that could be tested or corrected.

A third factor may be a reduced doctrine of pastoral responsibility. If ministry is subconsciously understood as maintaining reputational respectability rather than feeding particular sheep, then curation feels sufficient. Social media becomes an exercise in moral signalling rather than pastoral extension. The congregation is not addressed as a people needing instruction, but as an audience passively observing correctness.

Matthew 23:5 provides the necessary diagnostic lens: “They do all their deeds to be seen by others.” Jesus is not condemning false doctrine here, but religious action recalibrated toward visibility. Reposting the right voices, sharing orthodox sentiments without engagement, and surrounding oneself with approved figures allows a minister to accrue credibility without exposure. The gains are real. There is the gain of alignment without accountability, authority without authorship, affirmation without vulnerability. Over time, this becomes a stable mode of operation precisely because it carries low risk and high social reward.

The contrast with other Presbyterian churches in Victoria is instructive. Pages such as Geelong North and Kangaroo Ground use social media sparingly, but purposefully. Sermons are briefly explained. Key ideas are clarified. The minister’s task remains teaching, not curating. There is little sense of self-promotion, because the aim is not to be seen as thoughtful, but to help people think Christ and the Word.

The damage done by the former approach is subtle but serious. Congregations are trained to look elsewhere for nourishment. Teaching is outsourced. God is presented as satisfied with signal rather than substance. Ministry becomes proximity to truth rather than the costly work of handling of it.

When a church’s public voice consistently avoids teaching while amplifying the voices of others, it reveals not strategy but theology. And the theology it reveals is one where appearance has quietly displaced shepherding.