A NORTH Lancashire vicar hit the heights of social media stardom at the weekend after making a humourous contribution to a Twitter ‘hashtag callout’.

Twitter – the social media channel where people say ‘what’s happening’ in 140 characters or less - often puts out requests for contributions in relation to a specific hashtag and on Friday asked for people to #badlyexplainyourjob

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As Twitter jokingly explained, they simply wanted people to explain what their job was all about … badly!

The Rev Nancy Goodrich, vicar of Holy Trinity Parish Church, Bolton-le-Sands, was having a break after taking an end of term Easter Communion Service service in a local school and fired off her contribution while drinking a morning cuppa.

‘I’ve married many men, and I know where all the bodies are buried.’

Ms Goodrich thought no more about it and got on with her work. It was only when she looked at her phone later that she realised the number of ‘likes’ and ‘retweets’ were going through the roof – already numbering in the thousands!

Her tweet had caught the collective imagination of Twitter users and soon the number of people following her account began to shoot up as well. People were loving her contribution, and to Ms Goodrich’s delight most were not churchgoers.

As the day progressed she was ‘trending’; easily won the race for best #badlyexplainyourjob tweet and was highlighted by the social media giant as a ‘Twitter Moment’. Ms Goodrich even got celebrity endorsement when Gyles Brandreth quoted her and added: “You can’t beat an amusing vicar …”

By Monday morning it had been seen by more than a million Twitter users; ‘liked’ by nearly 30,000; had been retweeted more than 10,000 times, while the vicar’s own follower numbers had quadrupled.

Ms Goodrich said: “I was stunned by the response – when I showed my teenage daughter I was trending on Twitter she said: ‘Yeah, that’s cool’.

“It shows the power of social media for good. When people realised the person who had tweeted was a real vicar it was clear many previously had the mistaken impression that we don’t have a sense of humour!

“But church can be fun and I’ve really enjoyed reading and responding to the many humorous and supportive responses I’ve received, including inviting some of the responders to my church on the back of it all.

“It has been a bit overwhelming but it was very exciting when my tweet became a Twitter Moment.”

She added: “Having so many extra followers as Easter time approaches and we remember the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross also gives me a great platform as a country vicar to share the Good News with many more people.”