Using Twitter to tweet (send) 140-character messages to friends and associates might seem esoteric to you, or even a big bother. But don’t dismiss it too quickly. Your children or grandchildren are probably tweeting.
Here’s a wonderful little blog post that shows the outreach opportunities inherent in twitter – or facebook, for that matter. If you’ve been wondering how these social networking sites might be used to touch lives, you’ll want to read this report and real-life vignette:
Twitter as an outreach opportunity.
“The attraction of Twitter…is its brief immediacy and apparent intimacy. People share their moment by moment emotions in a raw way that they would probably not do in the more thoughtful environment of a normal blog. ‘Tweets’ are more like talking than writing…”
And now tweeting is being practiced within worship services! Does that seem rude? Matt Carlisle, a technology consultant for faith-based groups, points out that people have been writing sermon notes on their worship bulletins for decades. It’s not the presence of a cell phone in worship that’s rude – but allowing it to ring in the middle of services. For taking notes, or typing out a sermon-reflective message to other worshippers or friends and twitter followers, it’s no more disruptive than pencil and paper. In fact, it can help spread a sense of community among worshippers sharing thoughts, it can help those who could not attend to keep up with events, and it can help spread the gospel message to non-churched followers of those who do attend.
Some churches have taken twitter technology even further by posing questions during the sermon and inviting members to tweet their responses. Those responses might be flashed on the church’s big screen, or only show up on the preacher’s cell phone. Either way, they can be taken into account as the sermon develops – which helps to create a real-life teaching dialog between the pastor and the membership.
Read more about this new trend in how Americans worship in this article from The National Catholic Reporter:
The Gospel According to Twitter.
“If the old rules aren’t helping anyone in their walk and their relationship with Jesus, if you can pull out your iPhone and Twitter something about the sermon and that helps your whole group of friends, we’re not going to frown on that at all.”
For more about how to use technology in worship – written for people just beginning to explore the field from the perspective of a nationally-respected Christian communications specialist who wants technology in the church to avoid dazzle while advancing the worship of God: Shultze, Quentin, High-Tech Worship? Using Presentational Technologies Wisely.
To enter into the discussion about how technology frames the faith quest of our children: Rice, Jesse, The Church of Facebook: How the Hyperconnected Are Redefining Community.
For help wrapping your congregation’s thinking around online outreach: Long, Jimmy, Generating Hope: A Strategy for Reaching the Postmodern Generation; and Careaga, Andrew, eMinistry: Connecting with the Net Generation.
