Twitter Theology: Is it Just a “happy place” for Pastors
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Wed, November 11, 2009
- Viewed 157
- (5) comments so far
Scot McKnight has written a piece over at Out of Ur about Twittering Pastors. Scott writes:
Over time I’ve noticed that many pastors tweet links to business people and leadership gurus, Seth Godin being the most common. We discover plenty of emphasis on news items, especially controversial ones. Pastors often became “green” in the recent Iranian student revolution. Pastors tweet a lot about sports. There seems to be a near obsession in pastor tweets with terms like “creativity” and “innovation,” and a corresponding neglect of our great tradition or our heritage in the Church.
Pastors tweet quotes from their reading, and inform us of what they are reading. Sunday tweets tend to be gratitude tweets. We also regularly discover who is meeting with whom (and the “whom” is always a notch above the “who”), or where someone is traveling. We hear about accomplishments but almost never any failures or disappointments, making the Twitter world largely a happy face community.
As someone who considers himself a pretty intensive 'twitterer' (but not a pastor by trade), I do see some trends among pastors when they are tweeting; but I may see it a little differently than Scot.
Here are some things that I see:
1. There are two different types of 'pastor twitterers'. One that shares more personal things about their life (@perrynoble); and another set who just shares upbeat tidbits, phrases, and encouraging words (@rickwarren). I follow and read both.
2. There are two different audiences for 'pastor twitterers': the first is their own church; the second is the larger community of pastors and church world.
3. I think it's good when pastors tweet about what they're learning, and what they're reading. It sometimes does influence what I read; or spur me on to look closer into a certain topic.
4. I also enjoy reading tweets about innovation and creativity. Scot calls this a 'near obsession'. Could be. But I don't see this as a bad thing.
5. Do pastors neglect the 'great traditions and heritage' of the church in their tweets? Maybe so. Maybe not intentionally. Maybe they just don't make for interesting tweets. In many churches, the 'great traditions and heritage' has produced a dead or dying, declining church. Many of the guys I follow aren't much into heritage and tradition. Again, I don't think this is necessarily bad (while our heritage is certainly important).
6. Sorry, but I love Seth Godin. Brilliant mind. Secular, but briliant. And much of what Seth writes speaks directly into the church. Why do we think we need to be only influenced by Christian thinkers?
7. Scot says that we almost never hear about disappointments or failures. I disagree. I think many of the pastors I follow are very transparent. Very human. Could be that we hear about accomplishments and successes more because of their leadership and style than anything else.
Scott asks pastors who Tweet this:
So, let me ask pastors who tweet and who update their status a few simple questions: What do your updates tell us about what you are doing? About what is uppermost on your mind? About what is most important to you? It is time to take stock. Perhaps you are like me—using social media to draw the attention and time of others to something else. But where are we leading these folks? What do our links reveal about what is most important to us? About what is uppermost on our minds?
What do you think? Why do you tweet? Is it to benefit you or others?
You can read all of Scot's thoughts here at Out of Ur...
Todd
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