How and Where Twitter Might Help Worship

Orginally published on Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 7:29 AM
by Todd Rhoades

Taylor Burton-Edwards has written an article about Twitter use in worship over at the UMC.org Web site. Today, I'll quote what he has to say about how Twitter might be helpful during worship. Tomorrow, come back for his ways that Twitter could be a problem. I'd love your comments... Taylor writes:

One of the big challenges in worship with a relatively large group is allowing for a sense of genuine interactivity where that is what is called for at particular parts of the service. Dialogue between "the experts up front" and "the masses in the pew" can be very difficult to foster. People don't tend to be willing or ready to speak up in large public gatherings. Or perhaps only a few of those present do; and over time, they become the only ones who ever do.

With Twitter, instead of standing up and talking loudly or into a microphone (which has to get to where the person is), people can give their feedback at interactive moments from where they are, and all who do this can have their comment, or question, or request for prayer, or even testimony immediately viewed by all in the assembly. And many people can do this at once, so the time it takes to allow each person to speak is greatly compressed. With Twitter's 140 character limit per message, no message will take very long to read, either.

One person who found Twitter helpful put it this way: “I’ve been using Twitter for months now. But today, I actually ‘tweeted’ our two services and liked it. It made me a better listener. It helped me synthesize my thoughts and helped me ask ‘What now?’ in response to the message.”

So what are the interactive moments in worship where Twitter might really help? These could be such times as gathering prayer requests, responding to a Scripture reading or sermon, or perhaps even a response to a call to discipleship or a request for a testimony.

One other use, from Trinity Wall Street, is to Twitter the actions of the service as they are happening, not for the folks who are present but for those who are absent. Trinity did this for their passion play this year. This allowed everyone in the world who had access to the designated tweet to follow the contours of the play as it was happening, and did so in a way that was not legally either a “performance” or even a “broadcast”—which also meant that it did not require the church to purchase copyrights and licenses since it was not sharing anything that was copyrighted this way.

While Trinity normally Webcasts its principal Sunday morning worship service, congregations that cannot afford the broadcast costs or the technology or the licensing to do this could still follow Trinity’s example by tweeting the contours of their worship services for those who are absent. As long as no copyrighted text is tweeted, no performance, mechanical or synchronization licenses would need to be purchased.

Here’s the link to the article. What do YOU think?

This post has been viewed 268 times so far.


  There are 3 Comments:

Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.

MondayMorningInsight.com | PO Box 446 | Bryan, OH 43506 |