Twittering in church?

Could churches really be encouraging worshippers to USE their phones during the worship service? Some pastors are saying a resounding yes. According to a recent Time article, Twittering in church with the Pastor's O.K, Senior pastors at Westwinds Community Church in Jackson, Mich., 'spent two weeks educating their congregation about Twitter, the microblogging site that challenges users to communicate in 140 characters or less. They held training sessions in which congregants brought in their laptops, iPhones and BlackBerrys. They upped the bandwidth in the auditorium.' Why would they do this?  Because pastors like John Voelz and David McDonald at Westwinds are realizing that if church is about creating community, social networking tools like twitter may be an incredibly useful way to accomplish this. Other churches are joining in: Mars Hill in Seattle, WA have encouraged their attenders to tweet throughout the service, expressing their questions, their thoughts, their takeaways. Seacoast Church in Mt. Pleasant, SC has used twitter and text messaging to encourage questions from congregants during the sermon, where their questions were posted on a screen and answered live in the message. The benefits? Worshippers can express their thoughts, feelings and questions as they occur, maybe to be acknowledged later by their pastor, or right then by another worshipper. Instead of having their thoughts scrawled on notes or paper that can be lost, they have a record of them in their twitter log. The downsides? It definitely has to have it's time and place and not distract from quiet reflection or attentive listening. As the Time article stated, 'There's a time and place for technology, and most houses of worship still say it's not at morning Mass. But instead of reminding worshippers to silence their cell phones, a small but growing number of churches across the country are following Voelz's lead and encouraging people to integrate text-messaging into their relationship with God.' Could your church be ready?

email sherry @ sherry.surratt@leadnet.org

Comments

[Mike]

Maybe I am old fashioned... but, it seems to me that the sermon is the time when we are trying to hear from God (who doesn't twitter).
(Acts 10:33) " ...Now therefore, we are all present before God, to hear all the things commanded you by God."

[ray]

I agree with Mike on this one! My a bible class is cool.