Social Media is perhaps one of the single greatest tools that's been made available to the Church within the last decade. Maybe I'm overstating the case but I really believe the tools of twitter, Facebook, Pintrest, and I am sure others that I don't even know about have helped connect believers in a new and unique way. When before the last decade could you put out an instant thought or profound truth God shared with in your quiet time and have hundreds of other people read it almost simultaneously?
This is the power of social media and thankfully it is at our disposal. I wish even more churches and pastors understood the value of these tool to help feed their flocks. Its important that I make it very clear from the outset of this blog I am not at all against social media. Because I imagine what I am getting ready to say next might seem as if it contradicts that notion. Here goes though...
Many are familiar with one of the most if not the most popular social media tool "twitter". Where one can follow those they are friends with, admire or even want to be like. Some twitter users literally follow hundreds upon hundreds of people. Most of their purpose in doing so is to get that same person to follow them back. Thus boosting their number of followers which then allows one to boast about having more followers than the next person. (I'll stop here before I get carried away and go onto another topic).
The really interesting thing about twitter is not the following/followers ratio. Rather its the level playing field of characters that each person who joins twitter is allowed to publish. Or the more technically correct term "tweet". Everyone at any given time has the freedom to tweet so long as it is 140 characters or less. This avoids redundancy and boredom of having to read through meaningless jargon that people would otherwise tweet. But the real worry I have in regards to the whole twitter mania is twofold. One really isn't as much a worry as its an observation/encouragement for the church as a whole.
First, how many of us allow twitter and those 140 character tweets we see on a constant minute by minute day by day basis to be our sole source of biblical/theological instruction and or communication with God? Have I been guilty of this before? Of course. I am grateful for the profound wisdom and thought provoking material that gets shared on a daily basis via twitter, but sometimes I allow that to be the only source that spiritually feeds me. And I must profess and confess that is wrong because it leaves me severely spiritually malnourished.
But this bridges the gap to my last thought and the very purpose behind this blog post to begin with. Many of us don't care that we are malnourished as believers. We are totally satisfied with a 140 character message or a mini spiritual Facebook Post to feed us. The challenge then is to not settle for 140 characters but plunge deeper into the awesome, wonder and splendor of who God is and how He has chosen to reveal himself.
I have a fear that there will come a day when that the normative pattern in Christians is to be a mile wide and an inch deep. Receiving many inspirational thoughts and ideas from their pastor and others but never going beyond those tweets to discover the fullness of truth that is behind those tweets and posts which was what was trying to be shared to begin with. My purpose in saying this not to encourage a mass of headstrong biblically literate and dogmatic Christians. But rather to encourage Christ-followers to the following; comprehend enough about God through the theological grid of understanding that we've been given from His word so that we are not shaken in the storms of life.
Twitter is great but often times it's simply not adequate to meet the demands that a sovereign God has woven into the fabric of our souls. So a motto to leave us with from this blog.... GO BEYOND THE TWEET!
Still Striving,
Brock B
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