What Would Jesus Tweet?

More recently, as thousands of Iranians took to the streets in Tehran and elsewhere to protest a clearly corrupt election process, the preponderance of any news we were getting here in the west came via Twitter as courageous people sent messages all over the world.

I am a grandfather six times over. This, by definition, means I am an old dog who has difficulty learning new tricks. It is a proven fact that the older we get the harder it is to acquire knowledge and skills on a conceptual level. If you doubt this, prepare to be humbled soon as some 5-year-old gives you a tutorial on a video game.

How much of our resistance to any change is more about the fact that new things intimidate us instead of the well-articulated arguments we pontificate about? "Well, back in my day, we didn't have sliced bread or running water. We even had to grow our own oxygen."

Scott Bettinger, is the president of Echo Media in the Detroit, Mich., area. His company specializes in helping churches and other organizations tap into the power of technology. He suggests that, "Whether or not pastors dive into social media, at the very least they need to understand it to better understand their people."

I heard Andy Stanley talk a few years ago about how so many preachers spend way too much time fighting culture—and social media is smack dab in the middle of culture—when instead we should see it as the wind, something to be harnessed. I have in my files sermons preached in the early 1920s decrying the use of radio to preach the gospel, warning that using such a medium was beneath the dignity of God's message.

So it is with tools such as Facebook and Twitter—there is understandable resistance to using them in a ministry sense because we fear that which we do not understand.

The first thing we need to know about social media tools is that we must understand their limits—what they can and can't do. They are designed for attention spans that are very short. And while John 3:16 in the classic King James Version would fit in one "tweet" at 117 characters, fans of the Amplified Bible would find themselves increasingly frustrated. The Shakespearian idea that "brevity is the soul of wit" is more important these days than ever before.

So, if you can't preach three points and a poem via Twitter, what can be done to express and enhance ministry?

"Think of social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter not as extensions of your pulpit," suggests Bettinger, "but rather as a living room sofa. A place for conversation." This is crucial. If the goal of ministry is to build a community of Christ-followers committed to the cause of the gospel and His kingdom, then it follows that somewhere early on there must be a connection that leads to a conversation. Twitter, Facebook and other such tools are tailor made for that vital ice-breaking work.

Earlier this year, during Passion Week, Paul Blue, senior pastor of First Family Fellowship in Greenville, Texas, decided to use Facebook to prepare the hearts of his congregants and their friends for the upcoming weekend services. Each day that week he posted a brief thought about what was going on in Christ's life back then and gave a Scripture reference for his 400 Facebook friends to read.