Tweeting Church Services?

May 3, 2009 @ 13:24 By 12 Comments

A new piece in Time about tweeting sermons and services. What do you think? Anyone’s church discussing this?

There’s a time and a 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 around the country are following Voelz’ lead and encouraging
people to integrate text-messaging into their relationship with God.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized 12 Comments
About Scot McKnight

Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than thirty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.

  • http://twitter.com/tamaradull Tamara Dull

    Funny you should ask. This morning, as I was sitting in church, I thought (for the first time, mind you) that I could be tweeting along. But I decided not to for no good reason.
    Then I came home to see that our pastor – who was sitting a few rows in front of me – took a Twitpic of the band playing 7 minutes after the service started and tweeted it. I missed him taking the picture, but I did RT him.
    I think it’s a fine idea to tweet during church, conferences, etc. For me, I think I would be more attentive in my listening and it would cause me to consider ways to share kewl or thought-provoking ideas with others – in 140 characters or less.
    Next week, I’m tweeting! :)
    Scot, also thanks for the Twitter shout-out in your last Weekly Meanderings post. I really appreciate it!!

  • Nathan Cheuvront

    I dont know if I have a good read on this since every Sunday I am working to broadcast what is happening within the sanctuary to local tv, radio stations and the internet but it sounds as if the Spirit is moving people in ways that modern technology is allowing them to be moved. If they feel something can be shared to the world that has been laid on their heart using “Twitter” more power to them. (Personally if I am being moved that much I really am not thinking about my cell phone). In fact i would love to be watching a “Tweet Screen” of people’s responses to worship. Though I hope these people are also brave enough to share their experiences verbally and not just by electronic text.

  • Scot McKnight

    Is tweeting the new form of saying “Amen!”?

  • http://mikesstudies.blogspot.com Chaplain Mike

    Sorry, can’t sign on.
    1. It buys in to our cultural lie that my immediate experience (and talking about it) is the most important thing.
    2. It further removes us from listening to God, meditating. being quiet, focusing.
    3. Since I practice and strongly affirm liturgical worship, it would remove me from experiencing the transhistorical and transcendent communion of the saints through hearing and speaking Scripture, creeds, and prayers, and magnify my own subjective “reality” in the moment.
    4. Worship is for God, not for us (though we certainly do meet him there and experience his gracious benefits). Worship is meant to be a dialogical meeting with God in which he speaks and we respond to him. To my knowledge, he has not signed up on Twitter, and therefore, we tweet to the wrong party!
    In my view, this is the Protestant experiment completely gone to seed.

  • http://www.samandress.blogspot.com Sam

    This is just silly. But I am not surprised that evangelical churches are considering doing this. There are a significant number of churches that are so married to the culture they seem unable to ask critical questions about how the message changes through various forms of technology. I mean, it does not really bother me, because a church that would consider this is most likely a church I would not worship and fellowship at anyway.

  • http://sivinkit.net/ Sivin Kit

    I think by Re-tweeting your blog post I’m saying Amen to your question “Is tweeting the new form of saying “Amen!”?” :-)
    but then again, I’m still wrestling with the implications on how technology is changing and challenging religion and faith in the 21st century!

  • http://www.lci.typepad.com Brian Rice

    I am a bit torn on this. Our church make use of a lot of technology to create a worship experience. We use visual worshipper which is a pretty high end graphic interface to create an aesthetic experience of beauty. But I recently read Shane Hipps,Flickering Pixels, who makes a case, via Marshall McLuhan, that the mediums of technology we use, change both the message that goes through that medium and the one using the medium.
    Shane makes this comment:
    This is the paradox of the electronic age. It retrieves and combines the characteristics of two previous media eras. Ir oral culture is tribal and literate culture is individual, the electronic age is essentially a tribe of individuals.(pp 107)
    I wonder if some of our technology is speeding that process along and so in church, we are a tribe of individuals connected by technology. Shane has some pretty interesting ideas about Facebook, blogging and virtual community as well.
    I have friends who no longer use a Bible “book.” They use the Bible stored in their iPhone. I recently saw a new program where a Jewish synagogue had a fire and the scrolls used had to be taken out to be restored. As I saw the scrolls (the first time I ever saw this), I was amazed at their size and the system for unscrolling them. It evoked powerful sensory responses from me. As I do lectio divina, I have been taught to use the sense of touch to feel the pages of the Bible, see the words, read them aloud to hear them. As I watch friends using the Bible on iPhone and on their computer (which I do also) it seems that the medium is creating a “technique” that is cold, and technical.
    with that said, I guess I am still not sure what to think. But I am pretty sure that our mediums are going to change the message and the receiver of that message.
    -bkr-

  • http://www.mrshields.com Adam S

    Certainly worship is for God, but worship without community is very different than worship with community. Certainly you do not need twitter to build community. But in some cultures (and let’s be clear that churches within the US have very different cultural component, not just churches outside the US) electronic communication is becoming a significant part of all communication.
    Now I don’t think that twitter should become a required part of worship, but I do think that like leaning over to whisper something to my wife in worship, a quick and occasional twitter does not deter worship. Yes we should have times of quiet and reflection in worship, but that is not the only kind of worship.
    I twittered twice during the service yesterday. Both times about the service to try to encourage those among my friends to come to one of the later services. Yes I could have waited until later, but I did it when the thing came up, so I would not forget. I tend not to twitter during the sermon because I am listening. I tend not to twitter during singing because I am participating in the singing. But during transitions, offering, etc. I will twitter.

  • http://bobbyorr.wordpress.com MatthewS

    My reaction is negative. Twitter, Blackberries, texting are tools that provide immediate control of communication and multi-tasking. It’s a pain talking to someone who starts texting in mid-sentence of your conversation. The device is gets primary attention. The frenetic immediacy of texting has its place in our society. But to worship, to pull aside from the daily grind and focus on God for a while seems too fragile an endeavor to be shouted down by the noise and mental activity of tweets.
    Obviously I can’t speak for anyone else, just myself. But I have too many nervous habits. It is hard to sit still, even to watch a movie. It requires discipline for me to sit down and listen for a whole sermon. My fingers would love to have a device to play with and my mind would love to have technology to think about. Putting it all aside and just sitting and listening, perhaps taking notes with a pencil (or fountain pen!) and paper – not easy. I’ve little doubt that there are those who would benefit more from the experience by being able to tweet it but I have little hope that a congregation with its heads down while clacking on buttons and making it sound like a giant roach infestation is creating a fertile spiritual place.

  • Pat

    The main problem that I see with tweeting IN church, is that we become just like the culture — attention divided in several different directions with little focus on one single task. Many people now do not do one thing or even a couple of things well; they simply just do a lot of things. I had a friendship that deteriorated primarily because the person had so much going on that quality conversation and interaction was hard to come by. I felt like she was never really present when we were together. I see church somewhat as an oasis; a place to escape the rat race if only for a couple of hours. But if we simply duplicate the rat race, how is the church different? Our church uses twitter, but it’s to follow the pastor’s messages during the week. Sometimes he gives a little taste of the upcoming sermon, sometimes he uses it to advertise upcoming events and sometimes he posts thought-provoking quotes. I think the technology can be useful, but we need to be wise about how we use it.

  • Steve A

    I think one important issue to wrestle with is the connection between tweeting and contemplation/worship. I’m afraid that the level of self-involvement that many tweets reflect (and that the practice of tweeting necessarily entails–that what I’m doing/thinking is of particular interest to others at any given moment) is in tension with directing our attention towards God and submiting our will to him.
    Engaging with the sermon is valuable and important, but the risk of instead engaging with our egos (regardless of the technology used to communicate the engagement) is significant.
    Steve

  • Matt Larsen

    [I write in regards specifically to church leaders actually encouraging parishioners to tweet during worship services.]
    Tweeting during worship services is a marketing technique. One may disagree, but answer this: Does anyone really believe disciple are being made by worship service tweets? Are real lives experiencing Gospel transformation due to parishioners tweeting about the quality of the worship service’s music, lighting, etc.? Or, are our church leaders motivated by others motives?
    Our community is what should make us attractive to people (John 17.20-24), not our trendy technology. To me, this is just another example of the American evangelical church drinking the consumerism Kool-Aid and operating like a business, as opposed to citizens of heaven colonizing earth.
    Does it surprise me? No. Does it sadden me? Yes.