4 Reasons to Worry About Something Other Than Whether to Stop Twittering in Church

So, not sure how the discussion began fully. All I know is that I started seeing the Tweets fly in and the Retweets follow.

Curtis Honeycutt wrote an op-ed piece on his blog rebuffing an article on Time magazine’s website. The original article was entitled “Twittering in Church, with the Pastor’s O.K.” and talked about pastors who are encouraging people to use Twitter during their worship services. Curtis’ post, “4 Reasons to Stop Twittering in Church,” gave his reasons against the practice.

Now, normally I would simply sit on the sidelines - after all, how important is this type of discussion in the grand scheme of things, really? But, I’m feeling a little spunky today, so here goes.

I now present: “4 Reasons to Worry About Something Other Than Whether to Stop Twittering in Church”

1) The church is not a place, it is a people
The Church is not about a physical time and place, but, rather, a group of people. Sometimes those people happen to be in the same place at the same time - in fact the entire idea of community revolves around the connectedness of our lives. But that connectedness is changing (and, in a lot of ways, has already changed). People are connecting in different ways, on different levels, using all types of means. Sunday mornings worship services, on the other hand, tend to be much more individualistic in nature (unless you want to count a “responsive reading” here and there).

2) Worshipping is more than ‘being quiet and paying attention’
“When you’re at church, be the church” points to the misconception that being in a particular place at a particular day/time equates to worship and that anything outside of that “hour” doesn’t. Maybe I’m carrying Curtis’ argument a little too far, but I do think we place too much emphasis on going through the motions every week, even if they are heartfelt. Listening involves more than being silent. I can’t count the number of times that I have felt God impress things upon me when others would probably rather I be ‘listening’ to somebody else - including Sunday mornings during a worship service. Getting that impression out to others, without hesitating, is sometimes more holy than not - even if it is via Twitter.

3) Community has to be about more
Shaking hands, or “scooting up and down pews” is far from holy. People connected at the heart level - knowing more than the name of the person next to them on a pew (if we even know that anymore) - is holy. We need to care enough to do the most-of-the-time uncomfortable thing of getting to know others and invest in their lives in the ways that opportunity allows. Technology can help that. Technology can hurt that. But in the end it has to be about more than contentment to know faces/names because we all happen to know the same songs and can sing them together.

4) Let’s leave the petty, unimportant discussions unspoken, or, at the least, unemphasized
We have enough ‘hard’ things - critical things - that we should be talking about and getting to the heart of. I’m tired of Christians spending their time investing words and energy in peripheral things that don’t matter in the end. So, nothing against Curtis - I just think there are more things that should be discussed than whether we Twitter in church or not. Let’s focus on those things.

 

Posted 05.21.2009

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