Scot McKnight and the Theology of Twitter
Scot McKnight wrote a 
long piece titled “Twitter Theology” the other day and I thought I’d establish a conversation here on CC about it as well.
Scot focuses much of his post covering the practice of Twitter and the more common uses of it by people of faith and pastors. He ends the post by asking the question that many of us have been asking ourselves: What exactly is the reason you Tweet and what does it reveal about you?
Our motivations must be constantly checked if not a least observed and talked about, I agree, but one of the things that came to mind was this thought: Although everything we do, to a certain degree, can be seen and observed as “spiritual,” does everything have to be explicitly spiritual?
I honestly don’t think so. I don’t think that I’m called to be tweeting prayers every other 10 tweets or anything like that.
Now, I know that everyone’s philosophy is different, just as their reasons for using social networking, so what are your thoughts?
What’s your Theology of Twitter?
- Share
-
0 saves -
Leave a Reply
16 Responses to “Scot McKnight and the Theology of Twitter”
Tweets that mention Scot McKnight and the Theology of Twitter - ChurchCrunch -- Topsy.com
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by John Saddington and John Saddington, kidshine. kidshine said: Extremely interesting post. RT @human3rror: Scot McKnight and the Theology of Twitter – http://bit.ly/4kppr6 <~ (cont) http://tl.gd/t3u1 [...]
- 4,348 feedburner + twitter followers
- Defining ‘Church Media’ and 3 Questions I Ask (Or Get Asked)
- First Ministry, Church iPad App? iPad GUI Photoshop File!
- The Design Process and ‘Clarifying the Win’
- Technorati…
- Billings 3: Professional Time Billing Giveaway! 3 Copies!
- How the AV Director, Ken Wilson, of NewSpring Church Leads His Team of Creatives
- Write for Us – This is Your Community!
- Hello world!
- iPhone Giveaway!
- YouVersion Brings a Missiological Approach to Mobile Technology
- Audio Footnote for the iPhone – Free Codes!
- Technorati…
- Blackberry Rocks the Wordpress App, But is Mobile Blogging Really that Good?
- YouVersion Looking for Community Champions (and So Are We)
- Write for Us – This is Your Community!
- Hello world!
The 8BIT Network Launches 3 New Blogs: ChurchCreate.com, ChurchIT.com, and ChurchDrop.com 
One of the main reasons I tweet, blog and facebook is to give the congregation I lead a look into what is going on in my mind all week. Stuff I am reading and processing through. Stuff that is ticking me off. Stuff that is getting me excited. And just stuff. It is me. I use these tools to constantly show myself. That's why I do it.
I do it to show them everything, the good, the bad and the ugly. (to use a worn cliche!)
that's great. some people do not.
very cool.
With respect to "spiritual" tweeting, I think there is a Biblical distinction between our actions and motivations. Tweeting is an action that flows out of what our heart desires. The Bible also teaches that it is what is in our hearts that is important. So, in and of itself, there is no right or wrong approach to "spiritual" Tweets. I believe they're only valuable when they flow from a heart that is rightly and righteously worshiping God (and God alone). Since they are a form of interaction with others, we should also examine our motivation and strive to ensure that loving and serving our audience is primary.
I think we need to be honest and admit that while we share a lot about ourselves on twitter, no one shares everything. We may even go so far as to talk about the fight we had with our wife, but rarely about how badly behaved we were during the fight. And I am not sure we should show everything. We can be honest about ourselves, but honesty does not require a 100% reveal.
I think it's a powerful way that believers can be salt and light in the world, but like John said, that doesn't mean every single post has to be marinated in Christianese. Check out my posts on it here:
http://www.billwhitt.com/blog/?p=1500
http://www.billwhitt.com/blog/?p=1725
http://www.billwhitt.com/blog/?p=1779
well according to Mr. Bell, everything is spiritual…I digress though
I actually wrote a post yesterday about twitter strategy ( I had no clue that Scott was writing that post which is really weird because we kind of talked about the same thing on the same day)
Here is the post if interested: http://thoughtsaboutnothing.com/twitter-strategy/
But you are right, I get frustrated reading the holy tweets over and over and people expecting you to be holy tweeter.
I do not think we can define a twitter strategy. If we truly believe that twitter is an extension of who we are (I know sounds cheesy) then there is no strategy, we are just being ourselves. Sure there are times when i give links out to my blog because I want people to go and read my post. But most of the time my twitter strategy is to be me, to link to stuff that i am reading, to ask questions that I am asking, to talk to people when I have a question, and to one day be followed by human3rror.
Agreed
My dad is a pastor. He doesn't tweet, but if he did he would probably sprinkle some Jesus tweets because being a Christian is a part of who he is. But, I also know he would probably tweet about some new gadget he wants to get because he loves new toys and that is a part of who he is.
The danger is in the motivation, as has been previously mentioned. When you read in the Bible about those who are praying on the street corner for all to hear, the focus is their intention not their words.
I will say that some times…innocent tweets can be misread or taken the wrong way. 140 characters is not very much space to provide complete context. The other day I went to the Atlanta Falcons football game. During the game they played music to keep the crowd pumped up.
One of the breaks they played a slow Kenny G saxophone song and I tweeted that it sounded like the Falcons were playing some porn music. I did get one question about the tweet. I didn't mean to imply that I am a porn watcher, in fact I have never seen a porn. However, enough jokes in movies and in daily life about the type of cheesy music in a porn have been told that it was an easy comparison to those jokes.
With only 140 characters…I am sure some people thought I was going off the deep end and started to pray that i would be released from a porn addiction.
Lesson learned. So, care should be taken, but not so much care that you lose the essence of who you are. The point of social media is to enjoy the conversation. Sometimes when you talk to others you mis-speak, have a bad day, tell a joke that flops, don't take it so seriously that you lose yourself and become a PR drone.
Our goal in life is to glorify God, which is to reveal his character. We are each uniquely designed, and travel a personal path of faith, to accomplish this goal. That means that my process is more important to God's glory than the product (whatever I deem worthy of publishing, doing or promoting of myself). I don't have a problem with people being human in their tweets, as long as we can function in real community, and confess our sins as broadly as we tweet them.
I don't think the absence of prayer or scripture means that tweets aren't spiritual but at the same time I would say that it is okay to tweet just for fun – even for Pastors. Sometimes having fun is the best way to be salt and light.
good point
i think it's a good idea to have a descriptive theology with insights…however…i wouldn't go so far as to develop a prescriptive theology…where we say "as Christians this is how we should be tweeting" …
i use twitter for networking, humor, sharing intel, blogging, and i manage a bunch of twitter accounts for clients. my twitter acount is personal , but includes ministry, business, and other stuff. i do business and ministry with friends and a lot of them are on social networks. i have a lot of non-christian contacts,clients, and friends as well on social networks.
Rex's prayer for the busy geek comes to mind:
http://www.rexblog.com/2009/11/07/20124