I was leading and speaking at a conference for church planters this past week.
One night – at about 3:30AM, I woke up, and flipped and flopped for the rest of the night, not getting a wink of sleep before the busiest day of the week. I was thinking about what I will now refer to as the ridiculousness of Twitter . . .
My job – one that I was actually teaching others to do – is to lead God’s people in worship, and to lead a ministry full of people into a relationship with their Father and each other that partners with the congregation in worship every Sunday. It’s an awesome privilege to get to do so – and I do it at one of the best churches in the country.
At the opening of this conference – the main speaker mentioned some ground rules for the conference. One of the rules: no boasting. I thought “Hmm – that’s an interesting rule – especially at a church planters conference. I imagine that without that ‘rule’ in mind, the conversations between two planters could quickly become “my church grew from 2 to 2000 in 2 weeks, how’s YOURS doing.”
Good rule. But then I started thinking about the time that I was expending on social networking – like Twitter. Following, being followed – talking about what I’m doing . . . that’s just nuts. My job is to lead others in the mystery of the Gospel of Grace in WORSHIP – where our role is to DECREASE so He can INCREASE – and Twitter compels us to do the exact opposite.
There’s even a common practice now of “re-tweeting” something that someone “tweeted” about YOU, so everyone that follows YOU can see that the other “tweeter – tweeted!” Isn’t that the same as running into a crowded room and saying “HEY EVERYBODY! LOOK AT WHAT THIS GUY SAID ABOUT ME! IT’S AWESOME!”
I spent a week talking to church planters about the right and wrong direction when looking for a worship leader/pastor – the whole basis and theme of my talk was people first, music 2nd. My job – to bring people into an encounter with the God of Grace. No where does it call me to talk about how great I AM! I must decrease. He must increase . . .
Twitter – I’m done with you.
wow, Thank you Jason. I've had to “hide” certain people on facebook who link to twitter (even a worship leader) because of the number of RT's and self-centered updates.
Wow – I've been having a really hard timetrying to figure out how Twitter fit into my life, and you've given me some great things to think about!
Great word bro. I find that I often sit and think for long periods of time on how to say something that will make people notice me. Ouch. But my favorite is the twitter bird with an arrow. 🙂
What if we were to grab lunch one day around 119/65 area? Have some q's would love to talk about.
Thanks,
Steven