Lately there has been an almost ridiculous amount of talk about using Twitter in worship services. In general, there seem to be two camps on this - those who want to use Twitter as much as possible, and those who don't want to see it used at all. That's pretty extreme. Personally, I find myself somewhere in the middle on this one, and so, as much as the internet doesn't need another guy talking about twittering in worship, I'm going to go ahead and throw my $.02 in anyways.
First of all, I love Twitter. Most of you know that. I think it's a great service, unique in what it offers, and it has allowed me to make connections with a lot of folks which otherwise would have been impossible. Can't complain about that.
(sidebar - you can follow me @ericfrisch)
Having said that, I think we need to be a little careful about Twitter in worship. A lot of us church-leader folk are easily excitable. A new technology comes out, and we immediately want to be using it first, best, and extensively. A great example of this was TokBox. A few months ago, TokBox sprang onto the ministry radar (though it had actually been around a while at that point). Instantly, everybody was using TokBox. Blog discussions, church conference calls, you name it. But guess what? I haven't heard anybody mention TokBox in at least a month. It was a passing fad. Personally, I think it reflects poorly on our ministries when we are so willing to "jump on the bandwagon" without first being certain that a technology has real, lasting benefits to our mission.
...Which brings me to Twitter. Now I'm not comparing Twitter to TokBox or any of the other million sites that have caught passing interest. Twitter has been around longer (at least in internet terms), has a LOT more users, and really seems to have grabbed a hold of something in pop culture. It seems personally reasonable to me that churches look at ways to use Twitter in ministry (just as a lot of us got into Facebook not long ago - many with excellent results!). The trick is, we have to think about how we integrate it. It is not enough to simply say "we should use Twitter in worship!" - we need to think about how & why we want to use it.
I'm not a big fan of simply encouraging folks to tweet to their personal accounts during worship. Worship is supposed to be a communal thing, and it requires our full attention and mental committment. God deserves that. Many folks have correctly pointed out that Twitter can be intensely 1-sided and narcissistic (though that was certainly not it's original intention!). In my mind, that kind of use detracts from worship at least for that individual, if not the full community. That said, I've also heard a couple of awesome ideas that use Twitter to enhance community. One (which I love, by the way) involves using Twitter to gather feedback from the congregation. The pastor/worship leader/whoever can ask a question, folks can tweet their answers, and the community's response can be seen on the screen in real time. Very cool. Very interactive. That's a community building exercise. That's breaking down the very real (and very unacceptable) wall between those "on the stage" and those "in the seats". I love it.
I read an article today that talked about a church that is using Twitter to reach their shut-ins in real time. By leveraging technology, they are finding ways to include folks who can't be physically present in worship just the same. How cool is that? It seems to me that there would be something refreshing about seeing what's happening in real time (and even being able to respond, if you're a Twitter user yourself!), rather than getting a CD or tape of the message a couple of days later.
To wrap up - Twitter is great. The potential for Twitter in ministry is great. The potential for Twitter in worship is great. But if we're going to use it, let's make sure that we do it deliberately and with a purpose. Technology that truly advances the mission of the church is a wonderful tool, but technology that is used solely for technology's sake is nothing more than another distraction in a world that already provides too many.
