Friday, 03 July 2009

• Can Twittering Be a Form of Worship?

  "Nothing u do 4 the Lord is in vain."

  "The more I press in to Him, the more He presses me out to be useful."

  "Sometimes healing is painful."
  

  These short but inspirational blurbs are "tweets" written by Christians who wish to communicate their faith via modern technology -- during their respective worship services.  Yes, it's true -- twittering during Sunday church services is accepted, encouraged, and even considered a form of worship by many pastors, according to an article in Time Magazine.  

  Last year, John Voeltz, a pastor at Westwinds Community Church in Jackson, Mich., was tweeting at a conference outside Nashville about ways to make the church experience more creative, and as he says, to "make it it not suck."  All of a sudden, the thought came to him -- Twitter!
  
  He and his fellow pastor, David McDonald, spent two weeks giving their congregation Twitter lessons.  Parishioners brought in their laptops, iPhones, and BlackBerrys, and the bandwidth in the auditorium was increased. 
  
  According to these pastors at Westwinds, Twitter serves one integral function of worship -- creating community.  Twitter allows the congregants to ask questions about the sermon that the pastor will answer later, or they can tweet in real time and hope that another attendee can provide insight. Twitter can also be used as a note-taking tool in church.  In other situations, the tweeting is pastor-directed: One pastor will preach while the other will tap out a question such as "In what way do you feel the spirit of God moving within you?"
  
  There's a time and a place for technology, and many pastors still don't believe that church is that place.  However, other churches are following in Westwinds' footsteps and integrating Twitter into their Sunday services. 
  
  At Next Level Church outside Charlotte, N.C., Pastor Todd Hahn encourages Twitter worship.
  
  Hahn told his parishioners, "If God leads you to continue this as a form of worship by all means do it."
  
  These pastors contend that as long as the Twitter chatter doesn't overshadow the need for quiet reflection that spirituality requires, it is, by all means, appropriate for worship.
  
  Do you think twittering can be a form of worship, or do you think that church is not the time or the place for worldly technology?
  

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